Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes:

(a) that on 1 January 2026:

(i) the pharmaceutical benefits scheme co-payment for general patients was reduced to $25, the lowest price since 2004;

(ii) 1800 Medicare was launched, giving Australians access to free 24 hours a day, seven days a week quality health advice over the phone; and

(iii) Medicare Mental Health Check-In commenced, providing a new free digital mental health service offering self-help tools; and

(b) the Government's record investment in bulk billing which has resulted in:

(i) more than 3,300 fully bulk billing general practitioner practices across Australia, with almost 1,250 of these practices previously mixed billing; and

(ii) rising bulk billing rates and a stronger Medicare; and

(2) acknowledges that only this Government can be trusted to strengthen Medicare.

Some people are aware that the second half of 2025 was a very challenging year for my family, with both my husband and then my mother surviving potentially life-threatening health incidents. They each survived and in fact are thriving thanks to world-class doctors, surgeons, nurses, physios and rehab specialists, both in hospital and in primary care, who saved their lives and helped them return to good health. It was yet another firsthand reminder for me of how important your health is, not just to the individual, and how health and ill health have repercussions for the whole family and overshadow other parts of your life.

For me, it further reinforced how vital our improvements to Medicare are in people getting the health care they need when they need it. But, when we came to government in 2022, it had never been harder or more expensive to find a GP. Bulk-billing was in freefall after a decade of cuts and neglect to Medicare, which is why we delivered more doctors, more bulk-billing and cheaper medicines and opened 87 Medicare urgent care clinics, including in Penrith, in our first term of government. We committed to opening another 50 urgent care clinics in the 2025 election, including in the Hawkesbury. And I am so proud that last week the Medicare urgent care clinic that my community advocated for began operating in Windsor and is busy seeing patients, bulk-billing them for urgent care and helping to take pressure off the local hospital.

Macquarie residents are also benefiting from the additional $8.5 billion to deliver more bulk-billed GP visits, hundreds of nursing scholarships and thousands more doctors. In November 2025, the government created an additional new incentive payment for general practices that bulk-bill every single patient. In Macquarie, there are now 22 bulk-billing practices from the top of the mountains down to the plains and across to the Hawkesbury, including in places like Glossodia. That doesn't mean that we think the job is done. By 2030, we expect to see nine out of 10 GP visits bulk-billed, and we have work to do to address the areas that are not providing the accessibility or affordability that we think people deserve, including around Katoomba.

Every day, Macquarie residents are saving money when they fill a script covered by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. From 1 January this year we cut the cost to $25 for a PBS script. This is more than a 20 per cent cut in the maximum cost of PBS medicines and will save Australians over $200 million each year. A script hasn't been this cheap since 2004. Concession patients pay no more than $7.70 for the rest of this decade, and 60-day prescriptions for around 300 common medicines mean millions of Australians with a stable, ongoing health condition are saving time and money. Since September 2023, Australians have saved more than $350 million on 60-day prescriptions alone. Across Macquarie, cheaper medicines mean patients have saved $11.6 million on more than 1.4 million scripts. Labor went to the 2025 election promising Australians we'd make medicines cheaper, and we're delivering on that promise.

On the one-year anniversary of the landmark $792.9 million women's health package, the government's continuing to deliver on the promise of more choice, lower costs and better care for Australian women and girls. More than 600,000 women have accessed more than two million cheaper scripts for contraceptives, menopausal hormone therapies and endometriosis treatments—all newly listed on the PBS. We've had the first PBS listing for a new contraceptive in more than 30 years and the first for new menopausal hormone therapies in over 20 years. These are all making a difference. Over 6,700 women with endometriosis have accessed treatment at PBS prices, saving $4.9 million. These are big steps forward for women's health, and there's more to come. The new endometriosis, pelvic pain and menopause clinic is opening this month at Winmalee Medical Centre. There are many women who benefit from their care.

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