Ben Small (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I do sympathise with the member for Macquarie and her struggles in accessing quality health care for her family. Unfortunately, my experience since being elected is that I've got to oil the hinges on my office door every week for the number of people that are coming to me, basically in desperation and in pain, because the Prime Minister of Australia went to them at the last election, waving his Medicare card around and saying, 'Vote for me, and I will ensure you can see a doctor for free.' At no point did he reach into his other pocket and pull out his credit card. The sad reality, for the people in my part of Australia, is that accessing a GP for free is far too difficult and far too rare. In fact, if you live in the city, it might be possible to access better Medicare, but, if you live in places like Forrest, you pay more and you wait longer. This is borne out by the statistics, not by the hyperbole that we hear from the government benches.

We hear from them that Medicare is getting stronger, but, like I say, in the south-west of Western Australia, families are getting nothing but lies. This is because, in 2024-25, only 48 per cent of country residents in WA were consistently bulk-billed. At the same time, some 81 per cent of residents in south-western Sydney were bulk-billed. That is the tyranny of distance that regional Australians face. That is why people in the seat of Forrest are paying more and waiting longer to see a doctor under this government's failure to administer Medicare equitably.

Statewide, WA saw only a one per cent improvement, despite major incentive spending. The government suggests that 1,000 previously mixed bulk-billing clinics are now fully bulk-billed, and yet there is absolutely no data to suggest that the dial has moved by one clinic in the seat of Forrest. This $8½ billion package, funded by you as taxpayers, has delivered absolutely nothing for the residents of south-western Australia seeking to attend a doctor.

As always, it pays to look at what Labor do not what Labor say when it comes to health funding. One of the very first acts of the Albanese government in 2022 was to slash the funding for mental health appointments in half, reducing the number of bulk-billed appointments from 20 to 10 per year. Consequent to that decision, Australians accessed 250,000 fewer subsidised psychology sessions in 2022-23 compared to the year before. I don't know about any of you listening to this, but I don't walk down the streets of my community and hear stories of mental health struggles being halved in the last couple of years. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Across all ages and all demographics of our community, mental health is the No. 1 issue that people talk about when it comes to accessing health. Like I say, don't look at what they say; look at what they do. That was one of the very first acts of this government—to slash the mental health allowance in half. Forrest and other regional areas are particularly impacted by these changes because we face perennial workforce shortages, long waitlists and limited clinical availability. Removing these services and access to important elements like mental health puts regional Australians at a disadvantage compared to our metropolitan cousins.

With bulk-billing now significantly lower in regional Western Australia compared to metropolitan areas, with less access to mental health supports than under the previous government, and with the simple lie of the Prime Minister wandering around with only his Medicare card and failing to mention you need a credit card—a promise he made some 71 times in the lead-up to the last election—it is no wonder my constituents are coming to me saying: 'Why is it so? Why is it that, because I live in a country area, my family has to pay more and wait longer for something so simple as going to the doctor?'

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