Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Medicare was built on a simple belief: that access to health care should never depend on your bank balance. It is a system that has been based on our social compact for more than 40 years, ensuring that every Australian, no matter their circumstances, can receive care when they need it, and it's a reflection of who we are as a nation: fair and decent and compassionate. That belief was on full display when the Prime Minister stood with our community in Ellenbrook in Hasluck very recently, on the weekend, at the Ellenbrook Medicare Urgent Care Clinic—already, in fact, one of the busiest in Western Australia, with over 2,000 presentations since opening just in December. The Prime Minister and I met with the doctors, the nurses and the other staff and with families that were seeking care with their Medicare card, not their credit card. We were shown the new facilities by Dr Tun, Dr Sharma, Dr Guest and, of course, their amazing staff. Seriously, Hasluck is in really great hands.

Our urgent care clinics are a modern embodiment of Medicare's founding principles: universal, accessible, high-quality care delivered close to home. As we walked through that clinic together, the Prime Minister spoke about how critical it is in a country as vast as ours that every community, including fast-growing outer suburbs like those in my electorate, can rely on strong primary care. He spoke about the importance of easing pressure on families and ensuring families aren't forced to navigate emergency departments for minor injuries or fevers. We saw firsthand that this model works. The Ellenbrook clinic is taking the load off our St John of God Midland hospital, and it's giving families a safe, local, alternative.

But what struck me most was how the Prime Minister connected this moment back to Medicare's history. He reminded us that Labor built Medicare and that each generation of Labor governments has had to renew it, defend it and strengthen it. Medicare has always required stewardship. It has always needed champions willing to expand access, modernise the care, reinforce the principle of universality and, of course, mend the years of coalition neglect, and that is exactly what this government is doing.

In the early 1980s, Medicare was a bold idea. Today it's a national treasure but a treasure that cannot be taken for granted. As communities like mine grow, as medical needs evolve and as people live longer with more complex conditions, Medicare must keep evolving too. We have delivered more doctors, more bulk-billing and cheaper medicines and opened 87 Medicare urgent care clinics in our first term, and we've committed to another 50—and 122 clinics are now open nationwide.

These clinics are doing exactly what they were designed to do. Since late 2022, 2½ million Australians have walked into an urgent care clinic and received treatment with their Medicare card not their credit card. I count myself amongst them, having received treatment at the fabulous Morley urgent care clinic and most recently having visited, with my own mother, Midland Urgent Care Clinic, where she received fantastic care that would have saved her many, many hours of sitting waiting for the same outcome at a hospital. We're very grateful for that quick and efficient service and treatment by the staff.

We are also driving the largest investment in bulk-billing in Medicare's history—an $8½ billion package that is already delivering results. More than 3,300 practices are now fully bulk-billing, including around 1,250 that were previously charging mixed fees. We are absolutely on track towards our goal that by 2030 nine in 10 GP visits will be bulk-billed, and I really am pleased with the undertakings by the GP clinics in my electorate of Hasluck to work through the processes to enable those clinics also to be bulk-billing so we can see a similar uplift to what we've seen from the previous speakers, where they've got some 32-odd. I look forward to seeing a similar number in mine.

Medicines are cheaper too. Since 1 January, patients are no longer paying any more than $25 for a script. In Hasluck, that saving has translated to around 1.7 million scripts. In Hasluck that has meant a saving of around $13.7 million. That is back into the pockets of constituents in my electorate.

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