Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to talk about the impact of Labor's health investments, particularly in my electorate of Franklin and home state of Tasmania. Certainly we can see already the impact these investments are having, particularly our urgent care clinics. We've now had more than 140,000 visits to the urgent care clinics, and I'm pleased to say that the urgent care clinic in Kingston in my electorate will soon be opening, in coming weeks. I know that many people in the south of my electorate are really looking forward to that urgent care clinic. The two urgent care clinics in Hobart are also going incredibly well in terms of the number of people they've been able to see.

I think what's important about these urgent care clinics is that the data and the responses from those patients they're seeing says that around half of those people would have gone to the emergency department at the Royal Hobart Hospital, and we know that the Royal Hobart Hospital is under increasing pressure. Our government has provided the Tasmanian state government with $750 million just this financial year for public hospitals in Tasmania, and I'm pleased to say that as part of the new Health and Hospitals Funding Agreement we are now getting an extra $700 million into hospitals in Tasmania, thanks to the Albanese Labor government.

We also of course have been investing in more mental health services; headspace opened just before Christmas in my electorate. This is a headspace that I committed to, and I'm really pleased that it's up and operating. It is an interim location, but these are really important mental health services for my community. The Medicare mental health service should soon be up and running as well. That is an adult headspace, essentially, for others in our community, and we expect that also to be getting underway. This is really good news for people in my electorate.

And of course a large investment in bulk-billing is having a big impact in Tasmania. Tasmania was behind the other states and territories when it came to bulk-billing. Our bulk-billing rate was much lower, thanks to the former government and their cuts to Medicare. I'm pleased to say that the number of fully bulk-billing clinics in Tasmania has gone from just 25 statewide up to 59. That is a very significant increase—more than 5.4 per cent—in bulk-billing appointments for GPs in Tasmania. Obviously we want to see more of these. To the practices and the doctors in Tasmania, my message would be: How come you can bulk-bill in the middle of Sydney and you can't do it in Hobart? You should be able to do it in Hobart, and I want to see more bulk-billing practices in Franklin and across the state of Tasmania. That would be my big message.

To the people of Franklin: we are investing in your health services. We know that we inherited a bit of a mess from those opposite, and we've been investing and investing, opening services and, importantly, training and providing staff with our significant investments in making sure that we have enough health professionals to provide the services Tasmanians need.

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