Ash Ambihaipahar (Barton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

First off, I'd like to thank the member for Fowler for her contribution today. I'm a little bit offended by her referring to our wonderful healthcare system and Medicare as a 'postcode lottery', particularly because part of my old role at St Vincent de Paul Society was to look after your electorate. It was a large area I looked after—from Gosford down to Helensburgh and out to the Blue Mountains. I'm very aware of the challenges in your electorate from the perspective of not only health but also the cost-of-living pressures out there.

I do want to acknowledge your contribution on the workforce shortage. As a solicitor at the NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association, I did a lot of representation for our members out in your area, but mainly up north. I understand some of the challenges in the New South Wales health sector, in particular around ratios, staffing and burnout.

But I also have to highlight a couple of things that we haven't really discussed here today. I want to remind the member for Fowler that the former coalition froze Medicare rebates for six years. You can't underfund primary care for nearly a decade and then have the hide to bring an MPI here today and say we're not doing enough. No-one's saying we are done and have finished the job. There is absolutely more work to do. But I need to make that very clear to the member for Fowler, particularly when her electorate has been able to benefit from an urgent care clinic.

I did have the opportunity to look at the member for Fowler's social media account and her contributions to parliament in the Hansard. I could not find any records of her talking about this. I think it's wonderful that the member for Fowler has an urgent care clinic in Liverpool. I think we spoke about 94 per cent of practices in the electorate of Fowler now bulk-billing every patient, which is one of the highest rates in the country. I think that needs to be highlighted, particularly for my electorate of Barton. I do want to talk about my contributions as a regional director at Vinnies and about how I perceive my role as being not only the member for Barton but someone who takes into consideration everyone's electorate in this country and how they are impacted. I think that is the underpinning principle of the Labor Party. We don't talk about individualism; we talk about collectivism. I think everyone here on this side of the chamber is very proud of that. We will advocate for the electorate of Fowler.

I want to highlight that, in my electorate of Barton, we have 34 Medicare bulk-billing practices across the electorate, and 13 of these practices were previously charging patients an out-of-pocket fee before Labor's record investment into bulk-billing on 1 November last year. Unlike the member for Fowler—she's got 94 per cent—I have 64 per cent of practices in Barton now bulk-billing all their patients all the time. We also have an urgent care clinic in Carlton. It's been there for a while. There have been about 23,000-odd presentations to that particular urgent care clinic, and it has been a success. We have a large medical precinct in Kogarah as well, and we've seen the impact of this urgent care clinic's operations on reducing the workload in the emergency department.

I need to highlight that no-one on this side of the chamber is saying that the work is done. I do want to recognise the contributions from the member for Fowler and understand the challenges in the workforce. We have been able to listen to some of the contributions from this side of the chamber about what the Labor Party has been doing in the past couple of years, particularly in this term of government. I want to highlight, particularly for the member of Fowler, that everyone on this side of the chamber absolutely supports the people in your electorate. As a new MP, I see my role as a community service, and I think it's a responsibility of everyone in this parliament to use their platform to promote and inform our community about those services, whether you agree with them or not. I think that's an important thing to highlight to the member of Fowler today.

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