Alison Penfold (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I quote from page 50 of the Women's Budget Statement:

The Government's investment in the ongoing operation of UCCs—

urgent care clinics—

is likely to have a greater positive impact for women, increasing free access to a service they are more likely to use.

Well, that does not apply in the electorate of Lyne. For the past 12 months, I have stood in this place and I have made the case for an urgent care clinic in the Lyne electorate. When I opened the budget papers, I was disappointed to see that, yet again, somehow—I think the government has lost the map of regional Australia. They've certainly lost the map of the Mid North Coast of New South Wales.

On urgent care clinics, in a media release—a joint statement with the Prime Minister—Minister Butler said:

The network of Medicare Urgent Care Clinics are proving to be a gamechanger for all Australians.

How can it be a game changer for all Australians when the electorate of Lyne does not have a Medicare urgent care clinic? Are we not Australians? Are we in the Lyne electorate considered second-class citizens?

Now, I didn't leave this issue to chance. I have written seven times to the minister. Not once has he written back to me; I've only had a response from his chief of staff. And I've asked to meet with the minister. I think people in this place know just how passionate I am about this issue. Next week is the anniversary of the May floods of last year, the one-in-500-years flood that smashed my electorate. Taree was the epicentre. I was looking for some hope, not for me but for the people of the Lyne electorate, for the people of Taree and the Manning. I put in a pre-budget submission to the government. I didn't leave this to chance. I made the case again, in a pre-budget submission to the government. The case is 'that the Mid-Coast LGA, in the SEIFA index, is well below the Australian average'. We have fewer general medical practitioners per thousand of population—significantly fewer. The Manning Hospital is the region's only public hospital and is seeing a substantial volume of semi-urgent and non-urgent—that's triage 4 and 5—presentations that are appropriate for an urgent care pathway. I looked up the figures this morning. In the October to December period, 46—

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