Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Industrial Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to respond via this parliament to the Minister for Human Services, Senator Christopher Ellison’s response to my letter requesting that a Medicare office be located in the electorate of Gorton. The electorate of Gorton is one of the fastest growing, if not the fastest growing, electorates in Victoria. In fact when the redistribution was underway in Victoria five or six years ago the boundaries of the new seat of Gorton were constructed around what was then the lowest population of voters in any of the 39 divisions that make up the state of Victoria. Since then the population of voters in Gorton has gone from 39th to 2nd in the state. Only McEwen has more voters in the divisions that make up the federal electoral divisions in Victoria.

That is a very strong indication of how fast the population in my electorate has grown. It has done so because I have two very major transport spines, the Calder Freeway and the Ballarat Highway, where there are communities growing at an exponential rate. Cairnlea is a new suburb that abuts Deer Park; Caroline Springs had fewer than 2,000 people only six years ago and now has closer to 15,000. The Hillside and Taylors Lakes suburbs have grown out of sight. They were new estates. As a result, there is a need for increased government services, whether it is public transport that the state government must attend to or, in this particular matter, a Medicare office that is required for the constituents in my electorate.

In fact, I sent out a letter to the majority of the constituents of Gorton to ask them if they were concerned about the absence of a Medicare office and, in the space of three weeks, I received almost 4,000 responses—almost 4,000 signatures that now comprise a petition that I tabled in this place on Monday. I think it was 3,850 petitioners, petitioning the Commonwealth of Australia to provide a Medicare office for my electorate.

I initially wrote to the Minister for Health and Ageing, and that letter was forwarded to the Minister for Human Services. The Minister for Human Services, Senator Chris Ellison, has in fact written back to me and suggested that my constituents should be satisfied with a new initiative that the government has introduced called Medicare Easyclaim, ‘which allows patients to lodge their Medicare claims and receive their rebates through an EFTPOS machine in participating doctors’ surgeries’. I think the operative words there may be ‘in participating doctors’ surgeries’, something I should explore. I am happy to say that that sounds like quite a good initiative, but it is not going to provide a sufficient level of service to people who want to attend an office and receive a rebate after expending enormous amounts of money on health care for their family. Many of my constituents need immediate financial relief; they are not in a position to outlay a lot of money and not get immediate reimbursement. Why should the electorate of Gorton, an area that has a relatively low socioeconomic set of constituents, be disadvantaged compared to far wealthier suburbs and electorates in Melbourne and indeed across the country? Why is it that they will not get a Medicare office? It could be located at Watergardens, which is the fastest growing commercial hub of the electorate. That was my proposal.

I hope that the minister can reconsider his position. I hope this government can reconsider its position and attend to the needs of constituents in the electorate of Gorton. I will not give up—I make this pledge now—until we have an office in that electorate. We deserve it. It is something that is found in every other electorate, and it should occur very soon. (Time expired)