Mary Doyle (Aston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. How is the Albanese Labor government strengthening Medicare by investing in bulk-billing after a decade of cuts and neglect? Is this investment reaching all corners of the country? What has been the response to these changes?

Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Earlier this year those opposite were telling any journalist who stood still for five seconds that they were going to romp in at the last election in Aston. But they didn't reckon on the fighting spirit of this member. They didn't reckon on the energy that she brought to campaigning for our plan to build Australia and strengthen Medicare. She knows that is right plan for her community in Melbourne's east. She knows that. The Maroondah Medicare Urgent Care Clinic in her electorate has already seen thousands and thousands of members of her community across seven days a week, delivering high-quality urgent care, fully bulk-billed, completely free of charge. In just the first week of our record investment in bulk-billing, the number of GP clinics in the electorate of Aston that are bulk-billing all their patients all of the time has tripled, and that number is just going to keep growing.

This investment, as the question indicates, has obviously been very broadly supported by patient groups. I know that, as a cancer survivor, this member is particularly focused on the response of a group like the Cancer Council, who have said:

This is a significant step forward for cancer care in Australia, saving patients hundreds of dollars, and strengthening the integral involvement of general practice in cancer care support.

GP after GP that I have met have told us how much they appreciate having the investment from us that allows them to bulk-bill more of their patients, even if, I do acknowledge, some doctors continue to argue as they have for 40 years that they would prefer the investment to go to them without strings attached around patient outcomes.

Then there is the coalition. The day before our record investment—which, apparently, they supported in the election campaign—had even started, the shadow minister already said it was unravelling, which is about as funny as I remember John Howard saying that Medicare was one of the Hawke government's greatest failures, not to be outdone in the comedy stakes. The Leader of the Nationals said this week that 'the best friend of Medicare at the moment is the National Party'. This is the guy who, every time we mention health care, like Pavlov's dog, whips out the credit card—he whips out the AMEX every time we say 'Medicare'. I thought this: in a week where those opposite could barely come to a single position on a resolution that says the sun rises in the east and sets in west, the one thing that always unites them is how much they hate bulk-billing.