Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. What actions is the Albanese Labor government taking to strengthen Medicare? Why is this government so determined to deliver better health care for all Australians after a decade of cuts and neglect?

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Fisher will leave the chamber under 94(a). When people are asking questions, everybody, particularly a former speaker, should absolutely know that sitting that close to me is the absolute red line. Members have got to be able to ask questions in silence for the respect of the parliament.

The member for Fisher then left the chamber.

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

Thank you to the member for Lalor for her question and her support for a stronger Medicare. There are now 29 Medicare bulk-billing practices in her electorate that are bulk-billing all of their patients all of the time, as well as the Werribee urgent care clinic that's seen almost 30,000 patients, and early next year there will be a new endometriosis and pelvic pain clinic in Werribee as well.

This government is ending the year as we began it—focused on a stronger Medicare and cheaper medicines. In just the first sitting week of this year, the government announced a landmark women's health package, listing, for the first time in decades, new contraceptives and new menopause treatments. Since then, more than 550,000 Australian women have saved tens of millions of dollars at the pharmacy counter because of that decision.

Just a couple of weeks after that, the Prime Minister announced the largest ever investment in bulk-billing in Medicare's history. Already, well over a thousand general practices have gone from charging gap fees last month to bulk-billing all of their patients this month, and that number is increasing every day. That same day, we promised more doctors into the system. This year we've trained more junior doctors as GPs than ever before, and next year we'll break that record again. Just two weeks after that announcement, we announced 50 more Medicare urgent care clinics. Three are already open; 47 will be announced before Christmas and will be open in the following weeks. Then four out of five Australians will live within a 20-minute drive of an urgent care clinic open seven days a week, with extended hours and fully bulk-billed. All you'll need to take is your Medicare card.

If that's not enough, two weeks after that, the Prime Minister attended the Pharmacy Guild conference and announced our latest wave of cheaper medicines measures: freezing the maximum script price for pensioners all the way to the end of this decade and slashing the maximum amount that general patients pay at the pharmacy counter to just $25 on 1 January—the same price it was way back in 2004. This was the most comprehensive health policy package any party has taken to an election since Bob Hawke promised to introduce Medicare in 1983, and we are delivering on every single thing that we promised because, for this party, for the Australian people, nothing is more important than a strong Medicare.