Alison Byrnes (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise today to talk about some of the incredible progress that the Albanese Labor government has made in delivering our promises of cheaper health care for all Australians. We promised cheaper medicines, more bulk-billing and better access to mental health support, and we're delivering them all.

As a government, we believe that access to quality health care should not depend on your bank balance. So just last week we reached a landmark agreement to deliver record funding for public hospitals. We are delivering an additional $25 billion to the states and territories over the next five years, bringing our total investment in public hospitals across Australia to $219.6 billion. This is three times more in additional funding for public hospitals than under the last five-year agreement. Additional funding support for public hospitals from the Australian government will improve care, will cut wait times and will help to address ambulance ramping. I know that health ministers right across the country have worked incredibly hard to reach this record deal, and I'd like to acknowledge the work of Minister for Health and Ageing Mark Butler and New South Wales minister for health, the member for Keira, Ryan Park for their strong determination and dedication to improving outcomes for patients right across New South Wales.

In my electorate of Cunningham in the Illawarra, bed block at Wollongong Hospital is a massive issue, as Minister Park is well aware. This money will go a long way towards alleviating some of that pressure while we continue the hard work of delivering better access to aged care across our region, something that I am working on very closely with the Minister for Aged Care and Seniors. I was delighted to deliver more than $17.4 million in funding to the Illawarra Retirement Trust to upgrade its Marco Polo aged-care centre in Unanderra. This will deliver an additional 48 residential aged-care beds for the Illawarra by 2027.

Our dedication to improving access to affordable health care is part of Labor's DNA. We created Medicare, and we have fought for years to protect and to strengthen it. The Albanese Labor government has made the single biggest investment in Medicare history, with our $8.5 billion package to deliver more bulk-billing and more doctors across the country. From 1 November last year, for the first time, bulk-billing incentives will be paid to GPs for every patient they bulk-bill, supporting GPs and reducing costs and barriers for patients.

In my electorate of Cunningham, we now have 24 fully bulk-billing clinics, 14 of which were mixed billing before our changes were announced. That means we now have nearly 2½ times more bulk-billing clinics in my electorate alone, thanks to the Albanese Labor government's investment.

Clinics like the Corrimal Medical & Dental Centre and King Street Dental & Medical in Warrawong have told me what a difference this is making for their doctors and their patients. Corrimal Medical & Dental Centre switched away from bulk-billing a few years ago, due to increasing overhead costs to their GPs, and they have proudly switched back thanks to this investment that is backing the hard work that they do. No-one wants to see their patients avoiding a check-up because they can't afford it or, worse, ending up in hospital because they didn't get early intervention by their GP.

King Street Dental & Medical estimates that the switch to fully bulk-billing will see 17,000 additional patient visits each year delivered with no out-of-pocket costs. This has taken real dedication from every doctor at the practices that have signed up, and I want to take this opportunity to thank each and every GP in our community for the work that you do every day.

But that's not all. From 1 January, we have reduced the maximum cost of all PBS listed medicines to only $25 and frozen the cost for concession card holders at $7.75. Medicines have not been this cheap for more than 20 years, and this is on top of our 60-day dispensing and the lowering of the PBS safety net threshold.

We've launched 1800MEDICARE, a new advice and out-of-hours Medicare telehealth service, which has already been accessed by tens of thousands of Australians since its launch on 1 January. And we've introduced the new Medicare mental health check-in so that all Australians can access free digital mental health support without the need for a GP referral. Our government is committed to supporting our community with access to more affordable health care.

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

And a very happy birthday to the member for Cunningham!