Peter Khalil (Wills, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Our government, the Albanese government, promised a Medicare urgent care clinic for Coburg in my electorate at the election, and now we are delivering on our promise. In the coming weeks the Coburg Medicare urgent care clinic, on 444 Sydney Road, is going to open. It's going to be open seven days a week. It's going to have extended hours on the weekend, and all you need is your Medicare card, not your credit card. So if the member from Wagga injures himself playing footy and he's in Melbourne at the time, he can come and get some urgent medical care for his non-life-threatening condition. He'll be welcome. This is going to help. But, more importantly, it's going to help our locals. It's going to help the constituents I represent in my electorate to get the care they need closer to home. And it's going to take a lot of pressure off the local hospital emergency departments.

In comparison, the opposition, when they were last in government, tried to end bulk-billing with a GP tax. They froze Medicare rebates for six years and stripped billions out of Medicare. Only Labor strengthens Medicare and only Labor delivers in my electorate of Wills and across Australia. This might be controversial, but there is no better electorate in the country than Wills, my electorate, when it comes to, specifically, the arts. Why do I say that? Well, it is because of the arts facilities in my electorate, including Balam Balam Place, to which our government contributed $1 million towards construction. There are 8,000 people in my electorate employed in the cultural and creative occupations. So Wills is the place to live or to visit if you love the arts.

That's why I'm so pleased to see Creative Australia award 23 grants to artists in my community of Wills in their latest funding round. This includes funding for Triple R, a not-for-profit community radio station, one of the best local radio stations—I've been on there—and funding to musicians like Stella Donnelly and Mindy Meng Wang. It also includes funding for local theatre companies, local visual artists and local writers and funding to help Australian artists in my electorate to take their works to the international stage. One thing that artists across Wills and across Australia know is that it's only the Labor government that actually cares about supporting Australian artists. I encourage our colleagues to visit Wills and enjoy some of the arts on offer.

Over the weekend I was pleased to attend two fantastic events representing the multicultural fabric of my electorate. I visited the Masjid Ar-Rahman Mosque open day in Fawkner, part of the Islamic Council of Victoria's initiative of 30 mosques being opened across the state. It is a great initiative to build social cohesion, break down some barriers and engage in conversation with local community members. Masjid Ar-Rahman in Fawkner in my electorate is a very important place. It has more than 2,000 families living in and around Fawkner. I want to thank Dr Mahabubur Mollah and Masjid ar-Rahman for your service to the community and for welcoming me on the day.