Jess Teesdale (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. How is the Albanese Labor government investing in bulk-billing and strengthening Medicare for every Australian after a decade of cuts and neglect? How have the government's policies been aimed at correcting past policy mistakes?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In February last year, I proudly stood in Launceston with the then Labor candidate for Bass and announced that a re-elected Labor government would make the biggest ever investment in bulk-billing. On 3 May, Australians voted to strengthen Medicare, and, on 3 November, our commitment to tripling the bulk-billing incentive for every Australian began to roll out. Three months later, it's clear that what we promised is delivering for Australians.

Around Australia today, more than eight in every 10 visits to the GP are fully bulk-billed. Millions of people are getting the healthcare they need with just their Medicare card, not their credit card. Now, nearly 3,400 GP practices are fully bulk-billed—an increase of 1,300 clinics since November, in that short period of time. There is more bulk-billing, in fact, in every single state and every territory, giving Australians access to the health care that they need.

We don't know who the Liberal leader will be next week, but we do know that they'll be against Medicare. We know this because the member for Hume wanted Tony Abbott's GP tax. He said this: 'We know that the GP co-payment is reasonable.' They were against any free visits to the doctor because they wanted a co-payment on every single visit! But it gets worse. In 2015 the current Leader of the Opposition and the then health minister decided to extend the freeze on the Medicare rebate. That's bad enough—but the member for Hume called for her cuts to go even deeper and further. In an opinion piece from 2015, he said, 'The member for Farrer's program of cuts should extend across the health system.' We all remember when they came to office the last time, in 2014, ripping money out of health and ripping money out of education. But, for the member for Hume, that didn't go far enough. They wanted to rip even more out.

Only Labor is committed to strengthening Medicare. It's what we do—through cheaper medicines, the tripling of the bulk-billing incentive, the urgent care clinics, the increased hospital funding and the Medicare mental health clinics. All of these measures are aimed at strengthening Medicare and repairing the damage that those opposite did over their time in office.