Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

After support for cost-of-living relief, delivering more affordable and accessible high-quality health care is my No.1 priority, and it's a challenge I'm tackling head-on from every angle. On the Central Coast, the Gwandalan Summerland Medical Centre services an area consisting of more than 7,000 people. For years, it's managed to do this with just one full-time GP and one part-time GP. I worked with the practice to secure another full-time GP from the United Kingdom through the expedited specialist pathway that we've introduced, and I'm pleased to report that Dr Fam Ho joined us in November and is looking after locals every week. I had the pleasure of personally welcoming him to the area, and I wasn't the only one welcoming his arrival in what is a truly appreciative community.

When it comes to bulk-billing, there's no easy solution to undoing the decade of cuts and neglect by the previous Liberal government. Year after year, leader after leader, they decimated Medicare. But seeing a GP shouldn't be a struggle; it should be free, and that's why we've tripled the bulk-billing incentive with the $8.5 billion package for more doctors and more bulk-billing. It's meant Cardiff General Practice has become a 100 per cent bulk-billing practice, and other practices are working through the process right now. I'll continue working with my Hunter colleagues and our excellent health minister to deliver more bulk-billing GPs across our community.

No matter where you live in our community, I'm pleased to say there's a free Medicare urgent care clinic nearby. In Charlestown, not only have we delivered an urgent care clinic and then extended its hours; we've now funded more doctors and nurses so you can get the care you need faster and for free. It's one of the busiest urgent care clinics in the country. In the four weeks following Australia Day it had 1,485 presentations, an average of 53 a day.

At Lake Haven we're making the urgent care clinic even better too, and very soon I'll have more to say about delivering our promise to boost its capacity with more doctors and nurses. With 1,283 presentations in the four weeks since Australia Day and a huge 78 per cent of patients indicating they would've gone to the emergency department if the clinic wasn't there, we know it's a community asset that's taking pressure off our local hospitals, which are under strain right now.

From delivering more doctors and more bulk-billing GPS to delivering even better urgent care clinics—as a dad, as the husband of a nurse and as your federal representative, I'll continue working every day to deliver for Lake Macquarie and the Central Coast.