Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) welcomes the Government delivering on its promise to open an additional 50 Medicare Urgent Care Clinics, with all 137 Medicare Urgent Care Clinics now operating across Australia, providing bulk billed urgent care;

(2) notes there have been more than 3.2 million presentations to Medicare Urgent Care Clinics nationwide, reducing pressure on local hospital emergency departments; and

(3) commends the Government's record $8.5 billion investment to strengthen Medicare with more bulk billing and more doctors and nurses, delivering free health care for Australians.

The Albanese Labor government's Medicare urgent care clinics are an absolute game changer for our nation. When we came to government in 2022, it had never been harder or more expensive to find a doctor. That's why strengthening Medicare was a key focus of our election platform.

The Albanese Labor government has made the single largest investment in Medicare since its creation over 40 years ago, and, in the budget, we made Medicare urgent care clinics permanent, including long-term certainty for the NT's eight clinics, which includes the new Darwin clinic that opened last month on Osgood Drive in Eaton. No appointments are required to get the urgent non-emergency bulk-billed care that you need when you need it, with extended hours seven days a week. This is taking the pressure off Royal Darwin Hospital in the same way that the Palmerston urgent care clinic is taking pressure off the Palmerston Regional Hospital and their ED.

The first month of Darwin Medicare urgent care clinic operations has generated additional urgent care capacity and additional patient activity. Rather than simply shifting activity away from the Palmerston Medicare urgent care clinic, total urgent care activity has materially increased. Combined first month activity across both Darwin and Palmerston urgent care clinics was over 2,400 presentations, more than double the previous month when there was only the Palmerston urgent care clinic. Presentations continue to be predominantly acute illness with acute injury remaining a substantial but smaller component. One of my constituents, a local from Darwin, accidentally stood on a rusty nail and moved to the Darwin urgent care clinic to get that injury cleaned out and to get a tetanus booster. They are just one of the very satisfied customers that didn't have to go to the Royal Darwin Hospital ED.

The catchment profile supports the strategic rationale for the two urgent care clinics in the electorate of Solomon, Palmerston continues to serve the people of Palmerston, Litchfield and the rural or northern Greater Darwin catchments, where the member for Lingiari represents, while the Darwin urgent care clinic establishes a Darwin facing access point for urgent care in the city suburbs and the northern suburbs of Darwin. The ED related data supports the hospital avoidance intent of the urgent care clinic model. A higher than national proportion of patients at both Darwin and Palmerston Urgent Care Clinics reported that they would otherwise have gone to the local emergency department. The President of the AMA in the Northern Territory, Dr John Zorbas, will find this data interesting. He knows well the demands on the Royal Darwin Hospital and Palmerston Regional Hospital emergency departments, and the data also suggests that these urgent care clinics are attracting ED substitution presentations while still resolving most episodes safely within the urgent care clinic setting.

Our historic $8.5 billion investment in Medicare is delivering more bulk-billing and more doctors so that Australians can see a GP for free and get the care that they need when they need it. Since our investment in bulk billing kicked off on 1 November 2025, 25 practices in Darwin and Palmerston are now fully bulk-billing. The NT had the biggest increase in bulk-billing rates, up by 13.7 per cent to a whopping 89.7 per cent, to be the highest bulk-billing jurisdiction in the country. Territorians are really taking advantage of the fact that under Labor they can now get access to bulk-billing care when they need it. To put that in perspective, the national rate was 81.9 per cent. Our bulk billing reforms are absolutely working.

Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Madonna Jarrett (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion.

Leon Rebello (McPherson, Liberal National Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

This motion is about urgent care clinics. I represent the southern Gold Coast, in the seat of McPherson, which is one of the fastest growing parts of the world, and it's one of the fastest growing parts of Australia for sure. We're seeing a lot of changes happening through migration within the country, and a lot of people are moving to McPherson for a number of reasons. But I will say this. McPherson doesn't have an urgent care clinic. So, while the government is moving a motion here today about urgent care clinics, we on the southern Gold Coast don't have access to urgent care clinics. A point that I've raised in this parliament a number of times is that, if you look at the distribution of urgent care clinics, Labor electorates are about 3.5 times more likely to have two or more clinics. Perhaps that's why the people on the southern Gold Coast are missing out—because they don't vote for the Labor Party.

I find that to be quiet remarkable because coalition electorates are, generally speaking, larger and more regional. The median coalition held electorate is 39.5 times larger than the median Labor held electorate. The fact that we don't have a Medicare urgent care clinic is both unfair and disappointing. While the Gold Coast has clinics at Oxenford and Southport, there isn't one in Burleigh, in Palm Beach, in Currumbin, in Coolangatta, in Tugun or in Robina. What it actually looks like is a health rollout that is not a health rollout. It looks like it's taxpayer-funded clinic confetti that's sprinkled across friendly seats, because ultimately that's what it is.

There's a more basic problem here. It's not clear that these clinics are even achieving what they were set up to do, and that is to reduce pressure on other parts of our health system. The government's own evaluation says that there's no clear evidence that urgent care clinics have improved emergency department waiting times or the proportion of urgent-care-equivalent emergency department patients seen on time.

I say in this place that there is another point that we need to raise. Urgent care clinics were not supposed to replace GPs. They were supposed to supplement the work of GPs and also the public health system. But what we're seeing is a government that hasn't invested adequately in supporting GPs. I look at McPherson, and on the southern Gold Coast we have a situation where bulk-billing has gone down. It's gone down ever since this Labor Party came into office, and it's gone down by around 12 per cent.

So, if we're looking at our health system more broadly, while this government has focused this motion on speaking about urgent care clinics—which, by the way, we don't have in McPherson, as I've said—we don't even have an investment that is meaningfully addressing the issues with accessing health care in my seat. Although the Prime Minister comes into parliament and speaks to the media and says, 'All you need is your Medicare card,' I think the experience of the people on the southern Gold Coast and others around the country is that the reality is very different. The reality is that they are struggling to see a doctor. They are finding it hard to get access to a GP.

What the government is doing today is putting the cart before the horse. We're seeing the government doing the victory lap without seeing the results. I would like to see this government coming in here and telling us what its plan is for how it's going to actually address the situation that Australians are facing, which is that they can't get the health care they need when they need it. While there may be a role for urgent care clinics—although, as I've said, I don't have one in my electorate—they cannot be used to fill in for the government's failures in other parts of our healthcare system.

The coalition have always said we support Medicare, and we support bulk-billed care as well. But what we don't support is self-congratulation dressed up as health policy. Like I said, this looks less like a health rollout and more like taxpayer-funded clinic confetti sprinkled across friendly Labor seats. We support health infrastructure, not political infrastructure, because Australians need real access, real doctors and real accountability, not self-congratulation and pork-barrelling.

Kara Cook (Bonner, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Medicare is one of Labor's greatest achievements, and for more than four decades it has embodied a simple Australian principle—that, when you need health care, the only card you should need is your Medicare card, not your credit card. Health care should never depend on your postcode or your bank balance, and it should be available to every Australian when they need it. That belief built Medicare, and it continues to drive every investment the Albanese Labor government is making to strengthen it.

As a mum of three, I know there is never a convenient time for a child to need urgent medical care. It usually happens after school, on a Saturday afternoon or late in the evening, when your regular GP has closed. It's the child who falls off their bike and needs some stitches. It's the broken wrist from weekend sport. It's the elderly parent who might have an infection that can't wait until next week. These situations are urgent, but they are not life-threatening emergencies. For too long, Australians faced an impossible choice: wait days for a GP appointment or spend hours in an already busy emergency department. Labor recognised that gap in our health system, and we fixed it.

We committed to delivering 137 Medicare urgent care clinics right across the country, and we have delivered every single one. Today, Australians can walk into one of these clinics seven days a week with no appointment, receive high-quality urgent care and walk out without paying a cent. That is better for patients, better for families and better for our hospitals. The results speak for themselves. More than 3.2 million Australians have already received treatment through a Medicare urgent care clinic. One in three patients has been a child under the age of 15. Almost 30 per cent of visits happen on weekends, exactly when families struggle to access primary care.

During the week, one in four patients attends after 5 pm, when many GP clinics have already closed. Perhaps the most telling statistic of all is that 45 per cent of patients said they would otherwise have gone to an emergency department or even called an ambulance. That means hundreds of thousands of Australians getting the right care in the right place while helping relieve pressure on our emergency departments. In Queensland, these clinics have already provided care to more than 660,000 Queenslanders across 26 Medicare urgent care clinics. That's more than 660,000 occasions where Queensland families have received timely bulk-billed care.

In my own electorate of Bonner, we have seen exactly how valuable these services have become. My electorate is serviced by two Medicare urgent care clinics: the Carina-Carindale and Capalaba clinics. More than 13,000 patients have been through those doors since they opened in December. They're not just statistics; they are parents who didn't have to choose between seeking medical care and paying the weekly grocery bill, they're children who receive treatment quickly instead of waiting hours in emergency and they're older Australians who get the care they need close to home. I recently welcomed the Minister for Health, Mark Butler, to the Carina-Carindale Medicare urgent care clinic. We spoke with doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals, who told us loud and clear that these clinics are no longer just filling a gap; they have become an essential part of our local healthcare system. All 137 Medicare Urgent care clinics become a permanent part of Medicare from 1 July. That means families can have the confidence that these services are here to stay.

Four out of every five Australians now live within a 20-minute drive of a Medicare urgent care clinic. Around two million Australians every year are expected to use these clinics into the future. This is all part of Labor's $8.5 billion record investment to strengthen Medicare. We've delivered the biggest investment in bulk-billing so more Australians can see a GP for free. In my local community, bulk-billing practices have doubled. We've also delivered record funding for our public hospitals, and we've made medicines cheaper—just $25 for a PBS script or $7.70 if you're on a concession card. We're rolling out free Medicare mental health centres right across the country.

Medicare is one of our proudest achievements. These clinics are making a real difference in the lives of so many Australians, and I'm so pleased to say that they are here to stay. Only Labor will continue to ensure every Australian can access the quality care they deserve, regardless of their postcode or their ability to pay. That is Labor delivering for every single Australian.

Mary Aldred (Monash, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

No-one in the House disputes the importance of accessible health care. Every Australian deserves timely access to a doctor when they are sick or injured.But this motion asks us to pat the government on the back, rather than ask whether these clinics are delivering the right outcomes in the right areas. That is where this government has got it wrong. The government boasts there are now 137 Medicare urgent care clinics across Australia. It's interesting to note ABC analysis from March last year, before the last election, which showed two-thirds were in Labor seats and a quarter were in seats under a five per cent margin.

While this government counts ribbon cuttings, my constituents count kilometres. For many people in Monash, the nearest urgent care clinic is more than an hour's drive away. I recently heard from a constituent in Yanakie in South Gippsland, who became unwell on a Sunday. She needed to see a doctor and obtain medication. This working mum could have presented to an emergency department but had no idea whether she would be waiting one hour or 10. My constituent had no certainty she could see her local GP the next day, where appointments are often booked weeks in advance. Her only realistic option was to drive all the way from South Gippsland to Warragul. That is not accessible health care. It is a system forcing regional Australians to choose between a long drive, an unknown wait in an ED or hoping their condition won't get worse.

Paul, from Inverloch, has written to me about the ongoing struggle of getting a GP appointment in the Bass Coast area. He told me this is no longer just his problem; it affects the whole community. People are now booking appointments weeks in advance because they fear they won't be able to see a doctor when they actually need one. As Paul said, 'I understand why they do this, but it doesn't help the situation', and Paul's right. That is a clear sign our primary healthcare system is under immense strain.

While my electorate of Monash has one urgent care clinic, many of my regional colleagues have no clinics anywhere in their electorates, which, in many cases, are equal to the size of a European country. This government is very fond of quoting the national figure of 137 clinics, but I've got to say those numbers mean very little when entire regional electorates are left without one single clinic.

The fundamental problem with this government's approach is that it focuses on creating a parallel system instead of strengthening the one Australians already rely on every day. The rollout has also drawn experienced doctors and nurses away from GP clinics and public hospitals, putting additional pressure on workforce shortages. The government cannot create new clinics without finding new doctors. The government should not simply move healthcare workers from one waiting room to another. These clinics do not provide continuity of care. Patients are often treated by doctors who do not know their medical history, and follow-up care becomes fragmented. There is no substitute for your local GP who knows your history, your medications and your ongoing health needs.

The medical profession itself has raised concerns. A study published in the Australian Journal of General Practice found doctors reporting excessive patient numbers, understaffing, long waits and, in many clinics, only one doctor on duty. The same study highlighted limited access to imaging and pathology, particularly after hours, meaning many patients still required referral to hospital. That hardly seems like the seamless healthcare system the government claims to have created.

There is also the question of value for taxpayers, particularly in regional Australia. The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners has warned that the average urgent care clinic consultation costs Medicare more than five times as much as a standard GP consultation. The value of that funding could be invested directly into existing GP practice and would represent employing more doctors, extending opening hours and improving urgent access within local communities. That would strengthen primary care rather than compete with it. Regional Australia continues to miss out on a range of issues under this federal Labor government, and health care is a prime example.

Zhi Soon (Banks, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to join colleagues on this side of the house in supporting the member for Solomon's motion. He is someone who has worked incredibly hard to secure two urgent care clinics at Darwin and Palmerston in his electorate, and it's a testament to how hard he works for his constituents. No-one knows when they're going to get sick or pick up an injury, and it's never guaranteed that a GP will be open when you need to see them. For too long this meant Australians had to choose between going to the emergency department or going without care. Fully bulk-billed Medicare urgent care clinics have filled the missing middle in our healthcare system and, as the data shows, they are taking the pressure off our hospital emergency departments, with after-hours care for urgent-but-not-life-threatening conditions. When Labor was first elected, we promised to open 50 clinics. Instead, in our first term, we delivered 87 clinics nationwide. Last year we promised 50 more clinics, and now every single one is open, bringing us to 137 clinics nationwide. And these clinics aren't going anywhere, with last month's budget securing the funding to make these clinics a permanent part of our healthcare system.

The results speak for themselves. As of 8 June this year, there have been more than 3.2 million urgent care clinic presentations, and every single one of them was fully bulk-billed. In my community we are served by both Carlton and Bankstown urgent care clinics nearby, which both open nearly two years ago to this day. At Carlton they have seen more than 28,000 patients since that day and, at Bankstown, nearly 14,000. These are thousands of people who would have ended up waiting in an emergency room at either the Saint George or the Bankstown-Lidcombe hospitals or, even worse, gone without care at all. This is a tangible difference being made by a government who believes that the health of its people is worth investing in.

Everyone on this side of the House loves our urgent care clinics and knows the difference they are making in our communities, but there are some members in this place who aren't fans. Indeed, the Liberal Party opposed them when they were first announced by the health minister, and on various occasions they labelled them a disaster or a failure. In fact, the Leader of the Opposition went so far as to call them wasteful spending that would be axed if they had won government last year. Then thank goodness Australia avoided that.

The coalition might wish that people would believe their about-face on urgent care clinics, but Australians haven't forgotten that or their disastrous record on Medicare. It is a record that this government has had to work incredibly hard to reverse. It has taken record investment, as the member for Soloman's motion notes, but we are making real progress and seeing real change. We have tripled the bulk-billing incentive for those who need it most and saw a turnaround in bulk-billing rates, and the investment we promised last year, to expand the incentive to every Australian, is working as intended. Bulk-billing rates are climbing in every single state and territory, and in my electorate of Banks 88.6 per cent of GP visits are now fully bulk-billed, a big jump compared to 2023 and nearing the 90 per cent mark that our investment was designed to achieve. We now have 22 fully bulk-billed GP clinics and dozens of pharmacies dispensing PBS medications for $25 a script as part of the cheaper medicines program that has saved my constituents more than $12 million cumulatively.

It couldn't be much clearer. This government sees Australians' health care as an objective to invest in with things like urgent care clinics, bulk-billing and cheaper medicines. Those opposites see health care as a line item to cut and a problem, unfortunately, to ignore.

Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) | Link to this | Hansard source

The subject today is urgent care clinics. Of course, it's put up by Labor, who want to gloat about their 137 urgent care clinics, 66 per cent of which are in red electorates. It kind of tells you everything about the Labor government. One of the reasons that the Labor government is so keen on this is that most of their seats are in cities. What they want to do is stop people having to go into emergency departments. Fair enough; when a person or a patient is sick and they go into an ED clinic, it costs the taxpayer $616—every visit. If they go into an urgent care clinic, the dollar figure does reduce. I can understand why the clinics are quite popular. It becomes $216 per visit for exactly the same condition.

But get this. Out in the regions, where we don't have urgent care clinics, it is primary care—preventative care—that stops those ED and UCC visits, and the cost to the taxpayer for a level B consultation is $42.88. I personally think that taxpayers around Australia would think: 'Let us deliver quality health care that stops people having to go to hospital, and let's fund primary care adequately. Let us ensure that our primary care clinics out in the regions in particular are funded adequately and that there are systems in place to support GPs to work in regional and rural areas, support nurse practitioners to deliver services in regional areas and support allied healthcare workers to deliver services in regional areas'. Unlike our Labor counterparts across the aisle from me, we don't have those massive hospitals which cost a fortune to run, but we can deliver good quality primary care.

In my view of the world, UCCs are fundamentally bandaids that do not solve the underlying issues. Where we have chronic care, they are missing in action. For people who have chronic diseases—which are much higher in the regions than in metro areas and where people are dying prematurely—the equivalency is not there at all. This is a Labor government focused on metropolitan politics. This is a government that says, 'We've done more than we ever expected in terms of getting urgent care clinics up and running.' What they did was take over primary care clinics that had failed under state governments and add around 50 so that the number looked even better. Are they delivering those clinics in places like Taree, in the member for Lyne's electorate? No. No, they're not. Have they got any intention of putting UCCs out there? No, they absolutely do not. Frankly, in my view as shadow minister for regional health, I would rather the government invested properly in regional health primary care clinics. It is essential.

What we are also missing out on in the regions is decent patient transfer assistance. We've just found out that the Victorian government has dropped the refund, or the reimbursement, for patients who have to travel to Melbourne from Mildura—if you happen to be in Mildura, it's six hours on terrible roads—to 21c per kilometre. They pay their public servants 88c, four times the amount that a patient can get back. They have now decided that airfares will not be reimbursed unless you are literally on a ventilator. My Lord, who thought this was fair? Who thought this had equity? I can tell you right now that the Labor government under the minister for health has no respect for those who live in the regions. This is unconscionable conduct by this government and by the Victorian government. Your postcode should not determine your health status, but, under this government, it absolutely does.

Trish Cook (Bullwinkel, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in absolutely strong support of this motion and to celebrate a profound transformation in how Australians access health care. Before entering this place, I spent decades working on the front line of the regional centres that these people opposite claim to represent. I know what happens in those regional centres. I know what happens in general practices and in busy hospital wards, including emergency departments, having worked for four decades in these very places. I also know what it's like when your child has a fever or your husband has an accident and you need urgent care right there and then on the weekend. Prior to urgent care clinics, people would wait days for a booked out GP appointment—we acknowledge that, and that's why we're doing the biggest investment into bulk-billing that this country has seen—or they could spend a long time in emergency departments, which are completely overwhelming. The Albanese Labor government's Medicare urgent care clinics, under the leadership of Minister Butler, have changed that equation completely. They are a genuine game changer for families.

We don't just talk about fixing the healthcare system; we have delivered. We promised 50 urgent care clinics in 2022, delivering 87, and now we've delivered another 50 just in this last year, for a total of 137 urgent care clinics around the country. The beauty of these clinics is that they're open seven days a week, with extended hours. You don't need an appointment or a referral, and, most importantly, they're 100 per cent bulk-billed. When you walk in with your Medicare card, you get high-quality care from doctors and nurses just like me. In fact, the North Street Medical Centre urgent care clinic is right next door to the clinic that I used to work in, so I assure you it's very high standard. Across Australia, there have been 3.2 million presentations already on the record. This not only takes pressure off the emergency departments. I say this, having worked in general practice. When you have a long list of 15-minute appointments, as the nurse—and every doctor has their appointments—and an urgent case walks in, of course, everybody suffers, because that urgent case needs to be attended to. So this is really filling a gap in the market where people with urgent conditions can be seen promptly with great, high-quality care and GPs can get on with delivering primary health care, as we want them to.

Twenty-nine per cent of visits to urgent care clinics take place on the weekend. Twenty-five per cent of weekday visits also happen at 5 pm or later. That's just when the GPs are closing their doors. This is really filling a gap in the market, and crucially, nearly half—45 per cent of all patients—reported that, if their local urgent care clinic wasn't open, they would have headed to an emergency department or called an ambulance. Half of them—of course, that is taking massive pressure off the major hospitals.

If we look at my home state of WA, we have 14 operating Medicare urgent care clinics and a number of private ones as well. In those Medicare urgent care clinics, we have managed over 349,000 presentations. In Bullwinkel, my electorate, for the people of the Perth Hills, my firm commitment for the Labor government to put a Medicare urgent care clinic right in the heart of Mundaring has been delivered. As a former Mundaring councillor and hills resident of 20 years, I know how desperately this was needed, and it has been incredibly well utilised. There have been over 3,300 presentations in just a few short months since it was opened. Families from the regional areas and from the Perth Hills don't have to travel all the way down the hill on the major highway to get the urgent care that they need, and it's because of successes like Mundaring that this year's budget took the next logical step—we didn't just extend the funding; we have made urgent care clinics a permanent part of Medicare.

Labor established Medicare, and only a Labor government will protect and strengthen it. Every Australian deserves quality health care close to home, and the Mundaring urgent care clinics are living proof that we have delivered exactly that. I commend the motion to the House.

Tom Venning (Grey, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to talk about the motion for Medicare urgent care clinics in Australia. Let me start off by saying the level of pork-barrelling by this government with urgent Medicare clinics is unbelievable. For anyone watching at home, do some analysis of the number of urgent Medicare clinics in Labor held seats versus coalition held seats. In fact, it's built into the very own strategy of the urgent Medicare clinics. Their strategy is to deliver an urgent Medicare clinic to 80 per cent of Australians within a 20-minute drive. Essentially they're saying that, if you are from a rural or remote community, good luck to you. It's even worse than that. If you're in a remote community, you're paying three times to see a doctor. There will be a co-payment. There will be an increase in your council rates, because the regional, rural and remote councils that I represent have to give cash incentives to encourage GPS into their communities because the model that we have today does not support GPS in regional, rural and remote Australia. It is completely unacceptable.

I'll be a bit more specific. I rise to bring attention to the unfolding health crisis in my electorate of Grey. It is a crisis manufactured not by a lack of dedication from our local medical professionals but by the sheer incompetence and the suffocating red tape of this government's bureaucratic machine. Right now on the Eyre Peninsula, a dedicated medical clinic is on the brink of being forced to reinstate patient co-payments. Why is this? It is because of catastrophic ongoing failures within Services Australia's Health Professional Online Services system, better known as HPOS. For six months, the clinic has successfully operated as a bulk-billing practice providing an essential lifeline to a community doing it tough under cost-of-living pressures. Yet, despite doing everything by the book, three vital GPs at this clinic have been repeatedly dropped off the Medicare registry due to system errors.

It is completely unacceptable that the clinic has been forced to register its hard-working doctors three separate times only for the HPOS system to unceremoniously drop them without any warning whatsoever. The rigid lack of flexibility in the system means that a simple glitch completely cancels incentive payments. This has left these healthcare providers out of pocket for at least three months, entirely stripping them of the quarterly incentive payments they rely upon to keep the doors open. This glitch places an immense strain on a practice that is simply trying to do the right thing for the community. The government campaigns continually on their healthcare credentials, yet their own system and their appalling lack of communication are actively punishing our clinics. Our regional practices have seen absolutely zero benefit after six months of bulk-billing. Instead, they are being stonewalled.

I am calling on the federal government today to intervene immediately. The minister must grant an extenuating circumstances payment to backdate the owed funds to this clinic. We also need an urgent overhaul of this time-consuming and cumbersome payment system. If the government does not step in and reinstate the owed funds, one of the few bulk-billing clinics in our region will be forced to shift back to co-payments. That will be a devastating blow to a community that relies on this practice for affordable, accessible health care.

Beyond these technical failures, I also call out the government and the primary healthcare network for consistently overlooking the Eyre Peninsula. Port Lincoln, in particular, has been totally ignored for essential funding like strengthening Medicare grants. Even worse, this communities has been completely bypassed in the rollout of the Medicare urgent care clinics. As I said before, there seems to be a lot of favouritism in the allocation of funding grants and new clinics under this government. Have a look for yourself. We see that Whyalla has recently received a new urgent medical clinic, and that's fantastic. Of course, I welcome that investment in the people of Whyalla. However, there is a glaring, undeniable need in Port Lincoln. Yet this this community was entirely overlooked. The question has to be asked: why did Whyalla get a Medicare urgent care clinic when the need was just as high, if not higher, in Port Lincoln? Port Lincoln services a vast network of smaller surrounding towns that have absolutely no access to health care.

Emma Comer (Petrie, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of what's been put forward by the fantastic member for Solomon. It recognises something that's making a genuine difference in communities right across Australia, including in my electorate of Petrie. When I put my hand up to stand as a Labor candidate for Petrie, I did so while knowing that one of my key priorities will always be health care. I made a commitment to local families that I would fight for better health care close to home. People told me they were struggling to get in to see a GP, they were spending hours in the waiting room in the emergency department for conditions that weren't life threatening and they wanted more healthcare services in our growing community. Last December, we delivered on that promise when I opened the Medicare urgent care clinic in Deception Bay.

We can talk all we want in this parliament about how great these urgent care clinics are, and I will, but first I want to say that after knocking on thousands of doors I know they're making a real difference in our community, even if that isn't always visible from within this parliament. I'm incredibly proud that this clinic is now providing free, bulk-billed, urgent health care to local families seven days a week, with no appointment required. It means that, if your child needs stitches after falling from their bike, if you've fractured your wrist or if you've developed an infection that simply can't wait, you can get the care you need close to home without worrying about an unexpected bill. That's exactly what strengthening Medicare looks like.

The Albanese Labor government has remained focused on our promise to Australians that when you go to the doctor all you need is your Medicare card. Through the delivery of the Medicare urgent care clinics right across the country, we're making that promise a reality. There are now 137 Medicare urgent care clinics operating across Australia. More than 3.2 million Australians have already accessed free, urgent care through them. These clinics are open when families need them most, including in the evenings and on weekends, and almost half of all patients say they would otherwise have ended up in a hospital ED or called an ambulance. In Queensland, the impact has been enormous. We now have 26 Medicare urgent care clinics across the state, and they've already seen more than 660,000 patient presentations.

I'm particularly pleased by the response we've seen at the new Deception Bay urgent care clinic. Since opening, the clinic has already cared for more than 6,100 patients. That's more than 6,100 occasions where someone in our community has been able to receive urgent care without having to sit for hours in a hospital waiting room or worrying about whether they could afford the treatment. The Deception Bay urgent care clinic has been a vital addition to our community, which is an area that's too often been overlooked when it comes to health care, and due to popular demand I've been able to secure extended opening hours from 8 am till 10 pm. The Deception Bay clinic complements the fantastic Medicare urgent care clinic found in Murrumba Downs, which has already been providing this important service to local families, with over 30,000 presentations to the clinic already. Together, these clinics mean more people across Petrie can access quality health care close to home.

Whether you live in D Bay, Rothwell, Kippa-Ring, North Lakes, Mango Hill, Griffin, Bracken Ridge or the surrounding suburbs, you have better access to health care than ever before. As our community continues to grow, that matters. Beyond the numbers and the statistics are people. They're the parents who don't have to choose between waiting days to see a GP and spending their evening in the emergency department. They're the grandparents who can receive treatment quickly and get back home to recover. They're the shiftworkers who can walk into a clinic after work because it's open when they need it. And they're for the young families who have the reassurance of knowing that quality health care is available close to home whenever the unexpected happens.

Labor created Medicare and Labor will always fight to strengthen Medicare. This government's record $8.5 billion investment into Medicare is delivering more bulk-billing, more doctors and nurses, cheaper medicines and permanent urgent care clinics for communities like ours. For Petrie, this isn't just another government announcement; it's a promise made and it's a promise kept. I promised local families that I would fight for more healthcare services in our community, and the Medicare urgent care clinic in Deception Bay is delivering on that promise every single day. I'm proud to support this motion.

Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.