Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on the Health Legislation Amendment (Improved Medicare Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2025. Our doctors and health professionals in Australia do life-saving and life-changing work every single day. They are hardworking professionals, committed to patient care, and, of course, we know that most of these health professionals do the right thing every day. In fact, they go above and beyond to serve their fellow Australians.

But we also know that some are not; not all are abiding by the Medicare rules. We place an enormous amount of trust in our healthcare professionals. In fact, we place our lives and the lives of the people we love the most in their hands. The Australian people too place an enormous amount of trust in us as a government to oversee the system of Medicare, which is so important and so embedded in the Australian way of life and all that we value in terms of our healthcare system and in choosing what we fund in a public policy sense. So it is essential that Medicare is not just always in a process of continual improvement but that we're working to protect the system to make sure that it is strong against any kind of threat or risk of misuse and that it's financially stable over the long term. Strengthening Medicare isn't just about expanding services and building the system; it's also about upholding the integrity of the system that millions of Australians rely upon every single day.

In November 2022, our Minister for Health and Ageing, Mark Butler, commissioned health economist Dr Pradeep Philip to lead an independent review of Medicare integrity and compliance. The findings of that review were clear: while most practitioners are doing the right thing, our systems need strengthening to better detect and prevent fraud, errors and misuse. In response to that review, our government established the Medicare Integrity Taskforce, funded through the 2023-24 and 2024-25 budgets to implement the Philip review's recommendations.

That's what this bill before us is seeking to do. It amends the National Health Act, the Health Insurance Act, the Human Services (Medicare) Act and the Dental Benefits Act and covers health insurance, Medicare, dental benefits and more to respond to a range of the issues identified in the Philip review. It ensures we can better detect and respond to fraud, strengthen investigative powers and reduce the Medicare claim window from two years to one, maintaining flexibility. Importantly, these changes will only affect a small number of providers, and it's those providers who already aren't doing the right thing. These changes will help us build a more protected and more sustainable Medicare system, one that delivers safe, high-quality care now and into the future.

These changes are very important. Strengthening Medicare is in our DNA as a Labor movement. We built Medicare. We are incredibly proud of the impact it has had on lives in Australia. In fact, we are the envy of the world. But we are also deeply ambitious for our Medicare system because we know how important it is for Australians, how hard it was to build and how important it is that we defend it. Medicare is the pride of Australia, a proud Labor legacy, and it will always be our mission in government to strengthen it and to build on it.

Indeed, when we came to government, this work was more urgent than ever after a decade of neglect by the previous coalition government. When we were first elected, it had never been harder or more expensive to find a doctor. Bulk-billing was in freefall. General practice was under pressure after a decade of coalition cuts and neglect, and we took swift and decisive action as the custodians of Medicare in this place. In our first term, we delivered the largest investment in Medicare since its creation and promised $8.5 billion to restore bulk-billing, expand the GP workforce and improve access to care.