Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

GALLAGHER (—) (): I thank Senator Anandah-Rajah for the question and also for her deep knowledge and experience in Australia's health system in her previous life as a specialist doctor working across public health matters. If anyone knows the importance of Medicare and investing in Medicare, it's Senator Ananda-Rajah. We have made it one of the Albanese government's key priorities to make sure that we are strengthening the public health system, particularly in the areas that we have responsibility for in primary care and in the price of medicines.

It was very clear that, when we came to government, we needed to do a lot of work to strengthen Medicare. We needed to bring it back from the brink of nine years of neglect under those opposite, where they had failed to invest, where they had ensured that indexation had been frozen to the point that many practitioners were unable to bulk-bill their patients anymore. What did that mean? It meant pensioners, it meant families, it meant children and it meant parents seeking help for their kids were having to pay more to see a doctor. We did prioritise this in finding additional room in the budget—one of my jobs—to make sure that we were able to resource these essential public services. We've increased investment in Medicare. We've seen the biggest increase in Medicare rebates—more in just two years than the former government did in nine years. I think that says everything about the priority that we place in Medicare.

Last year as a result of us tripling the bulk-billing incentive for pensioners, children and concession card holders, the biggest investment in bulk-billing in its history, more than nine out of 10 visits to the GP were free for people eligible for the incentive. We can see that it works, and we aren't stopping there. We've got more commitments to roll out from November, including the work that this Senate passed on cheaper medicines yesterday. (Time expired)