Ellie Whiteaker (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Under this Labor government, women's health is finally being taken seriously. That's what happens when you have a majority-women caucus and when you have a government that listens to women. When the government announced Australia's first ever gender equality strategy back in March 2024, we made sure that women's health was one of five key priorities.

Earlier this year, we announced our historic $790 million women's health package. This package brings more choice, lower costs and better health care for women. We've listed new contraceptives on the PBS for the first time in 30 years and new menopausal hormone therapies for the first time in 20 years. Combine that with the reduction of PBS medicines to $25 next year, and it means that women will literally save hundreds of dollars each year.

We're also delivering further savings for women's health care by expanding bulk-billing and increasing Medicare support for long-term contraceptives such as IUDs and implants. We believe women should have more control over their health care, and, for me, this is personal. I know all too well what it's like not to have your health taken seriously, to suffer debilitating pain and be told, 'It's just part of being a woman,' to be fobbed off by doctors time and time again, and then to finally get a diagnosis but realising you have to pay hundreds of dollars for the medication that will manage your pain because it's not on the PBS.

I am one of one million Australian women with endometriosis. I don't remember the first time I felt pelvic pain, but I do remember the first time I presented to the emergency room with pain so severe that the doctors thought my appendix might be about to burst. I was in year 5. I can't tell you how many GPs I visited in the almost 10 years that followed, but I can tell you about the day a male GP told my mum and I that 'every teenage girl is pregnant until proven otherwise'. I was 14. I can't count the number of times I was told, 'It's just bad period pain' or 'Just get pregnant; that will fix it.' It didn't. But I can count the number of people it took to change it all for me—five wonderful health professionals took my pain seriously and worked with me on a plan to get on top of it. I was 19. It had been almost 10 years.

My brilliant GP, Dr Jane Spencer, referred me to the pelvic pain clinic at King Edward Memorial Hospital in Perth. A physiotherapist, psychologist, gynaecologist and pain specialist work together in a multidisciplinary team to help women who, like me, feel like they're running out of options. I remember walking out of that appointment and feeling like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Finally, people were listening; finally, I had some answers, a name for what I had been suffering for so long; and finally, I had a plan. Then, of course, I realised that the medications that could help weren't on the PBS and that I would be paying upwards of $100 every time I filled a script.

My story is not unique. It takes women, on average, more than six years to be diagnosed with endometriosis, and too many women suffer medical misogyny, which delays diagnosis and minimises their pain. Accessing the treatment we need once we have a diagnosis has been too cost prohibitive for too long. So I am always proud to be Labor, but I was particularly proud on the day we announced our half-a-billion-dollar package to tackle women's health—to give back choice to women, to give back control to women. I am so proud to be part of a government that is expanding the network of pelvic pain clinics, because I know all too well how life-changing one of those appointments can be.

I was so proud when we announced we would finally list more medications for women on the PBS—because when you're suffering from something like endo, you shouldn't have to pay more to manage it. This Women's Health Week, we should talk about things that for too long have been ignored or fobbed off. My message to women today is this: if you're suffering from pelvic pain, don't suffer in silence. It's probably not just a bad period. Your pain matters and you matter. Help is available—and, under this Labor government, we're committed to providing it.