Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Polley. The Albanese Labor government will always protect and strengthen Medicare, whether it is expanding bulk-billing, delivering cheaper medicines or delivering the 137 urgent care clinics, which will mean that four out of five Australians will live within a 20-minute drive of an urgent care clinic. I'd invite the Senate to compare that to the record of those opposite. They gutted the Medicare system. They tried to end bulk-billing with the GP co-payment. They froze Medicare rebates so that it would be harder to see a doctor, and the only way they could get their bulk-billing rates up was by inflating them, relying on a massive number of COVID related bulk-billing appointments that were taken during the pandemic. They don't agree on very much on the other side, but the one thing they can agree on is gutting Medicare, where Labor will always protect it and always strengthen it.