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

We are expanding the availability of free urgent health care. There are now 122 Medicare Urgent Care Clinics open across Australia. They are giving our hospitals, our GPs and our communities the support that they need. The Albanese Labor government has also delivered the largest investment in the history of Medicare—$8½ billion—and since our investment started there are now 3,300 Medicare bulk-billing practices nationwide. Over 1,200 of those clinics were previously mixed billing under the arrangements that were put in place by those opposite. That's why we take the approach we do. We had to take action. Under those opposite the bulk-billing rates were in freefall because of the coalition's six-year freeze of the Medicare rebate, which ripped billions out of the Medicare system.