Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Hasluck for her question because I know on this side of the House people are delighted with the announcements from last night to invest more money in primary care, the front line of our health system. Whether it is more money for GPs, whether it is more money for infrastructure for general practice or whether it is more money for practice nurses, all of these initiatives are vital for making sure that constituents in our electorates can get the health care they need when they need it.

One of the key initiatives from last night deals with the very fact that we know people do not get sick just between nine and five, Monday to Friday. People need care and access to nurses and doctors after hours. Unfortunately, what many of us might think is anecdotal when people come to our electorate offices and say, ‘I can’t get access to a GP,’ or, ‘My GP stopped opening late on work days,’ or, ‘My GP doesn’t open on the weekends any longer,’ is not anecdotal; this is real.

What we know is that in the last decade, during the watch of the Leader of the Opposition as the health minister, the percentage of doctors providing their own after-hours services reduced from around 50 per cent to 28 per cent. So what we have committed, as part of a $2.2 billion investment into primary care, is the expansion of an online and phone service to be able to get immediate advice from a nurse, follow-up advice from a GP and referral through our Medicare Locals to a local GP if someone who rings the service needs to have a GP visit.

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