Terry Young (Longman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this motion about the GP Access After Hours service with pleasure. I wholeheartedly disagree with the member for Newcastle's suggestion that the government's not supporting primary health care for Australians. I stand here proud to be part of the Morrison government that is committed to improving the lives of all Australian through health care and GP services when and where they need them. We have made access to safe, quality and accessible health care a priority for all Australians—especially through this COVID-19 pandemic—but we won't stop there. We will continue to work with our GP specialists and consumers across the country to improve the delivery of care.

Bribie Island, in my electorate of Longman, is well-known for having the oldest average population in Queensland and for being a great place for our senior Australians to retire. In early September last year, I announced that Bribie Islanders will have access to the medical care they need thanks to a new trial of after-hours primary care, with the Australian government investing $500,000 in the Brisbane North Primary Health Network to co-design and develop this service. This was a huge win for our Bribie Island residents, who have for years been calling for better access to medical services because their community doesn't have an established after-hours healthcare service available through their GPs or medical deputising arrangements.

I also discovered that mobile GP services like 13SICK National Home Doctor deem it not economically viable to make house calls on Bribie Island, due to the geographic location of Bribie Island and simply no mobile GPs living close by to Bribie. Go figure. Why wouldn't you want to live on Bribie Island? In fact, when I was first elected the lack of after-hours GP services on Bribie Island was one of the main issues that came up. Not having an after-hours GP in the community that is known for its older population simply isn't good enough for our senior residents who call Bribie Island home, and as their federal member I have been fighting to bring this project to fruition.

A single bridge connects Bribie Island to the mainland and sees many people coming and going every day. Currently the Bribie Island community, including its older residents, is forced to drive over the bridge in order to access urgent after-hours medical treatment or care 20 kilometres away in Caboolture. This means that if there's an accident on the only bridge leading in and out of Bribie Island, our senior residents are stuck and unable to get the medical attention they need. Although I had secured funding for this service last year, its rollout has been delayed. But there is good news on the horizon, and we are making progress. It has been a long and arduous process to find a service provider, but I'm pleased to announce today that primary health network Brisbane has advised me that a provider will be announced early in the New Year. I know this will be a relief for the Bribie Island community as well as the surrounding suburbs.

It's incorrect to suggest that the Commonwealth government, which since the 2018-19 budget has invested over $3 billion in new primary healthcare initiatives, doesn't care about the primary health of Australians. Each year the government spends more than $728 million on access to after-hours GP services through higher MBS rebates, incentives for GP practices to stay open longer and funding to the primary health networks. In the 2021-22 budget the Australian government provided funding of $71 million to extend the PHN After Hours Program for one year, increasing the government's total investment in the program to more than $452 million since 2015. Does this sound like a government that doesn't care? I don't think so.

Providing Australians with affordable access to universal health care is a key pillar of the Australian government's long-term national health plan. We're investing a record $125 billion in Medicare, an increase of $6 billion over the forward estimates, to ensure that all Australians continue to access high-quality, affordable health care, including primary care services. This investment includes an additional $204 million to extend COVID-19 MBS telehealth measures, providing unprecedented access to healthcare services including GPs, specialists, nursing, midwifery, allied health and mental health services. The increased investment in Medicare announced in the 2021-22 budget includes more than $65 million from 1 January 2022 to boost bulk-billing rebates and to provide more affordable health care for patients in regional, rural and remote areas.

Meanwhile, I'm pleased to say that, thanks to the Commonwealth government, Bribie Island will have immediate access to a GP for after-hours care. As we head into an election there will no doubt be misinformation and unsubstantiated claims made by others; this, sadly, is a fact in the political world we live in. But I know that the Australian people are not fools, and that they will see through any falsehoods that may be circulating.

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