Jenny Ware (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2024-2025, being the federal budget, and I specifically want to address the areas of women's health, urgent care clinics and mental health. Labor heralded this budget as putting women's health as a central component. There are some parts of this budget that are very positive for women's health, and the coalition has acknowledged this and will continue to acknowledge this. We have over the past couple of decades in particular made significant gains in many areas of women's health, particularly, for example, in the area of breast cancer diagnosis and treatment.

However, many Australian women suffer from chronic pelvic pain—conditions such as endometriosis, polycystic ovarian syndrome and chronic period pain. These conditions are debilitating and distressing and impair women's ability to live their lives to the fullest. Therefore, the coalition does welcome the government's investment into women's health, which was $49.9 million over four years, to support women who have endometriosis and pelvic pain. The government has acknowledged that this builds on significant work that was commenced by the coalition in this critical area. The funding will support gynaecology consultations of 45 minutes or longer for patients with complex conditions such as endometriosis, which we know requires specialised care.

I'm very pleased to say that the coalition had led the way in committing significant funding to initially set up this process so that women suffering from endometriosis and pelvic pain have access to the support they need. I do commend the government for continuing the work that was started by former coalition governments.

We want to ensure, though, that the establishment of the pelvic pain clinics will result in the integrated multidisciplinary care that the coalition committed to delivering. Therefore, my question to the government is: can the government provide any data on the number of additional services that are being provided to women suffering from endometriosis and POS since these clinics were established? We do recognise, as the federal opposition Leader said in his budget reply speech, that more needs to be done to support women's health. That's why I'm very pleased to be part of a coalition that is committed to undertake a review of women's health items available through Medicare and the PBS and also to support measures and develop policy around primary care as well as around menopause and perimenopause.

I turn now to ovarian cancer. It's a silent cancer, difficult to diagnose and, tragically, often diagnosed too late for treatment. The coalition, in its budget reply this year, again committed to increasing funding for this scourge and has committed $4 million in funding for Ovarian Cancer Australia.

I turn now to urgent care clinics. Despite the urgency of Labor's primary care crisis, the budget's Strengthening Medicare package focuses on an unproven election commitment by funding an additional 29 urgent care clinics. In principle, urgent care clinics are a very good idea. However, we have found that, in the delivery of this policy, many urgent care clinics have already been established that are not open for the promised extended hours. We've heard reports that they are not even equipped with the critical services necessary to address patients' urgent inquiries and illnesses, as they were established to do. Therefore, my question to the government is: has the government undertaken an evaluation of the existing urgent care clinics to assess whether they are achieving their intended purpose of taking pressure off local emergency departments, prior to the funding of an additional 29 that was announced in this budget?

In the time allocated, I want to talk about mental health. Mental ill health is a terrible scourge in our community, particularly with rising rates among our teenagers and younger people. We previously had 20 Medicare subsidised psychology sessions. The government in the last budget took that away, halving it to 10. The coalition has repeatedly asked for the extra 10 to be put back into the system. We have committed to putting those extra 10 back in to ensure that people who are experiencing mental health crises are not punished by not being able to afford to see a psychologist at a time when they really need to.

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