Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

When you sit in the chamber of the House of Representatives in the federal parliament and listen to Dr Mike Freelander, the member for Macarthur, you learn things. I have the utmost respect for the member for Macarthur and certainly thank him for what he has done in his local community as far as health outcomes are concerned. I went on a trip with the good doctor to Papua New Guinea, where we looked at Pacific global health initiatives, and I know that the follow-up we did after that trip was beneficial to one of our closest friends and allies. In fact, Dr Mike is so good he should be the health minister. If he were, I would probably get more signed correspondence from him than I do from the current health minister, the member for Hindmarsh. Of the 29 reps that I've made to the Minister for Health and Aged Care, 28 have been signed by his chief of staff and one by his acting chief of staff. I know that, when I was a minister, when I got a rep from a colleague, from either side of the aisle, I followed it up in person or personally signed the correspondence back to them in most, if not all, cases.

But I appreciate this is a debate on the Health Insurance Legislation Amendment (Assignment of Medicare Benefits) Bill 2024, and I want to take the member for Macarthur up on some of the points that he made. Whilst I agree with him on some of the points that he raised, whilst I respect him always, whilst I appreciate he has probably forgotten more about health than most of us may ever know, I want to take him up on some of the points he made about the years that we were in government. I will start with bulk-billing, which, in Minister Butler's own words, is the 'beating heart of Medicare'. But it has plummeted by 11 per cent since the last election. That is a fact. That is a truism. It has fallen from 88.5 per cent when the coalition left office in May 2022 to 77 per cent under the current health minister. That is such a shame.

Whilst in government, the coalition did the following. I know the member for McArthur said that they were years of dysfunction and neglect. Well, that is not true, because we provided $99.3 million for 80 additional Commonwealth supported places so more students could study medicine at rural campuses. He mentioned National Party seats. Many of those rural campuses are in National Party seats. Sixty-six million dollars was invested to make it easier and more affordable to access Medicare-funded MRI scans in regional, rural and remote Australia from 1 November 2022. That was a big step forward.

There was $36.2 million to establish two university departments of rural health in the South West and Goldfields regions of Western Australia, in Edith Cowan University and Curtin University. I appreciate this is a long way from my electorate of Riverina and a long way from the electorate of Parkes, the seat of my good learned friend who sits supporting me. But I've been to WA many, many times as a member of this place, and, let me tell you, remote health services and outcomes are so important. There was $14.8 million to support Charles Sturt University to deliver a rural clinical school. We were also supporting, when we lost government, the National Rural Health Student Network of rural health clubs with $2.1 million over four years.

This will be interest of the member for Parkes, and I know he knows this very well. An additional $33.3 million—

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