Daniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

There are parts to this motion on health care that I don't disagree with. I do agree with the underlying sentiment of the motion, which is to broaden access to core medical services. The fact that Labor introduced Medicare in the 1980s and has supported it significantly since then is the aspect of the Labor Party's legacy which I'm most proud of. I've thought about this a lot, I've written about it and I've undertaken research in relation to it. For me, it is one of the most important functions of government.

Where I don't agree with this motion is the extent to which it doesn't acknowledged the constraints. What it basically puts forward is an unrealistic wish list of things the mover of the motion would like to see achieved immediately. What I'm going to point out is that, in the context of what we inherited when we came to government, there has been a very significant turnaround in the underlying stability of the Medicare system, and it is one that is all the more significant given the constraints that this government has been operating under. When we came to government, we inherited from the previous government 10 years of neglect of Medicare, among other policy issues. There had been a freeze on Medicare rebates for six years. The previous government, of course, in their first horror budget, tried to introduce a co-payment. So the previous government, both through financial neglect and at times through ideological misadventure, had tried to undermine Medicare.

What we saw were a whole range of pressures building up. We saw pressures building such that GPs and others in the healthcare system were increasingly unable to offer bulk-billing. It is important to look at the particular timeline of bulk-billing, but what's really important, rather than looking at a year-to-year change alone, is to look at the underlying pressures that had been building up. What is clear is that, by the time we got to the 2022 election, all too many doctors were facing a situation where they were just not able to offer bulk-billing at the rates they would have liked to or, indeed, at all.

Indeed, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners took the extraordinary step around this time of calling on every GP in the country to stop bulk-billing to maintain the viability of general practice. Dr Karen Price said that: 'This is why, as a college, I am exhorting everybody, including my own practice, to move as many people as you can onto private billing.' There was a huge pressure building in the system, and that was something that was going to play out in a very dramatic and adverse fashion, particularly for the most vulnerable. What happened when we took over is that we dramatically increased funding to strengthen Medicare. We increased funding by $6.1 billion dollars in the 2023-24 budget—a historic investment, particularly given the state of the overall economy, and that was backed up by an additional $2.8 billion in the 2024-25 budget. To put it in context, this government has delivered more than double the amount of indexation in relation to Medicare than the previous government did in a decade, and it did all of that at a time when the government's fiscal position has been under strain.

At the same time, we've put into place very significant measures in relation to cheaper medicines: a 60-day prescription and a cap of $31.60 for medicines on the PBS. All of these measures have saved billions across the community, but significantly—for those most vulnerable—they have been particularly beneficial. I can speak for people in my electorate of Fraser that the cheaper medicines initiatives that this government have brought in have been particularly welcome. We have opened 77 Medicare urgent care clinics across Australia, including 19, already, of the 29 Medicare urgent care clinics announced in this year's budget. There have been almost 860,000 visits to Medicare urgent care clinics across Australia, and all of these have been completely bulk-billed. This is a significant measure, and given where these are located—including one in my own electorate, and again, I've talked to people that have used that and seen the benefits that it has produced. This government has turned around this system. It has responded to the under-investment, neglect and ideological poor positioning from the previous government, and the Medicare system is, thankfully, much stronger than it was when we came to power.

See this speech in context