Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Cunningham for the question but also for her support of the Wollongong Medicare Urgent Care Clinic. I am happy to say that today we opened the 78th Medicare urgent care clinic. This one is in Southport—the second clinic on the Gold Coast. The first Gold Coast clinic, in Oxenford, has already seen 10,000 patients, 4,000 of them under the age of 15, and every single one fully bulk billed. They're getting terrific, urgent care, free of charge, but also taking pressure off the busiest emergency department in the country.

We're not only opening more urgent care clinics; we're delivering more doctors and we're delivering more bulk billing. In the past two years, we've seen more doctors enter the system than at any time in the past decade. Our record investments in bulk billing have finally stopped the slide in bulk billing that we inherited from those opposite after a decade of cuts and neglect—something the College of GPs called 'freefall'. We've also seen a rebound in every single state and territory and seen an additional 5.4 million free visits to the GP just in the past 12 months.

Now, we know there's much more to do, but we are starting to turn Medicare around after a decade of cuts and neglect. But, as the member points out, all of this progress is under threat from a Liberal Party who has never supported Medicare, led by an anti-Medicare trinity who all have form in this area.

Of course, the gold medal for undermining Medicare always goes to the Leader of the Opposition, voted by doctors as the worst health minister in the history of Medicare after he tried to abolish bulk billing altogether and tried to take $50 billion out of public hospitals, and so much else besides. But coming up second is the deputy Liberal leader, who takes a more Socratic approach to these things, taking the time this week to explain the deep philosophical underpinnings—

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