Carina Garland (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I think the extraordinary attack we just heard on urgent care clinics should give us all pause for thought to recognise that these urgent care clinics are under real risk from the coalition at the next election. I know the people in my community and the people who use the urgent care clinics in Chisholm—we've got one in Mount Waverley—should be quite concerned about what a government led by the worst health minister in Australia's history would do to our community's health.

We said at the election that there was no higher priority for Labor in the health portfolio than strengthening Medicare and rebuilding general practice. I grew up in a household where my parents ran general practices. So, it is so dear to my heart that Australians have access to health care when they need it, regardless of how much money they might have to pay.

Our budget from this year provides $2.8 billion to continue to strengthen Medicare. Of course, Medicare is a Labor invention, and we are proud of it. This $2.8 billion that we're going to use to continue to strengthen Medicare is in addition to what was an historic $6.1 billion investment in Medicare in last year's budget.

The reforms we're introducing respond to the recommendations of the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce, taking the key steps needed to address the many pressing challenges in our healthcare system and making sure that it is a system that can be sustained for years to come.

Our government has delivered more than double the amount of indexation to Medicare than the previous government did in almost a decade. What a waste of time that was. We know the financial viability of general practice as we went into the last election was in serious trouble. There was a six-year freeze on Medicare rebates that started when the now Leader of the Opposition was health minister. That is a damning record.

We know that the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners took the step of calling on every GP in the country to stop bulk-billing to maintain the viability of general practice. What a parlous state our health system was placed in under the now Leader of the Opposition when he was health minister.

A government member: Australia's worst.

Absolutely Australia's worst, I hear from my friend, who is a doctor and would know a thing or two about health care.

Of course, strengthening general practice and Medicare is not the only thing our government is doing to protect and enhance the health of Australians. We went into the election promising that we would make medicines cheaper, and we're delivering on that promise.

It is quite amazing that people in my electorate have saved over $7 million since we introduced 60-day scripts. This is money back into the pockets of households when they really need that extra money. It's freeing up appointments at general practices right across my community and right across the country. And I know that through our investments in Medicare and the changes we've made to bulk-billing we've had almost 31,000 additional visits to bulk-billing GPs. We know nationally, too, that we've seen a huge boost. In my home state of Victoria, we've had an additional 1.4 million visits to GPs.

I think we should be concerned, as I said at the start of this contribution, about what would happen to our healthcare system if Australia's worst health minister ever got anywhere near becoming Prime Minister. We know there is an ideological dislike, hatred and loathing for Medicare. We saw that previous Liberal governments axed universal schemes like Medibank. So, there is form here. As they say, the greatest predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour, so we should all be very concerned about what will happen to Medicare and what will happen to our broader healthcare system if those opposite ever get the chance to be in government again.

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