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

It's always a pleasure for me to stand and talk about health and Medicare. My speech today is also going to focus on women's health. Since being elected nearly three years ago, I have on every occasion possible spoken about health in this place, particularly as it relates to those in my electorate and also particularly on women's health issues.

This motion is about the government's legislation strengthening Medicare. I do not agree with most of the statements within the motion, despite my respect for the honourable member for Robertson. But there is one part of this that I do agree with. The free Medicare urgent care clinics are, in my view, the one area where this government, to give them credit, has improved health services. Unfortunately, though, it is just the one area, and unfortunately there are no free Medicare urgent care clinics provided in my electorate.

My electorate is the western end of the Sutherland shire—the Liverpool area—and now stretches down into south-west Sydney. Despite there being a number of doctors and also that south-west Sydney has been represented by Labor members for a long time, there has been very little investment in the south-west of Sydney. I am calling upon this government to, before the election, make a commitment to a free Medicare urgent care clinic within my electorate. South-western Sydney is one of the fastest growing areas in our country, in our state and in the very large city of Sydney. It is unacceptable that this area has been so neglected on health, that this government was very choosy about the electorates in which these urgent clinics would be placed, and my electorate missed out.

So I'm now calling upon this government to ensure that, before we adjourn and go into full campaign mode, the Prime Minister—who says he cares about health and says he cares about south-west Sydney—will make that commitment to the people in my electorate. And while the Prime Minister is there, I would ask him to make a similar commitment for women's health. I note that Labor has recently announced an extra $573 million package for women's health, and that is supported by the coalition. I'm very glad that, at last, those on the other side have discovered that there are women's health issues and that women have very different needs to those of men.

See this speech in context