Melissa McIntosh (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Morrison government has increased funding for Medicare by $6 billion in this year's federal budget. In fact, we've increased funding to Medicare from $19 billion under Labor to $30 billion this coming financial year, and we are increasing it by $1 billion each year after that. This record investment in Medicare is up 58 per cent compared to when Labor were last in government.

Telehealth has been a great investment by the Morrison government during the pandemic. In my seat of Lindsay, there have been nearly 370,000 telehealth consultations through Medicare since the start of the pandemic. These services are now being extended. As a local cardiologist, Dr Choon Lee, says: telehealth is bulk-billed and it's very convenient in that sense. In many practices in Lindsay, doctors and specialists are using these types of services to help people in my community get the health care they need—bulk-billed and convenient.

As part of the budget, our government is investing more than $114 million to extend telehealth until the end of this year. GP bulk-billing rates have reached an all-time high. In my local community, there have been over 2.1 million free or subsidised medicines under the PBS. This is our commitment to Medicare and bulk-billing, and it is a rock-solid commitment. These figures show that we're supporting the health and wellbeing of Australians—more now than ever before, and particularly in my community of Lindsay. (Time expired)