Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My electorate of Macarthur is now the biggest electorate in the country by population. We are way bigger than many other electorates, from Tasmania to Western Australia et cetera. Names like Gregory Hills, Arcadian Hills, Willowdale and Oran Park may mean nothing to you, but they are new suburbs on the south-western outskirts of Sydney. Unfortunately, most of those suburbs cannot access health care. We have a dire shortage of general practitioners. The previous government has done absolutely nothing to deal with that. Many of the people in my electorate, particularly those with young families, don't have a named GP—they go to their local hospitals in Camden, Campbelltown and Liverpool to access medical care. This is putting enormous pressure on our health system, and it's time for something to be done. This government will do something about it, but it requires innovative solutions. It requires a lot of effort into our major teaching hospitals, providing expertise to try to improve access to primary care. It needs everyone working to their highest scope of practice. We need to change the system. It is not working for people in my electorate, and we must change.