Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

KIE () (): My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Last week I met with Darren and Vicky, pensioners from my electorate. Vicki has a lung disease but cancelled her last medical appointment because she couldn't afford it. Every day I'm hearing from constituents who can no longer access a doctor as medical practices are ceasing bulk billing in Mayo, leaving many constituents sick and untreated. What is the government doing about this crisis?

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

I thank the member for Mayo for her question. I know how deeply concerned she is about the state of general practice—in particular, in her electorate. I've talked to her about that, and I appreciate the way she's engaging with the government on health policy as well as policy more broadly.

I share the member's concerns not just in relation to our state of South Australia but in relation to the nation more broadly. I've said that I think general practice is in the worst shape it's been in the almost 40-year history of Medicare. All of the trends in general practice are bad. The member talks about bulk-billing rates. The former government used to come to this dispatch box regularly and pretend they were at record levels, were going terrifically well, when we know the reality could not be more different. We know that bulk-billing rates have been dropping. I suspect every member of this—

Interjections from the former minister for health are ironic, to say the least. I suspect every member of this House is talking to GPs and patients who say that bulk-billing rates are plummeting in their area, GPs who tell them how distressed they are at having to change their bulk-billing policies. We know that about one in three Australians pay a gap fee in this country, and those gap fees have skyrocketed. Now, for the first time in the history of Medicare, the average gap fee for a standard GP consult is more than the Medicare rebate itself. Patients are paying more out of their own pockets than Medicare contributes to a standard GP consult.

It's not just bulk-billing rates and gap fees. We know there's a workforce crisis in general practice, with fewer and fewer medical graduates choosing to go into general practice. It's no mystery why, and it's no mystery who in this country bears more responsibility than anyone else for the parlous state of general practice: it's the now Leader of the Opposition, who tried to ram through a tax that would make every Australian pay a fee for every consult in general practice and, when he couldn't do that, froze the Medicare rebate for six long years.

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A point of order: I asked the government what they are doing to address this crisis.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The point of order was on relevance, and I draw the minister back to the question.

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

I'm not going to pretend that it's going to be a quick or an easy job to fix up nine long years of cuts and neglect. But in our first budget, instead of a GP tax and raising the cost of medicines, we've already invested $160 million in a rural general practice package. We've invested more than $220 million to strengthen general practice grants, which we'll be rolling out over the coming weeks and months. Only last week, again, I met with the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce to advise the government on our investment of $250 million each and every year to strengthen Medicare. Member for Mayo, rest assured that this government has no higher priority than rebuilding general practice.