Sam Rae (Hawke, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) recognises that the Government continues to strengthen Medicare through delivering the important service of the planned 58 Medicare Urgent Care Clinics which will take pressure off our emergency departments; and

(2) notes that Medicare Urgent Care Clinics are designed to make it easier for Australian families to see a doctor or a nurse when they have an urgent, but not life threatening, need for care that is bulk billed.

The Albanese government are delivering on our promise to roll out 58 urgent care centres across Australia. It's true that seeing a GP isn't easy. Too often, people are left waiting, or they're unable to pay. It has never been harder to get an appointment or more expensive at the back end of it. The Albanese government is dealing with workforce shortages to address the root cause in a system that was left to languish over the Liberals' wasted decade defined by missed opportunities and degradation of our primary health care system because they weren't governing for all Australians; they were too busy governing for themselves. They've got no understanding of the people in my electorate of Hawke, and many others like it, and they don't care to know. Instead of investing in things that actually mattered to communities like mine, like our primary health care system, Medicare, child care, TAFE and so much more, they abandoned us when we needed a good government to step up and get things done.

My community won't forget how they were treated by those opposite. It doesn't take long to find examples—like robodebt, recently re-litigated through the royal commission, unveiling the scale and size of the disdain they hold for our communities. In Melton alone, the centre of my electorate, 3,598 people were victimised by this illegitimate and illegal debt-recovery robodebt program. That's more than 3,500 people in one part of my electorate who through no fault of their own were ruthlessly pursued by those opposite for debts they had not incurred. It was wrong and it can never happen again. That's just one example of the way that my community has been treated by those opposite.

So we have been given the task of helping Australia to recover. The Albanese government haven't wasted a day when it comes to our record on fixing the mistakes of those opposite. During the election campaign, we said we'd invest in our primary health care system. We said it was a priority. Our GPs and health workforce do amazing work across our communities. They're on the front lines and they're always there when we need them most. But it's no secret that our primary health system needs targeted and sustained investment to break the bottlenecks that are causing delays to care. I've heard from locals all across my electorate that we need a solution for when you don't need the lights and sirens but waiting for a GP appointment just isn't an option.

After almost 10 years of cuts and neglect by the former government, primary care is in the worst shape it has been in for 40 years—the worst shape it has been in in the history of Medicare. Bulk-billing rates have steadily declined, and only 14 per cent of medical graduates work in general practice, down from 50 per cent.

Delivering an urgent care centre for Sunbury was one of my top priorities as a candidate running for election, and I've worked really closely with Minister Butler as well as the state member for Sunbury, Josh Bull, to get this over the line. It opened up at the end of June and it's already making a huge difference for locals, with fully bulk-billed services and no need for an appointment, and with all services being provided by highly trained and qualified doctors and nurses.

We're doing what we said we'd do. We're rolling out 58 Medicare urgent care centres all across Australia, and we're kicking in almost $500 million to get this done. My Victorian colleagues are also seeing the benefits of this rollout in their electorates right across our state, whether it's in Ballarat, Dunkley, Corio, Jagajaga, Bruce, Macnamara, Lalor or Nicholls. Many members in this place, just like me, are now seeing the direct benefits flow on to their electorates and their communities because we have gotten on with the job of rolling out these important centres.

I've heard loud and clear from those in my electorate that this is already making a big difference. We've had 360 visits in the short period that the urgent care centre has been open. Whether it's for sprains, broken bones, cuts, wounds, insect bites, minor ear and eye problems, or minor burns they're putting in the work to deliver top-quality care for our community in Sunbury and, indeed, across Hawke. It's saving us time waiting in hospital emergency departments and in doing so it's taking pressure off those hospital emergency departments so that we don't end up with a tertiary healthcare system that is clogged with minor ailments at the emergency end of it. We're strengthening Medicare, we're making it easier for families to access quality care close to home and we're meeting the needs of the community in a time frame that is realistic and that ultimately ensures that we have the best possible health care for those who need it most.

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

Is the motion seconded?

Kylea Tink (North Sydney, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Colin Boyce (Flynn, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Hawke claims that the Labor government is strengthening Medicare with urgent care clinics across Australia; however, there are a few things he failed to mention. The urgent care clinics promised for Rockhampton and Bundaberg remain undelivered, as the Labor government fails to meet the delivery deadline. Labor promised all 50 urgent care clinics announced during the election would be up and running by 1 July 2023, but only a handful have been established by the Labor Albanese government. It has come to my attention that these clinics have been established as a result of the Labor government simply taking over existing clinics, which fails to deliver one more doctor and one more consult for patients. Experts on the ground are even advising that the clinics will not take the pressure off of Australia's health system as promised. The government's failure to establish and deliver the original 50 clinics within their own time frame is a blatant broken promise.

Since this Labor government came to power it has become more difficult to get access to a GP. Our healthcare system is under serious pressure and now they have broken their promise on delivering urgent care clinics in Rockhampton and Bundaberg to relieve the local hospitals. A local doctor in my electorate has told me that he has 5,000 patients on his books. Labor promised local residents that they would establish this additional health service, yet their failure to meet the deadline proves that they cannot be trusted to deliver real and urgent outcomes.

The Albanese government continues to prove that Labor only prioritises health during election campaigns and it fails when it comes to delivering the services that the people of the Flynn electorate need. For instance, in the election campaign Labor ran the platform policy of: 'Child care. Medicare. Aged care. Labor cares.' Here are the facts. Child care is in crisis, Medicare is in crisis, aged care is in crisis and the Labor government is in crisis.

Let's look at their record since they took office in May last year. Kindergartens in Biloela and Mount Morgan have been forced to close. GPs across the Flynn electorate are leaving the region and closing their clinics. An aged-care facility in Mount Morgan has announced that it will close. Labor also promised that every urgent care clinic would be open during the extended times of 8 am to 10 pm as a key part of their operation, but it was revealed in budget estimates that this won't even be the case.

The Labor government was elected on a platform of strengthening Medicare and all we've seen so far is our Medicare system weaken. We've seen 70 telehealth services cut from Medicare. We've seen mental health service rebates slashed in half. Right around the country we're seeing the ramping at our hospitals getting worse and worse. Labor promised that they would make it easier and cheaper to see a doctor, but the Labor government has ripped doctors out of rural and regional Australia by changing the distribution priority areas. Without an urgent and comprehensive workforce strategy to address the workforce crisis it will not be easier to see a GP, no matter how many headline promises they make.

For all their rhetoric on prioritising health and aged care leading to the election, this Labor government continues to ignore the biggest issue facing both systems, which is workforce shortages. By refusing to develop a strategy to address this urgent issue our healthcare and aged-care systems remain under serious pressure. Labor's promises have delivered only headlines with no practical outcomes. Australians must look to this government's actions and not its words. It is harming our aged-care system by fast-tracking undeliverable requirements, it has removed critical support from Australians struggling with their mental health and it has redirected desperately needed doctors away from rural and regional towns in Australia.

Communities in my electorate of Flynn in the Rockhampton and Bundaberg regions are desperately awaiting an urgent care clinic that was supposed to be up and delivered months ago. However, it is becoming more and more evident that this Labor government has sold the Australian public a lie, and it's the people of my electorate who are suffering the outcome.

Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor is the party of Medicare, which will celebrate its 40th birthday in February next year. This has been proven time and time again, perhaps never so emphatically as by this government this year, with policies and budget provision to support Medicare, as Minister Butler has said, into the 21st century. We have seen significantly cheaper medicines at a time when cost of living is an issue, a tripling of the bulk-billing incentive in the May budget for those most in need, extension of public dental services, more after-hours primary care, expansion of general practice and scope, a boost for mental health services and real support for health workers.

The Medicare urgent care clinics are an excellent way to address pressures in the health system. There will be 58 of these delivered around the country during this term of government. I will focus my remarks on the clinics being rolled out in Western Australia. The areas earmarked by the health minister for Medicare urgent care clinics in WA are inner Perth, Rockingham, Joondalup, Midland, Murdoch and the regional locations of Bunbury and Broome. The Perth urgent care clinic at Morley and the Rockingham clinic are now operating, and the Joondalup clinic at Clarkson has been nominated and will be open soon. Midland lies in the centre of my electorate of Hasluck, and I'm keen to see the establishment of the Medicare urgent care clinic there. The urgent care clinics will not only enable local residents to attend for urgent care across extended hours without having to worry about the cost of treatment but also mean that pressure is taken off hospital emergency departments.

When the Joondalup urgent care clinic was announced it was welcomed by the Joondalup Health Campus, where there are about 100,000 presentations to the emergency department every year. A spokesperson for the hospital there said: 'A number of these patients are lower acuity presentations requiring urgent care rather than emergency care.' Many of us have had the experience of presenting to the ED during a busy period and having to wait for hours for treatment. The urgent care clinics will reduce the need to go to hospitals and make the jobs of the nurses, doctors and support staff at emergency departments easier too. Once established, some of the pressure will be taken off the EDs at hospitals close to each of the urgent care clinics, including the Fiona Stanley and St John of God hospitals in Murdoch, Broome Hospital, Rockingham General Hospital and Royal Perth Hospital.

I know that this will also be appreciated by the staff at the St John of God hospital at Midland, once the urgent care clinic is established there, for this hospital emergency department currently caters for over 6,000 presentations every month. It is a relatively new hospital, and it has a fabulous reputation amongst my community and the health profession. Any way that we can support the work of those doctors, nurses and associated health workers and support staff will enable them to continue to provide quality care into the future. The Midland urgent care clinic will service not only Midland but also Kalamunda, Guildford, the Swan Valley and the hills communities around Mundaring and beyond into the wheatbelt towns as well as the growing northern corridor centred around Ellenbrook. I have actually already made a representation to Minister Butler for a further urgent care clinic to be located in Ellenbrook, hopefully in the near future, as the northern corridor of Perth is one of the fastest growing populations not just in WA but across Australia.

The coalition should have matched this promise and they should now be lauding it, but instead they continue to focus on their negativity. The member for Moore is currently moaning on his website about the Joondalup clinic not yet being operational. Will he then congratulate and praise the government and its policy when it starts operation in the coming weeks? There's no point whingeing about a clinic or service that your party had no intention of providing in the first place. The government went to the election promising 50 clinics and expects to deliver 58 by the end of this year.

As Paul Keating said:

The underlying principle of Medicare was the health of any one of us should be important to all of us.

I find it interesting that there is a whole generation of adults who've grown up never knowing life without the Medicare system, and I hope they treasure and value Medicare as much as my cohort and those older who might remember a time when the cost of medical treatment could be a significant obstacle to seeking it in a timely fashion. I look forward to hosting the minister for health in Hasluck and seeing the opening of the Medicare urgent care clinic in Midland in the coming months.

Melissa McIntosh (Lindsay, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I rise to speak on the member for Hawke's motion relating to Medicare urgent care clinics. I find the level of self-congratulation quite extraordinary in relation to this motion and other motions in the health space put forward by Labor government members. Towards the end of the 2022 election campaign, the now Minister for Indigenous Australians made her way into my electorate of Lindsay and made an announcement at Nepean Hospital with the Labor candidate, saying that, if the Labor Party won office, Lindsay would have its own Medicare urgent care clinic. We are more than a year beyond the commitment, and yet there is no clinic open for residents from Emu Plains to Colyton and Londonderry to Luddenham. Right across my electorate of Lindsay, we do not have this urgent care clinic. Rather, we have seen this Labor government commit to a time line which has already been broken.

We were told the urgent care clinics would be operational in the first year of the Albanese government. In fact, the Minister for Finance, Senator Gallagher, when probed by the shadow health minister, Senator Ruston, in Senate estimates told the committee that in November last year they were still working towards the 12-month deadline. Further down the track, the Minister for Health and Aged Care, the member for Hindmarsh, told Australians, on the ABC's Insiders, that 50 clinics would be up and running by the end of the last financial year.

Some urgent care clinics have opened in Victoria. The state government's priority primary care clinics were taken over by the Albanese government and rebadged as a Medicare urgent care clinic. The minister, today, in a media release, said Westmead, which is in Western Sydney, was getting a Medicare urgent care clinic, but the clinic is actually in Wentworthville and not at the Westmead health education and innovation precinct, which would have been an ideal location. Of course, the clinic is being delivered in the Labor member for Parramatta's electorate more quickly than other areas of Western Sydney.

My community was promised this commitment. We know from the New South Wales Bureau of Health Information statistics that the emergency department at Nepean Hospital is struggling and needs support. This motion says that 58 clinics will take pressure off emergency departments. Well, Lindsay is waiting, and we're sick and tired of excuses from the Labor government on its commitments to our community. The Nepean Blue Mountains Primary Health Network's website has been updated very recently to say that Lindsay would have an urgent care clinic in Penrith. Well, it's actually going to be located in Jamisontown.

I thank the GP service for their assistance in running the service. However, I am disappointed that the Labor government misled our community that the Medicare urgent care clinic would be co-located at Nepean Hospital. A co-location at the growing health precinct surrounding Nepean Hospital would have been fantastic, and this is a missed opportunity. Not only that, but the Minister for Indigenous Australians stood out the front of Nepean Hospital with the Labor candidate to get votes during the election campaign. Local families thinking about taking their kids to the clinic will think twice about whether to drive to Jamisontown or to drive straight to Nepean Hospital in Kingswood.

On another note, the GP shortage is impacting Lindsay, and community members are rightly asking how the urgent care clinic will impact access to GPs when they're working at the clinic. The Minister for Health and Aged Care recently changed regional arrangements for GP classifications to be closer to cities, noting the help that outer urban areas need with health workforce shortages. The minister is still refusing to answer questions around the staffing of the urgent care clinics, and, due to this and other issues, the Department of Health and Aged Care noted in a recent budget estimates hearing that in many cases the clinics will not be able to provide the extended opening hours of care that the Labor government committed to at the 2022 election. I'd like to know the opening hours of the Lindsay clinic because my community doesn't know yet. Will they be short hours, or will they be the hours that were promised by the Labor government? Again, this just seems like another broken promise.

We've seen cuts to Medicare funded psychology sessions; community pharmacies are facing closures and job losses due to 60-day prescriptions; fast-acting insulin, Fiasp, is being removed from the PBS; and now there are delays to the promised delivery of the Medicare urgent care clinics. Lindsay and Australia need better from this Labor government.

Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm proud today to be speaking on another commitment that the Albanese Labor government is delivering, and that is to establish the 56 Medicare urgent care clinics across Australia, with a total investment of $493.5 million over five years. It's a bit much to hear members on the other side criticising this particular policy, especially when you have a look at their record in government for 10 years, where we saw bulk-billing decline continuously. The public, hospitals and doctors were screaming out about bulk-billing, and they sat there and did nothing. So it's a bit much listening to those on the other side criticising something that will add to our primary health care and is really needed. Primary care is in the worst shape it has been in for 40 years, with no action from the previous government in the last 10 years. What we saw under the previous government was 10 years of continuous cuts and neglect. As I said, bulk-billing rates were in decline, and only 14 per cent of medical graduates now go into general practice.

Medicare urgent care clinics are just one way that this government is trying to help in strengthening Medicare and making it easier for Australians to receive the care that they need and deserve when they need it. All of these clinics will be bulk-billed and will be open seven days a week for extended hours. This means that more families will get top-quality care from a nurse or a doctor without having to wait in a hospital emergency department. We see the waiting lists around the country in hospital emergency departments, and that is because people can't afford the gap that they have to pay when they go to a doctor, so they front up to an emergency department, or they can't get in to see a doctor because we don't have enough of them. This will ease the pressure a bit and take those people who aren't real emergency cases to these urgent clinics. This also means that, through the establishment of these clinics, we'll see a little bit of easing of the pressure on our hospitals.

There are currently 16 urgent care clinics open nationally, with more opening in the coming few weeks and months. I'm very proud to say that in South Australia—my home state and yours, Deputy Speaker Sharkie—we're thrilled to be receiving five Medicare urgent care clinics around different areas, and one is proposed in the city of Adelaide in my electorate. It will service the inner suburbs surrounding the CBD, and it'll take a great big burden off GPs and the emergency department. Primary Health Networks across the country are working hard to finalise the commissioning process for the urgent care clinics, while also ensuring that they are integrated—it's very important that they be integrated—with local hospital and health systems and meet the needs of the local communities.

There's no doubt that hospitals and emergency departments across the country are under pressure. I don't think there's a single hospital in any major city that isn't under pressure. Since coming to government, we've made it a priority and a commitment to strengthen Medicare and reduce the pressure on our hospitals so they can provide the quality care that Australians deserve, and this is one way of easing that pressure. These Medicare urgent care clinics will save thousands of stressful, expensive and ultimately unnecessary trips to hospitals and emergency departments. You can't blame people for going to the emergency department given the state that our health system is in at the moment. When you've got a bad flu and a temperature and you can't get in to see a doctor because the waiting times could be two or three weeks and you need that care there and then, or when you can't afford the gap—many people just cannot afford the gap—the next choice is turning up to the emergency department. So freeing it up and reducing pressure will allow the emergency departments in our hospitals to focus on higher-urgency and life-threatening conditions.

Again, I'll speak about the 10 years of cuts and neglect of Medicare by the former government. It has never been harder to see a doctor, and when you do you're often paying a gap fee that is higher than ever before in the Medicare era. It's not without any noise. For years previously, as I said, doctors, hospitals and health professionals were all screaming about— (Time expired)

Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Hawke asked this chamber to recognise that the government continues to strengthen Medicare through delivering the planned 58 Medicare urgent care clinics. I would suggest to him that he's a little premature in seeking this recognition, since the government has only delivered 16 clinics. I would also suggest to this chamber that we return to this motion after the government has actually delivered the 58 clinics they've promised. Again I ask, as I so often do in this House: what about regional, rural and remote communities, where the need for health care is most acute? What is the Albanese Labor government doing for us?

Of the nine urgent care clinics opened in Victoria, six are within 25 kilometres of Melbourne's CBD—and 550 kilometres from where I live. The other three are in Shepparton, Geelong and Ballarat—all large regional towns that already have ample healthcare facilities. Mind you, I'm sure they would complain that they don't have enough. Why isn't the government prioritising Mildura, Horsham or Swan Hill in my electorate of Mallee? Does the government plan to provide those communities with urgent care clinics, where they are urgently needed? Some might accuse me of being cynical, but from where I'm sitting it looks like the Labor government are doing with this policy what the Labor government do with all their policies: ignoring regional communities, who desperately need help, in favour of metropolitan and large regional centres who vote for them. They know most rural and remote communities don't typically favour them at election time, so when they get into power Labor just cast off the lifeblood of these communities and leave us to die on the vine. It is disgraceful.

In the final analysis, however, this entire debate is practically moot from the perspective of people doing it tough in the rural and remote communities that I represent. The fact is, urgent care clinics might do more harm than good in country towns where there aren't enough GPs as it is. Who is going to work in the care clinics? I know of one GP who's been taken out of his practice to work in the clinic. Nurses who already have more patients than they can handle, and who are already close to burnout, will be diverted to staff these clinics. It's a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul, and it won't work where I come from. One thing the government could do to channel more doctors to where they are most needed in country Australia would be to reverse the perverse decision to expand the distribution priority areas to include suburban and outer metropolitan regions. They won't, of course, because they expanded them for political reasons: to win votes in those urban electorates. Let's face it: Labor is deaf to the needs of regional electorates. Fancy politicising health! Who would have thought.

The purpose of the DPA as implemented by the former coalition government was to address the maldistribution of doctors in rural areas. By extending it to the most suburban areas of Australia, the Labor government has completely undermined the purpose of the DPA. The number of international doctors moving away from rural areas as soon as Labor made the expansion public increased by 57 per cent in just six months to the end of 2022, according to Senate estimates. If the government wanted to do something about the provision of health care in rural towns, it would reverse the expansion of the DPA, urgently. But the truth is that the government doesn't want to do anything for remote towns and health policy, or any other policy in regional centres. We know why: because there are no votes in it for them. That's cynical, but it's self-evident.

Can the member for Hawke assure this chamber that the Labor government's urgent care clinics are intended for all Australians? Or are they only going to communities who vote Labor? If they do eventually get to remote communities, where they are needed most of all, can he assure this chamber that there will be a sufficient health workforce available to staff these clinics? Will the Labor government reverse their decision to expand the distribution priority areas, and what is the government planning to do to solve the chronic shortage of healthcare workers in regional and remote Australia?

Dan Repacholi (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you to my mate the member for Hawke for bringing the motion forward. Health care should be accessible to everyone regardless of their income, but the sad reality is that too often people find it too hard to find a doctor who bulk-bills. This means that people are choosing between paying to see a doctor and covering other essential costs. We know that, when we are unwell, we want to see a doctor as soon as we possibly can, but too often people are finding it hard to get in to their GP. This means that people are left to suffer while waiting days before getting a medical opinion. I strongly believe in two things when it comes to health care: when you need help, you should be able to get it, and your Medicare, not your credit card, should be your ticket to high-quality, world-class health care. That should just be part of the privilege of being an Australian, and once upon a time this was the case. Somewhere along the way, we lost our way and became a country where health care is more accessible and more affordable for some than it is for others. This is wrong. Someone earning a healthy wage is not more deserving of quality health care quickly available to them than someone who is struggling to put food on the table.

That's why I am proud to be a member of this government, which actually is strengthening Medicare, not cutting it. This government is delivering 58 Medicare urgent-care clinics. These clinics are so important. When you go to the emergency department of a hospital, you're having a bad day. Too often someone's bad day is made even worse by having to wait hours to be seen by a doctor. This is because our emergency departments are under too much pressure, but the 58 Medicare urgent-care clinics will play a major role in taking away some of this pressure. These clinics are a way to make it easier for Australian families to see doctor when they need to. Some things are urgent but not life threatening, but sometimes the only option is to go to the emergency department, especially when it can take days to get to a GP. This adds to the pressure facing our hospitals. Having a Medicare urgent-care clinic near you means that, if you need medical attention urgently but are not in a position which is life threatening, you won't be stuck waiting in an emergency room for hours and hours. You won't be left hanging, waiting for the next available appointment for your GP.

Not only will these clinics relieve the pressure on emergency departments; they will also bulk-bill. All you need when attending one of these clinics is your Medicare card. Regardless of your financial situation, you will have the care available to you when you need it. This is the way it should be, and my electorate is lucky enough to be receiving one of these new Medicare urgent-care clinics in Cessnock. I'm excited to say that this clinic is scheduled to be opened next month. It was an honour to have the Prime Minister come to my electorate during the federal election campaign and announce that Cessnock would be receiving one of these clinics. I know from speaking to people around Cessnock that this clinic will be well received and will definitely be used by many who need it.

Cessnock is a perfect case study for why these clinics are so desperately needed. Cessnock is rapidly growing, with a population edging over 60,000, but the hospital has not kept up with the population growth. This is not a reflection on the staff; they are all amazing and do a great job. To them I say: thank you for the hard work that you all put in and the hours you do and efforts you make to keep us all safe and well. But the emergency department is just under too much pressure. Making matters worse, there are limited GPs which do have bulk-billing available, and the ones which do are under lots and lots of pressure right now as well. The urgent-care clinic will mean that Cessnock's growing population will not have to wait hours in the emergency room at the Cessnock Hospital or be forced to make the half-hour drive to Maitland Hospital to be seen by a doctor.

My electorate and the community of Cessnock need this clinic, and I want to thank the Prime Minister and Minister for Health for looking out for the health of the people in the Hunter.

Garth Hamilton (Groom, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Far be it from me to offer advice to the new backbencher, my good friend the member for Hawke, on this motion, but it does remind me of another situation where Labor have gone out and claimed a victory before it happened. I was reflecting on this, and remembering when the then opposition leader introduced himself to Arnold Schwarzenegger as the next Prime Minister of Australia. It was a little cringeworthy, but there's a lesson to be learned: don't get out too early and claim the win before it has happened. That might be something to say here.

Very clearly, we're talking about delivery of 58 of these urgent care clinics but, by their own admission, it's only 16. I would point out, as have others previously, that eight of those are merely rebadged urgent care clinics that were delivered by the Victorian state government. So we're down to eight and we're off by 50-odd, but it's a good start. I join in the condemnation that has been engaged in gleefully on my side in pointing out this error in factual content in this celebration. But, firstly, I just want to sum up what I believe to be the government's defence against claims that they haven't actually done what they said they were going to do. When I go through it, at best it comes down to this: our promises were so watery, tempered and vacuous that how could you possibly hold us to account? That seems to be the defence here, 'We stumbled into this.' The first announcement was that they were going to deliver it in the next year and then they doubled down by saying, 'Yes, we'll deliver these by the beginning of the financial year 2023-2024.' So it's, 'We stumbled into this, and near enough is good enough.' Off by 50, but 50 out of 58 seems to be the defence that we have.

In seriousness, and not making light of it, I come from a region known for its health care, where health care is the largest employer in town and has been for a long time. Toowoomba services much of south-western Queensland. We draw people up from the Lockyer Valley and also service a lot of northern New South Wales. People come to our region for health care because we have outstanding health facilities, and we have done so for quite a long time. But I guess this raises the point that this was a good promise to make—this was a very good promise for an opposition to make going into an election, because it matters. Looking after health care matters, and I think that's important to acknowledge.

In my hometown I do see ambulance ramping and I see people choosing to go to the emergency department rather than to a GP, and I see those things on a regular basis. These are problems that we must face. I know that it's happening in Toowoomba, in Queensland and around Australia—these are challenges that are felt. I ran my last survey recently and, once again, the issues that came up in Toowoomba were crime, the cost of living and health care. People move to Toowoomba expecting great health care to be provided continuously, so when the then opposition made these commitments they were good commitments. I think people expected that when they became the government, when they had the power to deliver on their promises, that they would. If I were just walking in here today and read this statement then I would think: 'Fantastic, they did! Look at this: 58 of these have been delivered. What a fantastic outcome!' But of course we find that only 16 have been delivered and that eight of those were actually just rebadged and were delivered by somebody else.

I fear I'm putting a bit of a wet blanket on the celebrations by the government, but they are premature. What we can say is that this is the continuation of a theme from this government: making great promises and then failing to deliver them when they have the power to deliver them. Of course, there's not a person in Australia who hasn't heard the number 275. That was a significant promise made 97 times—that's the other number we all know, $275 repeated 97 times. It's a promise that was made and a promise that wasn't delivered. There were cheaper mortgages, an amazing promise for any government to make, 'We're going to make mortgages cheaper.' My favourite one, though, was the now Treasurer making the claim that there was much they could do about the cost of living, including reducing the cost of groceries. What an incredible promise to make and what an incredible promise to break.

In all these areas, these are important issues; these are issues that are important to Australians. Labor recognised that they were important but they have now walked away from commitments to deliver them. I don't think they realise just how important they were to Australians but they were important to their campaign to win government, and this falls into farce when it is interrogated in any way.

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

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made in order of the day for the next sitting.