Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. After a decade of neglect and cuts to Medicare, how is the Albanese Labor government working to ensure that Australians have access to more bulk-billed GP appointments and cheaper medicines?

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

I thank my friend and electoral neighbour the member for Boothby for her question. She had a long career in health care before coming to this place and she campaigned very hard in Adelaide on a promise to her community to strengthen Medicare. As a member of this government she is delivering on that promise in spades, through our three-point plan to strengthen Medicare, to triple the bulk-billing incentive, to roll out a network of Medicare urgent care clinics and bulk-billed clinics—including one in her electorate, in Boothby—and to make medicines cheaper.

The week before last the member for Boothby joined me at the Castle Medical Centre in Edwardstown, in her electorate, to announce almost $6 billion of new investments in Medicare that took effect on 1 November, including the tripling of the bulk-billing incentive—the largest investment in bulk-billing in the 40-year history of Medicare. Dr Ng told us that 80 per cent of the patients at her centre were either kids, pensioners or concession card holders covered by these new incentives. From 1 November, a bulk-billed standard consult at that centre goes up a whopping 34 per cent for all those patients.

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

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will cease interjecting.

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

The increase is even higher in regional Australia, with that standard consult going up by as much as 50 per cent. This is on top of the largest across-the-board increase to the Medicare rebate, that also took effect that day, in more than 30 years, since Paul Keating was prime minister—a bigger increase in this year alone than those opposite managed in six long years in government. We are already receiving reports of practices returning to bulk-billing or reaffirming their commitment to stick with bulk-billing if they were reconsidering it.

The college of general practice called this investment a game changer, and it could not be more different to the approach from those opposite, particularly the approach from their leader—a health minister who said, it must be remembered, that in his view there were too many free Medicare services; a health minister who tried to abolish bulk-billing altogether and make every single patient pay a fee every single time they visited a doctor—every child, every pensioner, every concession card holder.

For Labor, bulk-billing is the beating heart of Medicare. Our historic investment is a huge boost in funding and confidence to the beleaguered general practice sector that was so neglected by the former government. Most importantly, it will make it easier and it will make it more affordable for millions of Australians to see their doctor.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, thank you very much!

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

The member for Riverina will cease that immediately.