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

Labor will strengthen Medicare. That's a line that we shouted loudly and often during the election campaign. We knew then, before coming to government, that a decade of Liberal neglect had started coming home to roost. Pressure was already mounting on household budgets in our communities. We knew then that access to GPs and the affordability of medical treatment were becoming a more significant burden on the weekly budget. We knew then that people were forgoing doctors and appointments and medicines in order to pay for housing, food and fuel. We knew it was unacceptable then, which is why, when we were elected to government, we got to work to fix these issues.

We recognised that the cost of medicines can be a barrier to people getting and staying healthy, so we added more medicines to the PBS for various cancers, neuromuscular diseases, kidney diseases and multiple sclerosis to name a few. These medicines can run into the many hundreds of thousands of dollars per course, and we've capped them at $30 per script. In fact, we've capped all PBS medicines at $30 per script, down from $42.40, the single biggest reduction since the PBS was introduced by the Curtin and Chifley Labor governments in the 1940s. This measure alone has saved people in my electorate of Hasluck more than $1.6 million since it was introduced on 1 January this year.

This week I had the pleasure of meeting with Sally and Damien from the North Street Medical Centre on Great Northern Highway, in Midland, which is the location of Hasluck's first Medicare urgent care clinic. Urgent care clinics are a game-changing Medicare investment. They'll be open for extended hours seven days a week and be fully bulk billed. All you need is a Medicare card. Medicare clinics will ease the pressure on the hospital system and give families more options to see a GP or a nurse when they need urgent but not life-threatening care. More than 35 per cent of presentations to the St John of God emergency department in Midland are for non-urgent or semi-urgent care. I've spoken to so many people who've had long waits in emergency with a child or family member simply because that was the only option available locally.

I can't overstate how much of a difference this clinic is going to make in our community, providing that much-needed affordable and urgent access to health care. Having the urgent care clinic located on the north side of Midland, amongst the residential streets, provides an extra level of accessibility. And when you pair the delivery of this commitment with the entire suite of Medicare and health sector investments made by this government, you start to see a pattern emerging, an overarching vision for more accessible and affordable health care in Australia. Labor understands health. Labor is the party of Medicare, and only Labor invests in Medicare.

Bridget Archer (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In accordance with standing order 193, the time for members' constituency statements has concluded.