Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I start with the obviously very tragic event in my community over the last six days, the disappearance of Samantha Murphy, a 51-year-old mum who is known to many across the community of Ballarat. The police investigation is continuing, and I do want to say thank you very much to VicPol and to the SES, the CFA and council workers as well as the many volunteers across our community who have done all that they can as part of that. I know it's an incredibly distressing circumstance for Samantha's family and those who love her.

On 1 February, it was the 40th anniversary of Medicare. It's one of the crowning achievements of federal Labor, and it's perhaps one of the most significant social reforms in our nation's history. Forty years on, Medicare is as important to Australians today as it was in 1984. On Medicare's birthday, I was lucky enough to visit the Ballarat urgent care clinic to celebrate this achievement with the wonderful care staff and the former member for Ballarat, now in his 90s, John Mildren.

John was the member while the Medicare legislation was debated, passed and finally implemented as one of the first major reforms of the Hawke government. It was a privilege to hear the stories he had to share about the history of Medicare through that time. What he emphasised was that Medicare was not something that was easy. Its passage was not without controversy and it faced significant resistance from the opposition as well as from doctor groups. But what John told us was why it had to be done.

It may seem alien to us today, but John told us of constantly needing to assist constituents, in the same electorate office I am in now, like mums who fell a couple of dollars short of the then very low safety net—you either had the safety net or you could afford private health insurance, and if you were in the middle there was nothing available to you other than paying by private means—who were in absolute distress and tears because they could not afford access to care for their babies. It seems extraordinary today that that was the circumstance faced by MPs such as us.

Not only did Medicare give all Australians the care they needed but it gave us our dignity. I'm proud to be part of a government now which is just as committed to Medicare today as the Hawke government was then. I'm glad that, today, Australians do not face the same barriers to access affordable health care as they did when John was the member for Ballarat. But I also know that we should strive for more. There's a lot of work to be done, and we can't take affordable health care for granted. It's why we're committed to strengthening Medicare, providing better access to cheaper health care, cheaper medicines and affordable hospital treatment. In my electorate of Ballarat, there have been 6,000 extra bulk-billed consultations through October to December. That's a great achievement, but there is of course always more to be done. (Time expired)