Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, I want to commend the member for Macnamara and pass on my condolences to him and his family. I have no doubt that his grandfather was very proud of him. This is a robust environment, but the member for Macnamara carries himself with integrity and good character at all times, which I have no doubt come from his grandfather and his family. I pass on my deepest condolences to you and your family.

I am, ironically, going to be speaking about health. As the member for Macnamara said, GPs and access to health care are crucial for every community. In my community of the Yarra Ranges, we deserve and need affordable and accessible health care to make sure it's reachable and in close proximity to our regional towns and our suburbs. And we need a strong and reliable healthcare system that supports our community when we need it most.

As we all know, we're in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, and the Albanese government is overseeing the collapse of bulk billing, at a time when local families are struggling to pay the bills, let alone cough up for an unexpected GP appointment. Recent data released by Cleanbill shows that our community has seen an out-of-pocket increase of $4.25 for a standard consultation. Cleanbill's report states that over the last financial year there has been a catastrophic reduction in the number of bulk-billing options available across the country and that over 1.2 million Australians avoided visiting a GP because of cost concerns.

In my community of the Yarra Ranges we have only seven bulk-billed clinics, with none in some of our largest suburbs and towns, including Lilydale, Healesville, Belgrave and many others—only seven bulk-billed clinics in a community that spans 2½ thousand square kilometres, and no hospitals in our community. A lot more needs to be done. We need to increase the accessibility of local healthcare facilities and improve the affordability and reliability of access to bulk-billing services in order to improve community health outcomes for my community. We need to stop minor issues becoming more serious. Time after time I have community members coming to me and talking about how they can't get access to health care and the flow-on effects of that.

Disappointingly, the Prime Minister's decisions have been based on party, not people. Victoria has eight Medicare urgent care clinics. Of these eight, seven are located in Labor- or Greens-held seats. And many of these urgent care clinics are only a few minutes drive from emergency rooms, where it's far more accessible to access urgent care at the hospital. In the Yarra Ranges, in 2½ square kilometres, as I said, there is not a single hospital, not a single emergency department and not a single urgent care clinic. But almost every area where an urgent care clinic was awarded by this government is within five to 15 minutes of a hospital.

The Yarra Ranges needs an urgent care clinic—a clinic that residents or family members can walk into and be bulk-billed for urgent care, a clinic that is open early or late every day of the week and of the year, a clinic that provides urgent care in a GP setting so you don't have to wait in the emergency department, helping to reduce pressure on our already stretched hospitals and emergency departments.

When Prime Minister Albanese was speaking about urgent care clinics in question time on Tuesday 19 March, he said, 'There'll be more included in our budget coming up in May.' Now is the time for the Prime Minister to listen to the residents of the Yarra Ranges and of Casey. I'm calling on the Prime Minister to establish, in the upcoming budget, a Medicare urgent care clinic in the Yarra Ranges. I'll continue to be a strong voice for my community, which is in need of a more affordable, accessible, strong and reliable healthcare system. This is a test for this Prime Minister. First time in Victoria: seven out of eight to Labor and Greens seats. The question is: will he put the needs of my community over the politics and needs of his own MPs?