Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. How are the Medicare urgent care clinics making it easier for Australians to see a doctor, and how is the Albanese Labor government working with the states and territories to strengthen Medicare after a decade of cuts and neglect?

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

I thank the member for Solomon for his question. He is a relentless advocate for better and cheaper health care in the Top End. He has the great privilege of representing the hardworking hospital staff from the Royal Darwin Hospital and the Palmerston Regional Hospital, every single one of whom will receive a tax cut on 1 July. He knows that a large part of their work is driven by aeromedical retrievals, bringing people into Darwin from outside and also transferring some of them down to the bigger hospitals in Adelaide and Melbourne. Along with the member for Lingiari, the member for Solomon argued relentlessly for our government to fund a second rescue helicopter and a second jet for CareFlight, and it's been terrific to visit CareFlight with the member for Solomon and see those assets already operating, ensuring 365-day-per-year coverage for the Territory.

He also promised his community a Medicare urgent care clinic. As of next week, the clinic in Palmerston will have been operating for six months. Seven days a week, fully bulk-billed, it's seen around 5,000 patients already, a third of whom are under 15 years of age. Not only is this terrific service providing urgent care when and where people need it in Darwin and Palmerston; it's also taking pressure off the local hospitals. Around half of the patients who've been asked at that clinic have said they would have had to go to the emergency department if the clinic weren't available.

The member for Solomon and our government are utterly committed to strengthening hospital services in the Top End, not just relieving pressure from the EDs but also correcting a longstanding inequity that sees the Northern Territory receive a smaller share of hospital funding than any other jurisdiction in the country. The landmark deal that the Prime Minister secured with National Cabinet in December will fix that inequity, delivering more than $160 million in additional funding to Territory hospitals in the first year of our new funding agreement alone.

This government's approach could not be more different from that of the Leader of the Opposition when he was the health minister, kicking off those 10 years of cuts and neglect that the member for Solomon is talking about. By cutting funds to general practice in his first budget as health minister, he piled the pressure on hospital emergency departments. He then cut hospital funding as well—by $50 billion across the country, according to his own budget glossy from his first budget—slashing around $90 million just from the Top End hospital network in the first few years of those cuts. This government is delivering more support for the Territory in housing, in schools and in health care as well. All they got from the Leader of the Opposition was cuts and chaos.