Alison Byrnes (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health. What action is the Albanese Labor government taking to strengthen Medicare and make medicines cheaper for all Australians after a decade of cuts and neglect? Are there any threats to Medicare?

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

I thank the member for Cunningham for the question but also for her support of the Wollongong Medicare Urgent Care Clinic. I am happy to say that today we opened the 78th Medicare urgent care clinic. This one is in Southport—the second clinic on the Gold Coast. The first Gold Coast clinic, in Oxenford, has already seen 10,000 patients, 4,000 of them under the age of 15, and every single one fully bulk billed. They're getting terrific, urgent care, free of charge, but also taking pressure off the busiest emergency department in the country.

We're not only opening more urgent care clinics; we're delivering more doctors and we're delivering more bulk billing. In the past two years, we've seen more doctors enter the system than at any time in the past decade. Our record investments in bulk billing have finally stopped the slide in bulk billing that we inherited from those opposite after a decade of cuts and neglect—something the College of GPs called 'freefall'. We've also seen a rebound in every single state and territory and seen an additional 5.4 million free visits to the GP just in the past 12 months.

Now, we know there's much more to do, but we are starting to turn Medicare around after a decade of cuts and neglect. But, as the member points out, all of this progress is under threat from a Liberal Party who has never supported Medicare, led by an anti-Medicare trinity who all have form in this area.

Of course, the gold medal for undermining Medicare always goes to the Leader of the Opposition, voted by doctors as the worst health minister in the history of Medicare after he tried to abolish bulk billing altogether and tried to take $50 billion out of public hospitals, and so much else besides. But coming up second is the deputy Liberal leader, who takes a more Socratic approach to these things, taking the time this week to explain the deep philosophical underpinnings—

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

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition is on a warning.

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

of their attacks on bulk billing, because, apparently, according to this philosopher, 'You simply don't value something if you don't pay for it'—very, very deep, as always. And then, always bringing up the rear, is old mate, the shadow Treasurer. On radio earlier this week, he was promising to cut billions of dollars from our investments to strengthen Medicare and promising to close the urgent care clinics, and then he came in yesterday afternoon and pretended he didn't even say it. The faces might change, but the story is always the same: you can't trust the Liberal Party with Medicare.