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

My question as to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. After a decade of cuts and neglect, how is the Albanese Labor government strengthening Medicare through urgent care clinics. What threats are there to Medicare and to bulk-billing?

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

Thank you, Member for Hasluck. Last week, I told the House there were 78 urgent care clinics open. Well, I can inform, in just a week, it's now 82, as of today. We promised 50. There are 82.

Last Friday, the member for Hasluck and I visited the Midland Urgent Care Clinic. We were joined by a hardworking local nurse, Trish Cook, who happened to have worked at that local GP practice earlier. I met Trish earlier this year at a melanoma institute conference when she was presenting her nursing research into the benefits for patients who are receiving chemotherapy at home rather than at a clinic or at a hospital. It was terrific research, and I know that Trish will now do fantastic work as the local Labor candidate for the new Bullwinkle electorate in Western Australia.

The Midland Urgent Care Clinic has already delivered high-quality urgent care for 10,000 local members of the community. The Google reviews are terrific and far too long for me to read out. Across the country, these clinics are making a real difference to hundreds of thousands of Australians who need free urgent care. We know they are also relieving real pressure from hospital emergency departments.

There is more for us to do and to keep doing to strengthen Medicare, but we also know that all that progress on bulk-billing and on free urgent care is under threat at the next election. It's under threat from a shadow Treasurer who continues to describe our investments in Medicare as 'wasteful spending' and who we know will close the urgent care clinics. It's under threat from a Liberal Party who, according to the deputy Liberal leader, has a philosophy that says Australians don't value services unless they pay for them. They don't value free hospitals. They don't value bulk-billed GP visits or free urgent care, apparently. Of course, it's under threat from the Leader of the Opposition, who, as health minister, put the deputy Liberal leader's philosophy into stark practice, trying to make every single Australian pay a fee every time they go to a doctor, trying to make them pay every time they visit the local hospital emergency department and so much else besides.

I haven't been able to find any Google reviews of this man's time as health minister. I'm not sure Google reviews existed at the time, but I have found a poll with a photo of the health minister then, looking much younger and little bit slimmer, as we all did 10 years ago—looking very, very good. Good memories. It says that Peter Dutton was ranked as the worst health minister in 35 years.

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

Order! I invite the minister not to reflect on members and not to use props.

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

I'm just reading from this document which says Australian Doctor magazine ranked him the worst health minister in 35 years of Medicare, proving you can't trust the Liberal Party with our health system.

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

The minister's time has concluded.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask that further question be placed on the Notice Paper.