Peter Khalil (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Medicare and bulk-billed urgent care clinics are so important for many in my community, after suffering a decade of cuts from Peter Dutton and the previous Liberal government. For too long, families, pensioners and vulnerable Australians in my electorate of Wills have struggled with rising healthcare costs and a decline in bulk-billing, the direct result of a decade of coalition neglect.

The former government froze Medicare rebates and ripped billions out of primary care, causing gap fees to plummet. For years under the coalition government, my community told me how expensive it was for them to see their GP and how fewer and fewer GPs were offering bulk-billed services.

I've been strongly advocating for an increase in bulk-billed appointments and free Medicare urgent care clinics to ensure that people in my community of Wills have access to quality, bulk-billed health care when they need it. Free Medicare urgent care clinics allow families to access bulk-billed health care without waiting hours in an emergency department. We have one near our community, in Carlton, which serves many in the south of my electorate.

Under the Albanese Labor government, remarkably, 87 clinics have opened across the country, treating over a million Australians for urgent but non-life-threatening conditions—burns, cuts, broken bones. Every visit is fully bulk-billed. You don't need your credit card; you just need your Medicare card. For my constituents, this will mean faster access to care and less pressure on hospital emergency departments. It means parents with sick kids won't be spending hours in a waiting room. It means older Australians won't be skipping the doctor because they can't afford the gap fee.

The Albanese Labor government has also made the largest investment in bulk-billing in Medicare's history. It has tripled the bulk-billing incentives so that those who rely on their GP most—pensioners, kids and concession card holders—can see a doctor without worrying about out-of-pocket costs. But while Labor is strengthening Medicare and building free Medicare urgent care clinics, we've got Peter Dutton as Leader of the Opposition, who's spent a career trying to tear Medicare down. As health minister, he tried to introduce a GP tax, forcing people to pay every time they saw a doctor. He cut $50 billion from public hospitals. He was voted the worst health minister in Medicare's history by Australian doctors. He tried to destroy Medicare before; we will not let him do it again. Labor built Medicare—and only a Labor government will protect and strengthen it.

Marion Scrymgour (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In accordance with standing order 193, the time for members' constituency statements has concluded.