Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In late April 2023, just a little under two years ago, my son Charlie had just had his second birthday. He's like all toddlers. They're at child care. They're running around. They do pick up the occasional cold. He woke in the morning, and it was a cold, so we didn't feel the need to reach out to our GP or go to the doctor straightaway. But, as the day went on, the cough got worse, and he started to become distressed. So I did then ring our GP clinic to say: 'Is there any chance that I can get Charlie in? I'm a bit worried that he might have croup. I'm really concerned about this cough.' And, of course, the clinic was full. They no longer did after-hours bulk-billing services. They no longer did after-hours services. They didn't have the GPs to be able to do that on rotation. At this point, there is no after-hours bulk-billing service or after-hours GP services anywhere in Bendigo, despite it being a regional city of over 120,000 people. The clinic were incredibly apologetic and said, 'Look, unfortunately, Lisa, there's just no space.'

I did then get a call back from my GP to say: 'I'm really sorry we can't get Charlie in. What's happening?' I described the symptoms, and he said, 'Your only option is to go to the ED.' So, with a young son at two, my mum came over to take care of my daughter. I'm at the ED with my son. The nurses were fantastic. They did the triage and said: 'We suspect it's croup, but you are going to have to wait for the GP to be assessed to get what we all know helps with young children and croup—the steroid. It's the wonder drug that gives them that ease and helps them sleep and helps them recover.' And it does. When your child gets that steroid, it is extraordinary how much comfort it provides and how well and how quickly they bounce back.

But it was a seven-hour wait. Croup is quite a common condition. But, because we didn't have the bulk billing services or even the GP services after hours in my electorate, we were at the ED, and we were not alone—hence why it was a seven-hour wait. As I sat there in the waiting room with my son, who was crying, upset and distressed—I was trying to get little breaks outside for the cool air to help him breathe and settle and then take him back inside, and I didn't want to lose my place in the queue—I looked around the ED waiting room, and the majority of the people waiting to see a GP were in a similar situation. There were older people. Over a third of the people in the room were parents with children under the age of five. Some, who'd been there before, had even taken their dinner and had a packed meal ready, because they knew the wait would be so long.

This was the situation in my electorate before the Labor government opened a Medicare urgent care clinic just around the corner, and it opened not that long ago. So now families who find themselves in the situation that I found myself in with my son, Charlie, do not have to go to ED. There is now an alternative: they can ring up and make an appointment on the day at the Bendigo Medicare Urgent Care Clinic. It is a vital service that can be done as a result of funding from our government, because we prioritise Medicare and we get that families, particularly those with young children, need to have access to those GP services and after-hours services. It is making a difference, and I can hear it in the conversations that I have with the mums and dads at swimming or kinder drop-off. Everybody loves this service, but it's only happened because of a Labor government. It has only happened because we have put the resources into Medicare.

This is on top of the other changes that we have made to Medicare by tripling the bulk-billing incentive to make sure that concession card holders and children are bulk-billed and to encourage GPs to take up that option to bulk-bill children and concession card holders. We are rebuilding and restoring Medicare. It started to collapse under the previous government, when the now opposition leader was the health minister. I was here at that time. He froze the Medicare rebate, and it was a slow death for many Medicare bulk-billing services. It made it impossible, with freeze after freeze after freeze. With the cost of delivering care going up and GPs not earning more, it put pressure on it. I watched it in my electorate with service after service. First they cut back their after-hours services because they couldn't get GPs to work back if they weren't being incentivised to do so. Then clinic after clinic dropped its bulk-billing. Some dropped it altogether. Some dropped it for all people unless they were children. For some, it was just by the GPs' choice. So we were in this freefall of bulk-billing, which was collapsing in front of us, and it goes back to what started with the previous government.

That is why I'm so proud to be part of a government that is rebuilding Medicare. As a result, we are seeing more GPs bulk-billing in my electorate. We now have an after-hours service which is just around the corner from our emergency department at the hospital and which is helping people get the urgent but non-emergency care that they need. This is what Labor governments do. This is why we've started to rebuild Medicare, making sure people can get access to the health care that they need and taking that worry away from parents so they do not have those long waits at emergency.

It's not just Medicare and urgent care where we are rebuilding. We are restoring fairness to the way we fund our public schools and our school education system. The previous government, when Malcolm Turnbull was Prime Minister, put in legislation that capped the amount of Commonwealth funding that could go to states for public schools. What we've done in this parliament—and I can remember speaking on it in this very chamber—was to turn that cap into a floor. That's allowing our government to negotiate an increased funding agreement with the state of Victoria. That means that we have now got a commitment to see our public schools get to the schooling resource standard and get to the point where our public schools will receive the same amount of funding per student as our independent and Catholic schools. This is the point I want to reiterate: our independent and Catholic schools were already being funded by the Commonwealth and the state government to this resource standard. The schools that were not receiving the same amount of money per student were our public schools. This is what we have done as a government; we have restored the fairness to public school funding to make sure our schools in Victoria get it.

In the conversations I've been having with parents and in the conversations I've been having with local media and with community members, there is a bit of shock. They say: 'I thought we sorted this out with Gonski. I thought it got done.' No; we thought we had but then the coalition were elected—the Liberals and the Nationals—and this is where we separate. This is where we differ. This is where who you vote for matters. There is an ideology that does drive governments, and the previous government's ideology did not prioritise fairness in our funding and fairness in the funding of our schools.

This is why, when I talk about jobs, health and education, I'm asking people to think about who is going to be best to make sure that it is a fair go for all, that we do have fairness in our system and that, regardless of post code, you have access to the quality health services you need, whether that be Medicare urgent care centre visit, or your GP being able to bulk-bill you, or you or your parents having access to cheaper medicines for longer through the changes made to the PBS. Whether it be your children or your grandchildren, regardless of school you choose to send them to, they should be receiving the same amount of public funding. Yes, schools may charge fees on top of that—that is their choice—but they get the same amount of public funding. The role of this place is to ensure that we have fairness and integrity when it comes to working with our states to deliver these vital health and education services. It's a choice that people will make about who they believe will deliver better for health care and for education, who will be better for Medicare and who will be better for our public schools.

It is a choice that we ask all Australians to make, and I ask people to think about that as their first and second top-tier issue when they go to the election: who will be better for Medicare and who will be better for education? Who will make sure everybody gets the quality health care that they need and the education opportunities that we should all be afforded in a country like Australia.