This week we delivered more cost of living relief to more Australians. Every single Australian taxpayer got a tax cut, not just some, meaning that 13.6 million Australians have kept more of what they earn.
Every household began to receive $300 of energy bill relief and 2.6 million award wage workers saw their third consecutive pay rise, backed by my government.
We know Australians are doing it tough and that’s why we are providing cost of living relief and doing it in a way that is putting downward pressure on inflation.
We have expanded paid parental leave for new families, strengthened the food and grocery code to drive down the cost of groceries and in September we are providing HECS relief for everyone with student debt.
Importantly, we understand that Australians deserve affordable healthcare close to home and that’s why we are freezing the cost of PBS medicines for every single Australian as part of our plan to strengthen Medicare.
Our cheaper medicines policy is already making a difference. Australians have already saved more than $414 million on the cost of their medicines thanks to our government’s reforms.
Australians are rightly proud to have a system like Medicare and we owe a great debt to people like Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke who fought so hard to deliver it.
But Medicare, like all great institutions, needs constant improvement to make sure it reflects the ever-changing needs of communities.
Over the past decade Medicare in Australia has been under threat from consecutive Coalition governments.
Healthcare for many Australians has been far too often patchy, inconsistent, costly and out of reach.
When Medicare was first created in 1975 by a Labor government and known at the time as Medibank, it was the incoming Coalition government who got rid of it.
Peter Dutton himself as health minister tried to put a GP tax on every single visit to the doctor.
He wanted to jack up the price of essential medicine by $5 a script and he ripped more than $50 billion out of our public hospitals.
Before Medicare, healthcare costs were the leading cause of bankruptcy in Australia and one in seven Australians did not have health coverage.
We are determined to make sure that never happens again.
We have now rolled out 58 Medicare Urgent Care Clinics across the country from Devonport to Darwin and they are providing the much-needed care that communities have been asking for.
So far these clinics have seen more than half a million visits with almost a quarter of those delivering care to children under the age of 15.
That’s half a million visits that would otherwise be putting pressure on local emergency departments and increasing the time it takes to see a GP.
These clinics are making a difference and that’s why we are expanding them with another 29 more announced as part of our latest budget package.
There are currently five up and running across the ACT and now there will be another just across the border in Queanbeyan.
The Queanbeyan Medicare Urgent Care Clinic is expected to be operational by the end of this month, providing extended operating hours for locals on both sides of the border.
Patients will be able to walk in, without an appointment, and all they need is their Medicare card, not their credit card.
Crucially, it will take pressure off the Queanbeyan District Hospital where more than 70 per cent of presentations are for semi-urgent or non-urgent matters.
Medicare represents a fair go for all Australians. It is rooted in the belief that no matter your background or your upbringing, you deserve the very best our country has to offer.
With our new Urgent Care Clinics, we’re delivering a fair go, providing the world-class care and cost of living relief that Australians deserve.
This opinion piece was first published in The Canberra Times on Friday, 5 July 2024.
