Tuesday, 2 May 2023

 Mary-Anne THOMAS (Macedon – Leader of the House, Minister for Health, Minister for Health Infrastructure, Minister for Medical Research) (14:17): I rise to update the house on the Andrews Labor government’s commitment to making sure that health care is affordable for all Victorians. We know the rising cost of living is making it harder for families to make ends meet. When budgets are tight at home, no Victorian should have to choose between putting food on the table and getting the health care that they need. However, due to almost a decade of mismanagement and neglect by the former Liberal–National coalition federal government Australia’s primary healthcare system is broken. Under the coalition’s watch we saw a downward trend in GP bulk billing rates, with average out-of-pocket expenses increasing to more than $40 per visit.

Rather than be spectators to the decline of Australia’s universal healthcare system, the Andrews Labor government stepped up and committed to establishing 25 priority primary care centres to care for Victorians for free. The Premier, the member for Ashwood and I visited the Glen Waverley PPCC on 16 April, and we met there Peter Ferne from Coldstream. Peter was thrilled to share his experience of our priority primary care centre and the excellent care that he received from the hardworking GPs there on duty 16 hours a day, seven days a week. More than 50,000 patients like Peter have been seen by our PPCCs for common presentations that they used to visit GPs for – presentations like lacerations, abdominal pain, infections and the like. So not only are our PPCCs delivering better health outcomes for Victorians, they are also reducing demand on our emergency departments. But no Victorian should be put off from accessing the health care that they need and deserve because of cost, and only the Andrews Labor government will stand with – (Time expired)