: I'm Andrew Charlton, Member for Parramatta. I want to acknowledge the additional owners of the land on which we meet the Burramattagal people of the Dharug nation and pay my respect to their elders, past, present and emerging.
Most importantly, I want to thank the Prime Minister and the Health Minister for being here today in Wentworthville at the Urgent Care Clinic. This Urgent Care Clinic has been a game changer for local families. It is open late, it is open on the weekends, it is completely free, and it saves a lot of families from a lengthy trip to the emergency department. This is just one of a series of efforts that this Government has made in order to strengthen local healthcare here in Parramatta. Combined with our new Medicare mental health clinic in Parramatta, Cheaper Medicines, a rise in bulk billed GP visits and the announcements for womens' health in the last couple of weeks together, this has been a priority for the Albanese Labor Government to strengthen our healthcare system, to strengthen Medicare. And every family in this electorate is feeling the positive benefits of that. So, Thank you Prime Minister, thank you Health Minister. And I'll hand over to you.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much to Andrew Charlton for welcoming us back to his electorate of Parramatta, here at the Wentworthville Medicare Urgent Care Clinic. And thank you doctor, and thank you to everyone who has shown us around this amazing facility here that is making a difference. We promised 50 Medicare Urgent Care Clinics at the last election. This is the sort of investment in Australians' health that is dismissed by the Coalition as being just wasteful, or sometimes as just not making any difference. Well, when you speak to patients here, as we have this morning, it is making a substantial difference to them and to their families. The great benefit of these Medicare Urgent Care Clinics is that they are taking pressure of cost of living for families. They're also meaning that people can get the care they need when they need it, and all they need is this little green card here. All they need is their Medicare card, not their credit card. They can come in here anytime between 8am and 10pm at night and get the care that they need, so that if someone needs urgent care, but it's not life threatening, they come here, rather than to Westmead emergency department up the road, or Blacktown emergency department or Auburn. Now, that makes an enormous difference for them.
This has been a huge success. More than a million Australians have benefited from visiting the Medicare Urgent Care Clinics around Australia. We promised 50, we've delivered 87 and if we're re-elected, we'll deliver another 50 on top of that. Some 14 additional in New South Wales, 12 in Victoria, 10 in Queensland, six in Western Australia, three in South Australia and Tasmania, and an additional Medicare Urgent Care Clinic in the Northern Territory and the ACT. Our Government is prioritising people's health.
Last week, we announced the tripling of the Medicare incentive for all 27 million Australians. We know that this will work, because when we tripled the bulk billing incentive for the 11 million concession card holders and kids and others that led to a 90 per cent bulk billing rate for them. So, this is about - last week's announcement - is 90 per cent of bulk billing as a result of improving that investment in Medicare so that people can visit their GP for that primary healthcare. In addition to that, we have our plan to train more doctors and more nurses. In addition to that, we've had more than half a billion dollars committed to women's reproductive health, making an enormous difference. The listing that happened for the first time in 30 years yesterday on new contraceptive pills. The first time in 30 years that you've had these new pills, which are advised by some doctors for some women to that, that is the appropriate contraceptive for them to use. But up until yesterday, they were paying top rate for that. And on top of that, of course, the commitment across the board to keeping Medicare and strengthening Medicare.
And that stands in stark contrast to our opponents. They're led by someone who, when he was the Health Minister, ripped $50 billion out of the health and hospital system. Someone who wanted to abolish bulk billing by introducing a GP tax every time people visited a doctor. Someone who wanted to introduce a tax every time people visited an emergency department, and a tax on pharmaceuticals.
The contrast can't be clearer.
And if you have a $600 billion nuclear power commitment in the 2040s that is going to be built and funded by taxpayers, then you have to find that money somewhere. And we know where it will be found, where they always go. Where the Fraser Government went when it got rid of Medibank completely. Where the Howard Government went in undermining Medicare after they couldn't get rid of it completely. And where Tony Abbott's Government, with Peter Dutton as the Health Minister - front and centre - went straight to it in the 2014 Budget.
This election, when it's held, will be very much about who do you trust to look after your healthcare and that of your family? Only Labor can be trusted to do that, because only Labor has a track record of whenever we've been in government, of doing the right thing. And these Medicare Urgent Care Clinics are so important at providing that mid-tier support in between the local GP looking after primary healthcare and the emergency department of hospitals, people being able to come here, taking pressure off emergency departments giving people the healthcare they need with their Medicare card.
MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE: Thank you, Prime Minister, and to the doctors and health professionals here at this wonderful Urgent Care Clinic, to Andrew for hosting us. Today is another important announcement in Labor's mission to strengthen Medicare. That mission really rests on three key pillars - more bulk billing, more doctors and more Urgent Care Clinics. And today's announcement builds on, as the Prime Minister said, a landmark investment in women's health that took effect - much of it - this weekend. Two new oral contraceptive pills listed on the PBS yesterday, and three new menopause hormone treatments, the first for more than 20 years, again, listed on the PBS, effective yesterday.
Now, these additional 50 urgent care clinics will bring to the number, 137 in our total network across the country. What that will mean is that four out of five Australians live within 20 minutes' drive of a Medicare Urgent Care Clinic. Once the network is fully up and running, it will mean around 2 million Australians every single year will go through one of our Urgent Care Clinics, and the vast bulk of them tell us that they would otherwise have ended up at a hospital emergency department. Not only are they receiving really high quality urgent care in their own community in a very timely fashion, this is also taking much needed pressure off our busy emergency department. There's about 9 million presentations to EDs every year. About 4 million of them are semi-urgent or non-urgent, classified by the health professionals in the EDs. So 2 million of those people going through these Urgent Care Clinics is going to provide really important relief to our local hospital emergency departments. These clinics will obviously be set up according to the process we've followed for the four for the last 87 of them, that will be an independent commissioning process led by the Primary Health Networks here in New South Wales. In some other jurisdictions, state governments are taking the lead role. That will happen at arm's length from the Commonwealth Government. But what we do know is this will provide a really important service to local communities. And what we also know is this is just the latest element of our strengthening Medicare program, which is on the chopping block at the next election.
When we launched this program, the Liberal Party described our Urgent Care Clinics as a disaster and as the wrong fit for Australia. And since then, Angus Taylor, repeatedly, has described our investment in Urgent Care Clinics as wasteful spending, and indicated very clearly it would be on the chopping block in the event of a Liberal Government. And frankly, we should expect nothing different from an alternative government led by a man who has shown right throughout his career that he favours an American style user pay system for our health care system. Well, that's not our approach. Our approach is consistent with our long standing mission in Medicare, which is that every Australian should have access to the world's best healthcare no matter what their income. That's what last weekend's announcement was about. A record investment in bulk billing, and that's what this weekend's announcement is about as well.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, you haven't yet released the independent modelling into the impact of the existing clinics on the healthcare system. How do you know this spending is cost effective?
PRIME MINISTER: Can I just say this, do you know how I know? Before Mark gets to respond as well - I've been into Medicare Urgent Care Clinics in Rockhampton in Queensland. In South Australia, in Victoria in Frankston. In Tasmania in Launceston and Hobart. In Western Australia. And right around, when I talk to the people such as people here, whether it's the doctors, the nurses, but most importantly, the patients - the people who've come in - it has been such an extraordinary success, with more than more than 1 million Australians getting the care that they need when they've needed it.
MINISTER BUTLER: Thanks, Prime Minister. What I'd also say is we, when we launched this program a couple of years ago, we did put funding in place for an independent evaluation, as you should do, with the new model of care. And that evaluation is underway, and was always due to report to Government in 2026. But as the Prime Minister said, there is no doubt this program is working. It is delivering for Australians, and it is having a material impact on our hospital system. For the first time in anyone's memory I suspect, category four and five presentations to EDs - so that is the semi-urgent and non urgent presentations that this model targets - have flat lined across the country, in spite of the fact that this network is by no means ubiquitous. But what we know in those hospitals that those whose catchment regions have an Urgent Care Clinic, is that their cat four and cat five presentations are actually declining. I mean, this is working. So, you know, you may have some complaints from the Opposition that this is not the right model for Australia, we should shut it down and divert the money into long lunches for your bosses. But for Labor, there is no doubt this is working for Australians, and we want to see more Australians get the benefit of it.
JOURNALIST: Of the 87 Urgent Care Clinics, around 60 of them are in Labor held seats. What is the criteria for getting for one of these clinics, and why are there so few in Coalition and other held seats?
MINISTER BUTLER: Well, there have been two tranches so far. The first tranche of 58 clinics were announced in the election campaign. There was a very even spread, in an electoral sense, across different electorates. And that that tranche was primarily based on hospital presentation data, particularly for those triage categories I mentioned - non-urgent, semi-urgent. There was then a second tranche that flowed from an agreement the Prime Minister struck with premiers and chief ministers for a strengthening Medicare investment at the December 2023 National Cabinet. Partly, that involved supporting longer stay older patients in hospitals, and partly it was an additional investment in Urgent Care Clinics, and that was very clearly funded on the basis that state governments would determine the location of those clinics. A number of them were existing state clinics that they wanted to transfer to Commonwealth funding. So, that was quite different. The first, there was a very clear electoral spread that reflected the proportion of the Parliament. The second, the locations were determined by state governments. And if you look at the 50 that we've announced today, again, it's a very proportional spread across the Parliament in a party political sense.
But the clear criteria for determining these locations, as advised to me by the Department, were most importantly, hospital data. Making sure that our key hospitals that have a lot of pressure with these triage presentations, have an Urgent Care Clinic in their catchment. Also ensuring a geographical spread. If you look at how these clinics appear on a map, there is a very clear geographical spread across the country, which, as I said in my opening remarks, tries to ensure that four in five Australians will live within 20 minutes' drive of an Urgent Care Clinic. That is what these 50 will deliver. And lastly, can I say also, we looked at bulk billing data. So, in areas that had poor access to bulk billing doctors, it was more important than ever to ensure that at least this bulk billing service, an Urgent Care Clinic service, was available to them. So, I've made that decision based on the clearest possible advice from our Department.
JOURNALIST: Minister, do you acknowledge that even just looking at New South Wales, a lot of them are in marginal seats that you are trying to either defend or win.
MINISTER BUTLER: Well, I don't accept that. These have been based on those criteria that I just talked about. Ensuring that our major hospitals in the city have access to an Urgent Care Clinic in their catchment. About one in three - more than one in three - of the existing Urgent Care Clinics are outside our major cities. One in three of the 50 we're announcing today are outside of our major cities. So, if you look at this on a map, you look at this - particularly tranches on and three according to the makeup of the Parliament- this is a very even spread. The distribution has been based on those health data. Particularly hospital presentations, but also a geographic spread that reflects where people live and bulk billing data.
JOURNALIST: A key doctors group has questioned how these will be staffed, given this is an industry with workforce issues. Where will you find the staff?
MINISTER BUTLER: Well, I think if you talk to any of the Urgent Care Clinic operators, they're finding it relatively easy to staff these because doctors and nurses want to work in these clinics. It is terrific work. All of the feedback we get from the doctors and nurses working here is that they love the work. And even in some areas, for example in regional communities or in the outer suburbs of our major cities - areas where general practices are having real difficulty attracting doctors - the Urgent Care Clinics, generally, are not having that same difficulty, because, as I said, those health professionals really want to work in this system. It's important to say also that these patients are not seeking care on a discretionary basis for fun. I mean, they are going to be cared somewhere. Our priority is to make sure, as far as possible, they're not having to go to a hospital emergency department.
JOURNALIST: But is that not just creating more shortages in the private system, if you're attracting GPs from there?
MINISTER BUTLER: Well, generally, GPs are mixing their work between standard general practice - which will often be a lot of chronic disease management standard primary care, as the Prime Minister said - and then doing a couple of weeks in Urgent Care Clinics as well. I don't think there's any doubt from the operators of these clinics that this is working well for the workforce. I'll just go back again to what the Prime Minister said yesterday. We recognise we need to provide a better supply of doctors and nurses after a decade of real stagnation. This year, we have more GPs in training than any year in our history, and last week we announced we wanted to build on that again with hundreds more additional GP training places and a significant expansion for the first time in a long time, of our medical school capacity.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, can I ask you a question on a different topic?
PRIME MINISTER: Sure - I'll just add one little point there, which is when I was in Rocky at the Urgent Care Clinic at Rockhampton, there were four doctors beginning that week at the Urgent Care Clinic, and they were so proud to be starting there. When I was in Sunbury this week, again, doctors really welcoming this tier of Medicare health service, really expressing their support and their satisfaction, as well. It's one of the things - talking to the doctor here this morning that she gets is the satisfaction from really helping people when they need it.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, would your Government support a European-led military support of Ukraine, even if the US withdraws its support?
PRIME MINISTER: We have unequivocal and unconditional support for the brave struggle of the people of Ukraine. Ukraine is defending its national sovereignty, but it's also defending the international Rule of Law, and that is why Australia has a national interest in providing support. We've already provided $1.5 billion of support, of which $1.3 billion has been military and defence support.
JOURNALIST: The UK has just announced additional $2 billion loan to Ukraine. Given the uncertainty around the US, is Australia considering further financial aid?
PRIME MINISTER: We examine support on an ongoing basis. I must have made at least half a dozen announcements, as Prime Minister, of support based upon requests from the Ukrainian Government of President Zelenskyy.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, are you hoping National Accounts on Wednesday shows a downward trend in inflation, in line with Treasury and RBA expectation?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I always hope for lower inflation. The difference is we're actually delivering it. Inflation had a six in front of it when we were elected and was rising. Now it's got a two in front of it, a 2.4 headline rate, and it's falling. Interest rates have begun falling, and importantly as well, wages are rising. Five quarters in a row, wages have risen. So, we have inflation falling. Wages rising, interest rates beginning to fall. They began to rise under the former Government. We have created 1.15 million jobs while all of that has been occurring and every single taxpayer has got a tax cut. That is our economic record. We want to build on it. The job is not done. I will continue to undertake responsible economic management that sees inflation going down. But one of the ways that we did that, of course, was to turn a $78 billion Liberal deficit into a $22 billion Labor surplus, and we followed that up with another $15 billion Labor surplus. So, when it comes to trusting the Government on economic management, Labor's record stands in stark contrast to our opponents, where inflation was rising, wages were falling, living standards were falling. You had a massive deficit, and they didn't achieve a single surplus at any time over their almost decade in Office. That's understandable during the COVID pandemic, but that doesn't explain a decade of waste and a decade of not making any savings and a decade of not banking revenue upgrades.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, you've been copping some criticism over your response of the Chinese warships off the coast. There's also reports today that perhaps PNG was told two weeks ago. Are you concerned by that? Have you looked into it? Are you aware of it?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I'll make two points there. One is, we receive intelligence briefings, and we also have absolute confidence in our Australian Defence Force. That's the first point. And so, we monitor these things, and there have been, of course, Australian or New Zealand cooperating appropriately - I've had direct discussions with Prime Minister Luxon of New Zealand about this. We're cooperating to make sure that throughout the journey that these Chinese ships have taken, they have been monitored by Australian or New Zealand vessels, frigates, in the latest case, HMAS Stuart and as well by surveillance aircraft. So that has been occurring.
I have seen some of the criticism of Scott Morrison, for example. I mean, the Liberal Party must think people are goldfish here. In 2019 on Scott Morrison's watch, there were Chinese warships, not around the coast, in Sydney Harbour. Pulled up to Garden Island there, given the welcome mat, under the former Coalition Government. In 2022 there were surveillance ships from China off the coast of Western Australia. There was no monitoring at that time, no monitoring whatsoever by the former Government. And of course, the former Government are the mob who leased the Port of Darwin - our most important northern port - to a company that directly has links with the Government of the People's Republic of China. And then one of their ministers, of course, went to serve on the Board of that company. So, to be very clear here, what we have done is consistent with what my Government has always done. We're a Government that's orderly. A Government that gets things done. A Government that serves Australia's national interest. And we continue to do so.
JOURNALIST: Did PNG pass on the notice -
PRIME MINISTER: Well, what we don't do, at press conferences, is relay what intelligence information the Australian Government receives.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, the Coalition has announced that it will buy more fighter jets if elected. Will you commit to reinstating plans to buy those extra 28 that they made this announcement about?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we have 72 of these Joint Strike Fighters - F-35s - we have 72. The last lot of them was delivered in just December. That is what we have. We had a Defence Strategic Review that outlined, in particular, the need for us to strengthen our naval capacity after a decade of neglect - in which the Coalition was very good at releasing media releases. You can't defend yourself with a media release. What you need to defend yourself is with assets. And Australia simply can't trust Peter Dutton and his empty promises, because they've got form. Over the last Government, when we when we came to Office, there had been six Defence Ministers over nine years. It was a revolving door and a record that left Australia with our oldest navy since World War Two. Our oldest navy since World War Two. $42 billion of announcements from the former Government without any actual funding behind them. And today, I did see the interviews with Coalition spokespeople for both Defence and Home Affairs. They had no idea where the money was going to come from, from this. No time frames, no outline of the additional expenditure that will be required for something like that, hangars to house them, pilots to fly them, spare parts and maintenance to keep them working. None of that detail out there at all.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, just on Ukraine if I can. Do you agree with Jim Chalmers that President Zelenskyy is a hero who will go down in history for his courage? And the US Vice President JD Vance yesterday, referred to foreign leaders going to Ukraine on propaganda tours do you agree with that characterisation?
PRIME MINISTER: On the first, I agree that President Zelenskyy is a hero. He has provided leadership at an extraordinarily difficult time. Russia is a very large country which borders Ukraine, they have a substantially larger military and capacity. And at the time of the illegal and immoral Russian invasion of Ukraine, there were many people writing at the time that this was a conflict that would last days or weeks, maybe a month. But there weren't many suggesting that more than three years later now, the Ukrainian people are continuing to defend their sovereignty and their nation. They have shown great bravery, and President Zelenskyy has shown leadership. I've met him on a number of occasions, and I have also spoken to him on the phone, most recently, just a few weeks ago. When I visited Ukraine, I did so with, I believe, the absolute bipartisan support of everyone in the national Parliament. I did so on behalf of Australia, and I did so, I was welcomed there by President Zelenskyy. I regarded it as an honour to represent Australia during that visit.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, are you planning a trip to the Govenor-General within the next seven days?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I'm here today, and I am going to Canberra this afternoon. So, if you keep your eye on that white car with the little flag on the front, if I dropped by the Governor-General's this afternoon, it would be for maybe a birthday cake or something like that. But I don't think, I'm not sure if the Governor-General is aware it's my birthday today.
JOURNALIST: Have you got any plans for your birthday?
PRIME MINISTER: I am planning to have dinner at The Lodge, a quiet dinner with Jodie and Nathan. But what better way to spend my birthday than with all of you here at this press conference supporting Medicare and engaging with the media on something that's so important. I work hard each and every day. I was elected on my birthday, so it's the anniversary of that as well, for the first time. But we're continuing to govern. Cabinet will meet tomorrow. We're continuing to put together a Budget. This week, I'll be in at least three states. That's what I do. I work hard each and every day, and I don't disappear for days or weeks on end, and I don't just do supportive interviews where I get bowled full tosses.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister on that, there are reports that Labor staff are starting to bed down at your election HQ in Sydney, is that just a test run ahead of the Budget or the firing of a starter gun for the election campaign?
PRIME MINISTER: I was with Labor volunteers and people yesterday were out there in Ashbury, at Peace Park at Ashbury. I went there to - we put up a social media site. They were out there knocking on doors. I can report from Ashbury, that new part of my electorate that I'd lost and has come back in in a redistribution, that it was really positive yesterday morning. Obviously, an elections due at sometime, but people in the Labor Party advocate because we're passionate about making a difference to this country. And we know that my Government has a record of which we are proud. More importantly, we know we have commitments going forward, such as the one we're announcing today. 20 per cent of student debt. The tripling of the Medicare bulk billing incentive for all Australians. The abolition of the activity test so that people can get access to three days child care in that guarantee. Increased child care infrastructure investment, and a range of other commitments that we have going forward. Most importantly, responsible economic management so we can get it done and an orderly government. And we know that all that's at risk. You know, we had, I spoke before about the record of the former Government when it came to relationships in our region.
But remember this - there was total chaos. I mean, for Scott Morrison to be coming out lecturing people about orderly government. This is a bloke who was the Prime Minister, the Treasurer, the Industry Minister, the Resources Minister, had about eight - Health Minister during the pandemic - about nine different portfolios. I think he couldn't keep up with it. So, you'll excuse me for not being able to keep up with it. Importantly, he shared a house with Josh Frydenberg, the Treasurer, at The Lodge. Just forgot to tell him over the Wheaties or over toast in the morning - "Hey, hey Josh, by the way, mate, I'm also the Treasurer". Forgot to tell him. There was chaos. Six Defence Ministers in nine years, and you know what we're left with, with the Dutton Opposition? The leftovers of the Morrison Government. The best of them have all left, all the so-called centrists or progressives or moderates like Simon Birmingham or Paul Fletcher and others, Karen Andrews, they've left the building. They're out of there. And what you're left with is a hard right rump. A hard right rump that's good at trying to divide Australians, but doesn't offer anything going forward. Thanks very much.
