KARA COOK, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR BONNER: Hello everyone. We're here in Rochedale with the Prime Minister. My name is Kara Cook, I'm Labor’s Candidate for Bonner. Wonderful to have the PM here. And we're talking a lot about, all we want you to need is – this one, your Medicare card – not your credit card when you visit the GP. And thank you to everyone for welcoming us so warmly this morning. And I'll hand over to the Prime Minister to say a few words.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Well, thanks very much Kara, and Kara Cook is our fantastic Candidate for Bonner. She's experienced. She has represented this community on the Brisbane City Council. She's someone who is a local, someone who's absolutely committed to making a difference as part of a second term Labor Government. And one of the big issues that this campaign will be about is healthcare. A Labor Government that believes in strengthening Medicare by tripling the bulk billing incentive for every single Australian. We, in the last Budget, increased it – tripled it – for 11 million concession card holders. That has lifted up the bulk billing rate for those Australians to 90 per cent. What we're doing now is tripling the bulk billing incentive for all 27 million Australians. We expect that will lead to 90 per cent of bulk billing so that when you need to see a doctor, you can see them for free. The other thing we're doing is expanding our Urgent Care Clinic network from 87 to an additional 50. At the last election, we promised 50,. We've over delivered with 87 Urgent Care Clinic that have seen 1.2 million Australians see a doctor when they need it for free. And all they've needed is this little bit of plastic here. All they have needed is their Medicare card, not their credit card. Because it's one of the things that defines us as Australians. We do not need an Americanisation of our healthcare system. What we need to do is to look after each other in the way that Australians do. And one area of pride that Australians have is our Medicare system and the fact that when you are sick, it's not what your bank balance is that matters. It's whether you can get the care that you need and you get the same care regardless of who you are. This is about assisting the number of GPs. It's about making more people be able to see a GP for free, taking pressure off emergency departments and making an enormous difference here as well. And we're going to hear from Dr Ali, who is one of the doctors at this wonderful clinic here, who's been bulk billing all the concession card holders who come through here, but who understands that tripling the bulk billing incentive will make an enormous positive difference. We will continue to deliver that tripling of bulk billing incentive, but we'll also have an Urgent Care Clinic right here in Bonner. One of the 50 additional that will make a difference so that people can get the care they need, when they need it, with their Medicare card.
DOCTOR ALI ISMAIL: Thank you, Prime Minister, for visiting us, and it's a great pleasure to have in here, and very good news to know that we will get an Urgent Care Clinic within the catchment of Bonner. Which has been very useful in all the other Urgent Care Clinic. I work in one of them as well. From a perspective of bulk billing incentive, I think that this is a very good initiative, and that's a continuation of an ongoing work that was done the previous years and making progress towards including more and more of our patient base that we can comfortably bulk bill would be greatly appreciated by the, I'm sure, the doctors’ community as well as the patients in the wider range of community. So, once again, let's keep working towards improving the incentives, towards getting more rebates, towards getting more access to the patients, and particularly in the Urgent Care Clinics. Obviously, it's always been, it's always going to be very, very useful. Thank you.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks, Dr Ali. Happy to take questions, if there is one?
JOURNALIST: Just one on Olympics, if that’s alright? What will you do if the State Government decides to move the Brisbane Live Arena? Will you re-consider your funding?
PRIME MINISTER: What we've got is we've got money in there for an arena that's important for the Olympics, but it's also important for post-Olympics. We want young people to be able to go and – young and old – to be able to come and see festivals, to see music activity that occurs. I know that Dua Lipa isn't playing here in Brisbane, but is playing in other cities where there are indoor venues right close to the city. So, that's important. Thanks very much.