Minister for Health and Aged Care, press conference – 4 March 2025

MEMBER FOR PATERSON, MERYL SWANSON: Good morning, everyone. We're here at Maitland hospital with the Health Minister, Mark Butler. It is incredible to have Mark here at Maitland. We know that Maitland is the fastest growing area in the State. We know that has been the case for years. We know the second fastest growing area is Cessnock. This is such a great area to live in, so many people have moved here, particularly post COVID, and we know that our health services need to keep up with that. We know we need an investment in health. I have been working with my community now for years on health. After I was elected in 2022, we secured the after hours GP access funding right here at this hospital. The former government had said “no, we haven't got enough money for that”. We locked it in so that our community could keep coming to see a GP here at the hospital. We were also able to secure a license, the all-important license, for an MRI machine. Many people talk to me and say it's really changed their lives, being able to come to hospital and get an MRI, to get proper diagnosis.

They are a couple of the things that we've done, particularly locally, and we've got the announcement today that we have been working on with the community. I want to say a great big thank you to everyone who signed the petition, who talked to me about an Urgent Care Clinic for Maitland. The Health Minister is here and I'm hoping he's here with some good news today about that.

I know that when you've got your health, you've got everything. We are blessed to live in a fantastic part of the world. A lot of people want to live here, and we do need good healthcare facilities. We've got a beautiful new hospital. It's had its issues getting up and running, and we know because it's new, a lot of people come here, and they need treatment. We've been working with the Minns Government on that as well. There is more work to do, but under an Albanese Labor Government, we are going to put your health first. That is the most important priority for us right here in the Hunter, making sure that you can get the health care that you need. Minister, thank you for being here with me at Maitland Hospital today, and more broadly in the area, and thanks for all the work you've been doing in relation to health care. I know it's a priority for you, and I know it's something that you are incredibly dedicated to getting right.
 
MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE, MARK BUTLER: Great to be back with Meryl here in Maitland. We haven’t been here for a few months, and this is a community that keeps on growing, such a terrific community. I want to thank Meryl for her advocacy and support of our strengthening Medicare agenda. That agenda rests on three big pillars: more doctors, more bulk billing and more urgent care. But also at a local level, Meryl, you and the Hunter team have been advocating, particularly for the GP Access After-hours Program – which I think is the best after hours program in the country – to get full funding again. You argued so strongly for that back in 2022 and reinstating that funding in 2022 has made a real difference to the whole Hunter Valley, including being able to extend those hours here at Maitland again. After 6pm on weekdays, after 1pm on Saturdays, all of Sunday and all of the public holidays, it makes such a difference, and it really is a bit of a beacon for the rest of the country.

I also want to thank Meryl for her advocacy around our women's health package that we announced a few weeks ago. Women, as everyone knows, face a whole lot of lifetime health costs, not particularly because they're sick, but because they're women. Around reproductive health, contraception, and while they're going through perimenopause and menopause. For decades now, women have had those needs neglected. We just haven't kept up or kept pace with technological developments. The package we announced a few weeks ago, that Meryl had such strong input to, finally delivers women more choice, lower costs and better care through those key parts of their life, through reproduction and contraception, perimenopause and menopause. Just the last weekend, we listed the first new oral contraceptives on the PBS in more than three decades, and the first new menopause hormone treatments in more than two decades, which Meryl was such a strong advocate for.

We have also announced additional investments in bulk billing. When we came to government, bulk billing was in freefall, including here in the Hunter Valley. When we tripled the bulk billing incentive that GPs receive for bulk billing pensioners and concession card holders, we saw that slide we inherited stop, and start to rebound right across the country, in every state and territory. I'm so pleased that you saw a bounce in bulk billing, here in your electorate of Paterson, Meryl, but we recognise there's more to do. That's why, for the first time ever, if we are elected, we will extend bulk billing support to doctors, to bulk bill all patients. Because we know a whole lot of middle Australia, who don't have access to a concession card, are finding it really hard to get a bulk billing doctor, and as a result, too often, are choosing not to go to the GP. That deferred care is not only bad for them, but it means they end up in another more expensive part of the healthcare system, like the Maitland Hospital here.

I'm also really delighted to announce that our third pillar of our strengthening Medicare agenda, Urgent Care Clinics, is coming to the electorate of Paterson, with our announcement on the weekend that one of the 50 new Urgent Care Clinics that we will establish, if elected, will be here in Maitland. We know there's a huge need and demand for it. It will take pressure off this very, very busy emergency department, but it will also give members of this growing community access to high quality urgent care, seven days a week, over extended hours, and importantly, on a fully bulk billed basis. Already, 1.2 million Australians have gone through our busy Medicare Urgent Care Clinic network, every one of whom has gone through free of charge. Once our expanded network is up and running, 2 million Australians every year will go to an Urgent Care Clinic, instead of a crowded emergency department like this one at the Maitland Hospital. Meryl, you have been arguing the case for this Urgent Care Clinic as long as I can remember. You have been arguing for it forcefully and have been tapping into your community. Building an Urgent Care Clinic here is a just reward for that work, but most importantly, it's the sort of service that a strengthening Medicare government should deliver to a community like this.

Before I take questions, I've seen some reports that somehow the Labor Government is matching a Liberal Party claim for an Urgent Care Clinic in this seat, which would be funny, if it were not so serious. I want to point out that the Liberal Party, from the time we launched this program, has called the Urgent Care Clinic program, in their words, “a disaster”, “a waste of money”, and “a wrong fit for Australia”. Time after time, the Shadow Treasurer, Angus Taylor, said that this “wasteful spending”, as he described the Urgent Care Clinic program, would be on the chopping block, in the event that a Liberal Government were elected. Of the 50 clinics we announced on the weekend, the Liberal Party has conveniently decided to support four of them, just four of them, which all happen to be in four target Liberal seats. You cannot take that seriously. The only party that is going to deliver a genuine Urgent Care Clinic program is the Labor Party. The only candidate in this electorate who can tap into a government that is serious about Urgent Care Clinics is Meryl Swanson. Happy to take questions.
 
JOURNALIST: Minister, GPs, say that these clinics are much more expensive to run than supporting GPs to work out of hours. What's your response to that?
 
BUTLER: They're using the wrong comparator. With respect, I have a disagreement with the College of GPs on this. I want to point out that in a big survey last year, 70 per cent, of GPs said this program was a good program, and 80 per cent of GPs said it was having a good impact on local emergency departments. I think the College of GPs is wrong about this. The proper comparator is not the price of a standard consult a GP might have on a weekday. The proper comparator is what it is costing for people to end up at emergency departments like this, because we know the vast majority, of people who go through these Urgent Care Clinics tell us they would otherwise end up at a hospital ED, particularly on the weekend or after hours.
 
JOURNALIST: You’ve said that the independent evaluation of these clinics isn't due until next year. Why are you spending millions more on this policy without the evidence that it's cost effective?
 
BUTLER: Because there's a clear demand for this. I have no doubt this program will continue well into the future in Australia. We are one of the very few countries without an urgent care clinic program. There are 15,000 urgent care clinics in the United States. The U.K., New Zealand and Europe operate them as an integral part of the healthcare system, that sit between a standard general practice and a fully equipped hospital emergency department. I have very little doubt this program will continue. The evaluation will help us tweak the program or provide some changes to its design, as would be appropriate, given this is a new model of care for Australia, but I'm not going to sit on my hands and see this enormous demand for urgent care out in communities, like the community here in Maitland, while we await that independent evaluation. It is working, there is no doubt. As we look at hospital emergency department data, in the catchments that have an Urgent Care Clinic, the presentations for semi-urgent and non-urgent cases are starting to drop away, as people access Urgent Care Clinics instead. That's good for the hospital system, but it's also good for patients. A third of them are kids under 15, such as those who break their arm at Saturday afternoon sport. If they didn't have that Urgent Care Clinic, they would be spending hours and hours with mum and dad in a crowded hospital emergency department.
 
JOURNALIST: So even though over 100 will open before this evaluation takes place, the evaluation will be to make tweaks as necessary?
 
BUTLER: This program is working. There is no doubt about that. This program is going to be a permanent feature of Australia's healthcare system. Whether the evaluation comes to us with some suggestions about changes to the way in which the program operates, remains to be seen. But this is a really important part of our strengthening Medicare agenda. We need more doctors, we need more bulk billing, but we also need more urgent care options for people, at a time when our hospitals are under unprecedented pressure.
 
JOURNALIST: How long will it take to get it off the ground, and are there enough doctors to start with?
 
BUTLER: This funding is allocated to start from the 1st of July. I've said that I want all 50 of these clinics that we've announced up and running in the 2025-26 financial year. So far, I promised 50 and we've delivered 87. They have all been up and running ahead of our announced time. I'm very confident there will be a high level of interest by general practices in the Maitland area, to take their practice to a new level, and be the Urgent Care Clinic for this area. We know right across Australia, there's a high interest from doctors and nurses in working in this model of care, because it's an exciting new model of care.
 
JORUNALIST: Some questions for Meryl, if you don’t mind. There's still some issues with the hospital that are being worked on at a government level. Can you just quickly touch on what's happening in that space at the moment?
 
SWANSON: That's the Minns Government, the state government, that has made an announcement just last week. They've employed three new concierge people to try and triage people quicker through the emergency department. That's a broad picture of where that's going. As a federal government, we have also made a huge investment, in the billions. We're injecting more money into hospitals, on top of Medicare, on top of bulk billing, on top of Urgent Care Clinics. The Prime Minister recently made an announcement regarding injecting billions of extra dollars into hospitals, of which this hospital will benefit.
 
JOURNALIST: Just lastly, obviously, the community was a big part of getting this clinic over the line in this way. Walk us through some of their concerns and what they've been pushing forward. There was a petition involved as well.
 
SWANSON: There was a petition involved and the community were amazing. We have door knocked thousands of homes in the last few months. So many people, when I say, “I've got a petition, we're pushing to get an Urgent Care Clinic here for Maitland, we want to make sure we get our fair share in the Hunter”. And they say, “Where do I sign? We really need it. I took my child up there and we had to wait forever in emergency.” We've all had experiences, either here or at the John Hunter Hospital. We know that these Urgent Care Clinics make such an incredible difference, when you might have something that is urgent, that does need medical attention, but it might not need to be in an emergency department. We've all been in those situations, and that's why this is such a fantastic new thing we're injecting into our healthcare system. It's much needed. I just can't wait for the one in Maitland to be up and running so that our community will see the benefits from it.