Health Insurance Amendment (Incentive Payments and Other Measures) Bill 2026
Mrs McINTOSH (Lindsay) (18:23): I rise to speak on the Health Insurance Amendment (Incentive Payments and Other Measures) Bill 2026. The purpose of the bill is to establish a clear legislative framework for Commonwealth health incentive payment programs. These incentive payment programs include the General Practice in Aged Care Incentive program, the Bulk Billing Practice Incentive Program, the Practice Incentives Program and the Workforce Incentive Program.
The bill has been designed to formalise the Commonwealth's longstanding use of incentive payments to support quality improvement, affordability, access, digital health uptake, and rural and remote service delivery. For many years, the Commonwealth government has used incentive payments to support health service access and delivery. Currently, these programs are administered without a legislative framework covering their administration, compliance and oversight.
The bill will create consistent processes for program approval and decision-making and will allow for the secretary of the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing and the chief executive of Medicare to undertake compliance action with respect to providers participating in these programs, as well as require providers to share information for the purposes of administering the incentive payment programs.
The coalition supports Commonwealth health incentive payment programs and established several of them when in government. The coalition will not oppose this bill in the House, but has referred the bill to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee for further scrutiny. However, I move the following second reading amendment on behalf of the opposition: That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: "whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House: (1) notes: (a) during the 2025 election, the Prime Minister promised on countless occasions that all Australians needed to see their GP was their Medicare card, not their credit card; (b) the latest bulk-billing rate still sits well below the 88 per cent rate reached under the Coalition; (c) the latest Medicare data shows average out-of-pocket costs have risen to a record $50.77 per visit, up more than 20 per cent in two years; (d) the total number of GP attendances dropped by 1.8 million visits in the past year; (e) these delayed or permanently deferred GP attendances result in Australians getting sicker and ending up in our overcrowded emergency departments; and (f) the Government is pushing family GPs towards bulk billing, despite the Department of Health's own modelling showing nearly one in three GPs would be worse off if they switched to fully bulk billing; and (2) criticises the Government for misleading the public and breaking its promises on primary health care".
The Prime Minister promised Australians at least 71 times, 'All you need is your Medicare card, not your credit card.' That sounds familiar! New data confirms that promise is in tatters. Average out-of-pocket costs for GP non-referred attendances have hit a record $50.77, which is a huge increase per service nationally.
It is up from $46.31 in the same period of the previous year and up from $41.90 two years ago—a 21 per cent increase in two years. Australian families paid over $2 billion in combined GP out-of-pocket costs in the past financial year alone. The variation across electorates is stark.
Patients in some areas are paying over $60 per visit. Tasmania leads the nation with a $59.54 average. The Clark electorate is at $64.20, the highest in the country.
In the ACT, $56.24 is the average. In the Canberra electorate, it is $58.91. In New South Wales, Wentworth is the highest, at $61.24.
In Sydney, it is $56.56. In Victoria, in Melbourne, it is $60.63. In Kooyong, it's $56.61.
Bulk-billing has collapsed under Labor. When the coalition left office in May 2022, the bulk-billing rate was at 88.5 per cent, at an all-time record high. Under Labor, it has fallen as low as 77.9 per cent, a drop of almost 11 percentage points.
The department of health has admitted Labor will not meet its own targets until after the next election. The human cost is real. The latest Medicare statistics show that the number of GP consultations fell by more than 1.8 million consultations compared to the same period last year.
Many Australians simply cannot afford to go to the doctor. Desperate to cover for the PM's lies on free GP visits, Labor MPs have resorted to bullying and threatening family run GP practices to bulk-bill. Labor MPs are sending threatening letters to family GP clinics.
That is a disgrace. Why are they doing that? These are small businesses, which form the backbone of communities, not political pawns for the Albanese government to push around.
GPs, like all small businesses around Australia, are already under significant strain from the rising cost of doing business, and the last thing they need is political intimidation from their government. Instead of sending heavy-handed letters to local doctors, the Albanese government should focus on fixing the crisis in the health system that they have created from rising out-of-pocket costs to growing ED wait times.
These letters are evidence of the Prime Minister's plan to drive out family doctors and hand the system to corporate interests running production-line, six-minute medicine. The coalition will continue to challenge Labor's mistruths around Medicare and will continue to hold them to account for their failings and lack of accountability. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Dr Freelander ): Is the amendment seconded?
Mr Caldwell: I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.