PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Ms BELL (Moncrieff) (11:34): I rise today to talk about the women's health motion. First, I'd like to acknowledge Australians who work in health care. Whether you're a carer, a nurse, a doctor, a surgeon, an allied health specialist—and the list goes on—thank you for caring for Australians.
It's often a calling into these roles in health care beyond the salaries, and I thank those workers for the time, effort, energy and precision that they bring to their roles and for the wonderful job that they do across my community but also across the entire country. The coalition is proud of its record on women's health, and in our final budget and government we invested more than $353 million in the health of Australian women.
That included $22 million to add new gynaecology items to the Medicare Benefits Schedule, including for assisted reproductive technology so that women could reach reproductive health care affordably through Medicare. As part of more than 2,900 new or amended PBS listings made when the coalition was in government, a range of medicines was listed to support conditions and cancers affecting women, including medicines for ovarian cancers, breast cancer and hormone transdermal patches.
It was the coalition that launched the National Women's Health Strategy and it was the coalition that announced the historic first investment in Australia's very first endometriosis and pelvic pain clinics. That is a foundation that we on this side are proud of and one that others have built upon. At the last election, both sides of this parliament committed a further $573.3 million to women's health.
This was and is bipartisan because Australian women should be able to expect that, whoever sits on this side of the chamber and whoever sits on the other side, their health is not a political football. We are glad to see parts of it now in place: the new Medicare rebate for menopause and perimenopause assessments, cheaper contraception and new medicines listed on the PBS.
These are good and overdue reforms, and the coalition acknowledges them as such. But a commitment on paper is only worth something when a woman can actually use it, and that's where the government's falling short, because a Medicare rebate for a menopause assessment does not help a woman who cannot find a GP who will bulk-bill. A strategy on paper does not help a woman who cannot afford the appointment.
Under this government, it has never been harder or more expensive for a woman to see a doctor. When the Prime Minister holds up one card, what he should be doing is holding up two cards, because, when you go to see a doctor today, you need to take your credit card. And it is women who feel that first.
Women are more likely to live with chronic conditions, more likely to be the carers in their family and more likely to put their own health last. So, when bulk-billing falls an out-of-pocket costs climb, it's women who quietly go without. They delay the scan, they put off the specialist, they wait and they hope it's nothing.
Too often, by the time they can no longer put it off, something that could have been managed has become something far more serious. So we'll hold this government to account on delivering the rest of what it promised and delivering it in full: the training for health professionals women rely on, the first national clinical guidelines so a woman gets the same standard of care wherever she lives and proper ongoing funding for the endometriosis and pelvic pain clinics that so many women depend on—the very clinics the former coalition government was indeed very proud to establish.
For a woman living with endometriosis or a woman navigating menopause, timely and affordable care is not a nicety; it is everything. Right now, too many women are still missing out. Of great concern is that Australia is going backwards in maternity care.
At least 13 private maternity units have closed their doors since 2022. In Darwin and Hobart and on the Central Coast, whole communities have been left without a single private birthing option. And every ward that closes puts still more pressure on a public system already stretched to its limits.
The coalition will keep working with obstetricians, with midwives and with hospitals on real solutions so that women can reach the fertility and maternity care they need, close to home. Every Australian woman deserves care that is affordable and close to home and that understands her. The coalition is committed to that.
We always have been. We'll keep developing the policy and we'll keep holding this government to account until every woman in this country gets the health care that she deserves, the health care that her family deserves and the health care that her children deserve. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Georganas ): There being no further speakers, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.