Andrew spoke in Parliament on a debate about the postcode lottery of accessing quality health care in Australia and the need for government to prioritise access to quality affordable health care when and where you need it. You can read his speech below.
“I thank the Member for Fowler for bringing this important matter before the House, because access to quality, affordable health care is a fundamental right, and it shouldn’t be dependent on your postcode.
But sadly that’s the case, because the postcode lottery is the daily reality for too many people in this country, particularly in my home state of Tasmania.
Now I acknowledge that this situation is in part due to health policy, and funding, being a complicated and shared responsibility between the Federal and state governments. But that doesn’t mean the difficulties being experienced by the community can’t be solved, nor that we should accept the situation when specific challenges seem to be intractable.
And boy oh boy aren’t there some challenges to confront right no? Indeed as I speak with families and health-care workers in my community, and indeed right across across Tasmania, I hear the same concerns repeated again and again: that GP clinics are overbooked, that bulk-billing is still difficult to find, that facilities are outdated, that emergency departments are cramped or overflowing, that diagnostics are limited, and that way too often essential care is delayed.
At the start of this year GP bulk billing across Tasmania was up more than five per cent to 80 per cent, compared with 12 months ago, due to the Government’s boost to incentives. And that’s great. But to be honest with the community, that improvement’s off a low base and Tasmania remains the second-lowest bulk-billing state in the country, well behind New South Wales and Victoria. Moreover the figure is distorted by improved rates in rural areas, leaving the actual bulk billing rate in Hobart somewhere between 60 and 70 per cent. And all that’s despite Tasmania having one of the oldest, poorest and sickest populations in the country.
And as the Grattan Institute notes, boosting the bulk-billing incentives does have the perverse side-effect of entrenching a dysfunctional funding model which incentivises practices to see more patients for shorter visits, regardless of a patient’s needs. This leaves GPs feeling overstretched and unable to meet patient needs, and leaves patients with without the time and support to properly address increasingly complex and chronic conditions.
Now it’s not just primary health care that’s shackbaggerly in my home state, because acute care lags the rest of the country too. For instance in Tasmania hospital emergency department waiting times are markedly worse than the national average, with the latest data showing that the State recorded the worst results in the nation for emergency department performance. In fact only 46 per cent of patients were seen on time in 2024-25, compared with the national average of 67 per cent. The goal of course should be 100 per cent.
And that’s if you actually manage to get to the ED, because Hobart has the longest ambulance response time of any state capital in the country, and across Tasmania last year more than 4,500 emergency incidents had to wait more than 35 minutes for an ambulance to arrive. That’s just shameful.
Meanwhile the public mental and dental care systems remain in dire straits in Tassie too. In fact, if you’re on the waitlist for the public dentist, you’re likely facing a wait of about four years.
This is of course not because our healthcare workforce isn’t doing their best – they are highly professional and do an excellent job under a huge amount of pressure. But they need to be properly supported by a funding model and a health care system which works no matter where you are.
And that’s something we should be able to provide in this country. Now I’ve said it many times before, that Australia is one of the wealthiest countries in the world and if we decide something is a priority we can afford it. Indeed according to the latest UBS Global Wealth Report, Australia ranked second in median wealth, behind only Luxembourg. And in the last budget the Government had over three quarters of a trillion dollars on hand to spend.
In other words it’s all about priorities and teamwork. So instead of each jurisdiction wandering around like Brown’s cows on health care policy and funding, they should be working together to ensure that, no matter what your postcode, or where you are in the country, you can be assured of access to quality and affordable healthcare when you need it.“