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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-03-06 Daily Xml
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General Practitioner Payroll Tax

Mrs HURN (Schubert) (14:24): My question is to the Minister for Health. Has the minister requested any modelling on the potential impacts that GP payroll tax changes could have on ramping and pressure in our hospitals? If so, what was advised?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:25): As the Treasurer has comprehensively answered already, this is obviously an area of his responsibility, and he has been working with the RACGP and the AMA on this issue. Of course, there is no change in terms of the state government's laws around payroll tax.

We do recognise that obviously primary care has a significant impact upon the rest of the health system. Primary care is, and has been for a number of years, a significant issue. That's why at national cabinet both the Premier to the Prime Minister and I to the federal health minister have been raising concerns in relation to primary care, GPs and bulk billing more broadly. We can see over the past 10 years the impact in terms of availability of bulk billing and getting access to a GP has caught issues.

The key driver behind that is the Medicare rebate that's provided by the federal government has not kept pace. This is something that has been raised by the key medical groups and that we continue to advocate on. We appreciate the work that's been done by the federal government already on this front. Already they have tripled the bulk-billing incentive. That has had some impact, but I think the anecdotal reports are that there are a lot of GP practices that haven't changed their bulk-billing arrangements since that incentive came in.

We have also seen the introduction of the Medicare urgent care centres, of which there are five across South Australia: four in metropolitan Adelaide and one in regional South Australia in Mount Gambier. We are hearing positive impacts in terms of people being able to access care for things that they might otherwise have had to go to the emergency department for. That obviously links in with other initiatives that the state government has, including the additional 24-hour pharmacies that opened this week, as well as hospital avoidance centres, with the new one opening this week at the Repat site, for the SALHN CARE site, with two more of those to come as well. No doubt, any investment that we continue to advocate for in primary health care is certainly important.

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