Budget: ‘Biggest primary healthcare investment in decades’ Townsville doctor says

A trebling of bulk-billing incentives should help NQ GPs stay open and bulk-bill. NQ budget breakdown.

A Medicare boost in the federal budget is a win for North Queensland, politicians and doctors say.

Bulk-billing incentives were tripled in the federal budget on Tuesday.

Prominent Townsville doctor Michael Clements said the incentive boost was the best way of investing in Medicare, while targeting the investment to the most vulnerable.

“Practices that are thinking about private billing, or are thinking about closing even, who are currently bulk-billing, have been given a lifeline so they can continue to provide that service,” Dr Clements said.

The incentive increase is relative to how rural the GP is; the more rural, the larger the incentive for bulk-billing.

Townsville doctor Michael Clements says changes to bulk-billing announced in the federal budget on Tuesday “does breathe some life, and some hope, into the concept of primary care”.

“It’s $5.6bn overall into primary care. That is new money. It is the biggest investment going into the (primary healthcare) system in decades,” Dr Clements said.

Standard consultations currently attract a Medicare rebate of just more than $39, and now doctors will receive at least an extra $20.65 for each eligible patient per consultation if they bulk-bill the service.

The federal budget also includes $99.1m for a new 60-minute-or-longer GP consultation in the Medicare benefits Schedule. Picture: Martin Ollman.

It more than triples the current bulk-billing incentive payment of $6.60. The new bulk-billing incentive payment will be even higher in the regions – as much as $39.65 per patient in remote areas, above the standard rebate.

The funding also had practice incentive payments built in, so practices would be encouraged to hire more nurses and pharmacists, Dr Clements said.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers hands down the 2023 Budget in the House of Representatives at Parliament House.

“Which I think are all excellent things, so we’re very pleased.”

Dr Clements is an associate professor and chair of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners’ Rural Council.

“This does breathe some life, and some hope, into the concept of primary care,” he said of the budget.

A longer, 60-minute consult item has also been added to the Medicare rebate list, above the previous 45-minute maximum.

Kennedy MP Bob Katter said extensions to bulk-billing were particularly relevant to North Queensland because a lot of people were a long way from a base hospital.

The boost to Medicare rebates should be able to secure more doctors in the region, Mr Katter said.

“And those queues which are two and three months long will shrink down to maybe a few weeks now. So that is very big for North Queensland.”

He said there were other inclusions in the budget that were “brilliantly good”, such as “desperately needed” money for single mothers.

Kennedy MP Bob Katter is pleased with healthcare measures in this week’s federal budget. Picture: Brian Cassey

Single parents on welfare will not be forced back to work until their youngest child is 14. The payments previously stopped when the youngest child turned eight. The change means $4576 a year to eligible families.

“How these women are coping I don’t know,” Mr Katter said.

NQ projects missing from budget

A Townsville business insider says major North Queensland projects are conspicuously absent from the federal budget.

Accounting firm PVW Partners hosted a breakfast for small business owners in Townsville on Wednesday to dissect the federal budget.

PVW Partners managing partner Carl Valentine. Picture: Shae Beplate.

PVW partner Carl Valentine said there was a lot of excitement in the regional economy during the past few years about water projects, but funding was not in the budget.

“It’s very clear now that neither our state or federal government intend to pursue our water projects, things like the Hells Gates Dam, so I think our economy will continue to be OK, without the benefit of those water projects,” Mr Valentine said.

He was concerned the budget did not lay out a long-term plan for the economy and the “apparent pause” on infrastructure spending.

There also needed to be more details for projects such as Reef HQ and NQ Spark to drive business confidence in Townsville, Mr Valentine said.

The Reef HQ aquarium closed in 2021 and a new facility is supposed to be built and opened by 2026. NQ Spark would be a “simulation-based” training facility for defence, education and health.

Mr Valentine said the region would also benefit from green energy investment.

The government abolished the North Queensland Water Infrastructure Authority, which is to be subsumed by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.

Boost of $64.1m for Veterans’ Affairs in budget

A bipartisan boost to veteran support has been welcomed, by way of the federal budget.

Herbert MP and LNP’s Shadow Assistant Defence Minister Phil Thompson said a $64.1m boost to clear a backlog of veterans’ claims was “very pleasing”.

“When the Treasurer Jim Chalmers announced it he looked over and gave me a little nod, because he knows this is bipartisan and very important,” Mr Thompson said.

Herbert MP Phil Thompson (front). Picture: Evan Morgan

Defence Force Chief General Angus Campbell conceded Defence had not done enough to reduce suicide in the ranks as he gave evidence to the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide in Townsville last year.

“We’ve seen through the Royal Commission that these long wait times, more than a year, sometimes more than two and even longer, creates mental illness,” Mr Thompson said on Thursday.

Townsville’s 3rd Battalion had however been “left in the lurch” by federal budget measures, Mr Thompson said.

Townsville and the defence industry had missed out on key job-creating projects within the budget, which instead included a cut of infantry fighting vehicles from 450 to 129.

That left 3RAR “in the lurch, of if they will be a mechanised battalion, or will they have to be rerolled?”, Mr Thompson questioned.

Other combat and non-combat units with infantry fighting vehicles were also affected, he said.

Tuesday’s budget included $37.4m for deployments supporting the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, training Ukrainians and surveillance of Australia’s borders.

Originally published as Budget: ‘Biggest primary healthcare investment in decades’ Townsville doctor says