Labor accused of pork barrelling with clinic promise

A peak medical body has raised questions about whether Labor’s promise of new urgent care clinics are being allocated where they are most needed.

Labor has been quietly promising new urgent care clinics in battleground seats across the country, sparking Coalition accusations that the scheme is a vehicle for pork barrelling.

But while the opposition maintains the clinics are being allocated where they are most needed, the Australian Medical Association has also raised questions about whether the $135m policy is appropriately targeted.

It will fund 50 clinics at existing GP centres which Australians will be able to access from 8am to 10pm every day for assistance with urgent but not life-threatening medical issues.

This week, Labor pledged to establish clinics in Corangamite and Dunkley, the opposition’s most marginal seats in Victoria.

Other battleground electorates to be promised clinics include Bass and Braddon in Tasmania, Boothby in South Australia, Flynn and Blair in Queensland, Perth and Hasluck in Western Australia, and Hunter in New South Wales.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese made the promise as part of its campaign on healthcare. Picture: Toby Zerna

The opposition refused to provide a full list of the clinics announced so far by Labor MPs, or a state-by-state breakdown of where all 50 would be located.

Government campaign spokesman Simon Birmingham said Labor had not “provided a single piece of evidence to justify the location of these clinics”.

“The only expert opinions Anthony Albanese appears to be using to locate these clinics are those of his pollsters,” he said.

Opposition health spokesman Mark Butler said earlier this month that decisions about the locations of the clinics were based on a Labor analysis of hospital emergency department data.

AMA vice president Dr Chris Moy said the decion on where to build the clinics should be based on need.

A Labor spokesman said this identified areas of “community need”, unlike the Coalition “who have spent nine years wasting taxpayer money on carpark rorts, regional rorts and more”.

“Labor is confident that our commitment to urgent care clinics across Australia will ease the pressure on emergency departments, make it easier to see a GP and support communities based on genuine need,” he said.

But the Australian Medical Association warned the plan was similar to the Rudd government’s GP super clinics, which it described as “some of the worst examples of pork barrelling”.

AMA vice president Dr Chris Moy, who earlier branded the policy as “barely coherent”, said: “The sites for such centres must be based on close consultation with state governments to ensure that locations are based on need.”

Labor leader Anthony Albanese initially said the policy was fully costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office, before finance spokeswoman Katy Gallagher was forced to clarify it was only “based on work done” by the independent body.

Originally published as Labor accused of pork barrelling with clinic promise