Labor vows $644m for additional 50 urgent care clinics if re-elected

Dozens more urgent care clinics will be built by the Albanese government if it is re-elected at the coming election, in a $644 million expansion of a scheme Labor regards as a big vote-winner.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is expected to call an election soon – with April 12 firming as a probable date – and on Sunday will add another plank to his health-focused agenda, taking Labor’s Medicare pledges over recent weeks to almost $10 billion.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has put Medicare funding at the centre of his re-election campaign.Credit: Brodie Weeding

Spending on the suburban and regional clinics, which Labor marginal seat MPs say have been politically popular as alternatives to hospitals, is also designed to sharpen Labor’s contrast with Peter Dutton, whom it is desperate to frame as a risk to public health funding ahead of what looms as a tight election.

Albanese said the 50 extra clinics would build on the 87 already opened this term, and that the new facilities would be constructed in 2025-26.

“Four in five Australians will live within a 20-minute drive of a bulk-billed Medicare urgent care clinic once all Labor’s clinics are open,” Albanese said in a written statement.

Health Minister Mark Butler said: “You can’t trust [the Coalition] to keep them open”, setting up another test for Dutton after the opposition immediately backed Labor’s $8.5 billion free GP pledge last Sunday despite the budget being in structural deficit.

The adoption of such a big spending item displayed the political sensitivity of healthcare and the opposition’s eagerness to neutralise Labor’s attack, which carries echoes of the 2016 “Mediscare” campaign waged against Malcolm Turnbull. The line has particular potential to cut through because Peter Dutton was health minister when the Abbott government tried to create a GP co-payment.

Two senior opposition sources, not permitted to talk openly about shadow cabinet, said Dutton was preparing an expensive health policy of his own, making it easier to support Labor’s spending as the opposition struggles to find savings to bolster its budget bottom line. The $644 million clinic pitch was funded in December’s mid-year budget update, the government confirmed.

It is unclear, however, if the opposition will support the urgent care investment. The information contained in this story was provided by the government on an embargoed basis that prohibits questions being asked of non-government parties.

While the precise locations are yet to be finalised, 14 clinics would be opened in NSW at Bathurst, Bega, Burwood, Chatswood, Dee Why, Green Valley and surrounds, Maitland, Marrickville, Nowra, Rouse Hill, Shellharbour, Terrigal, Tweed Valley and Windsor.

Twelve would be built in Victoria at Bayside, Clifton Hill, Coburg, Diamond Creek and surrounds, Lilydale, Pakenham, Somerville, Stonnington, Sunshine, Torquay, Warrnambool and Warragul.

And in Queensland there would be new sites at Brisbane, Buderim, Burpengary, Cairns, Caloundra, Capalaba, Carindale, Gladstone, Greenslopes and surrounds, and Mackay.

Health and aged care is rated as the top issue for 7 per cent of voters, according to the latest Resolve Political Monitor, well behind the cost of living (53 per cent), but ahead of topics such as immigration (4 per cent) and similar to crime (9 per cent).

This masthead reported on January 1 that Labor would put bulk-billing and urgent care clinics at the centre of its campaign pitch.

Labor had a six-point lead on the Coalition on health policy in the Resolve poll in April last year, but this has turned into a three-point deficit as ratings of Labor’s performance in all areas have trended downward along with its level of core political support amid an inflation crisis.

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