Anthony Albanese visits Dunkley for the second time in a week

Speaker Milton Dick is yet to set a date for the Dunkley by-election, but the outer southeastern Melbourne seat has had three visits from federal leaders this week.

Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese and Labor candidate for Dunkley Jodie Belyea giving a press conference at the Urgent Care Clinic in Frankston.

Anthony Albanese has paid his second visit in a week to the Victorian seat of Dunkley, spruiking his government’s health policy as campaigning steps up for the by-election in the outer southeastern Melbourne electorate.

The Prime Minister visited an urgent care clinic in Frankston with Labor candidate Jodie Belyea, saying it was one of the 58 such clinics promised ahead of the 2022 election, all of which are now up and running.

Speaker Milton Dick is yet to announce a date for the by-election prompted by the tragic death in December of former Dunkley MP Peta Murphy, but the poll is widely expected to be held in late February or early March.

Mr Albanese’s visit on Thursday came a week after he rolled up to the Frankston Bowling Club to announce the candidacy of charity founder and former teacher Ms Belyea, before Frankston mayor Nathan Conroy won Liberal preselection for the seat on Sunday, and held a press conference with Peter Dutton. As the PM was touring the urgent care clinic, a chef who had cut his arm was admitted – a situation Mr Albanese said demonstrated the efficacy of the service, which is designed to take pressure off both GP clinics and ER departments.

“Rather than going to an emergency department to get stitched up, (the chef) right now, as we speak, is getting the care that he needs without having to wait, just needing his Medicare card, making an enormous difference, and that’s why these clinics are so important,” Mr Albanese said.

Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese gives a press conference at the Urgent Care Clinic in Frankston. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Luis Enrique Ascui

The Prime Minister was pressed on the role health inflation has played in pushing up the consumer price index, as well as on the fact that bulk billing rates have been falling under his government – from 88.5 per cent of non-referred GP visits in May 2022, to 73 per cent in the most recently published data.

He said his government had tripled the bulk billing incentive in last May’s budget, representing “the largest injection of funding to assist Medicare that has happened since Medicare was founded”.

“In addition to that, urgent care clinics like the one here, people all they need is their Medicare card. That’s a new form of health service delivery. It’s based upon models that have been successful overseas and the ones here that have been successful.”

Dunkley has historically been a Liberal Partyy seat, but a redistribution in 2019 and wide respect for Ms Murphy as a strong local advocate had seen her build her margin up to 6.27 per cent at the 2022 election.