THE HON TANYA PLIBERSEK MP
MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER
SENATOR NITA GREEN
SPECIAL ENVOY FOR THE GREAT BARRIER REEF
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
PRESS CONFERENCE
CAIRNS, QUEENSLAND
THURSDAY, 13 MARCH 2025
SUBJECTS: NEW ENDOMETRIOSIS AND PELVIC PAIN CLINICS, MEDICARE BULK BILLING, LABOR'S INVESTMENT IN WOMEN'S HEALTH
MATT SMITH: Good afternoon, my name's Matt Smith. I'm the ALP's candidate for the Federal Seat of Leichhardt, and I'm here, of course, with Minister Tanya Plibersek and Senator Nita Green, Special Envoy for the Great Barrier Reef.
We're here at True Relationships and Sexual Health Clinic today to celebrate a really fantastic announcement concerning women's health. For too long, women's health has been neglected and this investment by the Anthony Albanese Labor Government puts women's health into the forefront, particularly sexual and reproductive health, be that menopause, perimenopause, access to birth control, these are things that are essential for every woman in every part of the country.
We are standing now in one of the first endometriosis and pelvic pain clinics in the country. It's something that we're all very, very proud of.
NITA GREEN: Well, thanks. My name's Nita. I'm a Labor Senator for Queensland, right up here in Cairns, and I'll pick up where Matt left off in saying that this clinic that we're visiting today is really important to the local community here in Cairns.
It was one of the first pelvic and endo clinics opened by our government, and it's delivering fantastic services to people not just here in Cairns but throughout the entire Far North region.
We know that the doctors here are really hard working and they have been delivering Outreach Services as far as Mount Isa, and that means that women are getting access to the care that they really need close to home.
Of course, as Matt alluded to, this is part of a broader plan from our government to take women's health seriously. We are delivering record investment in women's health, including listing oral contraceptives on the PBS for the first time, and making sure we're investing in care for menopause and perimenopause.
The big change for this clinic that we're standing in with the announcement that we've made is they'll also be able to deliver perimenopause and menopause care, on top of the pelvic endo care they already provide.
So, we will see more women from Cairns coming through the door of this fantastic clinic, and we wanted to recognise the work that they do today.
This is on top of a broad investment from our government in the Far North region, protecting Medicare and strengthening it for the future. Of course, we've delivered an Urgent Care Clinic in Edmonton, which opened not long ago and has seen 19,000 presentations. That's 19,000 people that didn't have to go to the Emergency Department here in Cairns.
And, of course, if Matt and the Albanese Labor Government is elected, we're also going to deliver an Urgent Care Clinic in the northern suburb of Cairns. Fantastic campaign run by Matt Smith, supported by up to 500 people in the community who signed those signatures and made sure that Cairns North was on the list when it came to the 50 Urgent Care Clinics that our government is delivering.
We spoke this week about the Medicare mental health centre that we are opening here in Cairns as well. So it's all about recognising that are various types of health that we need to deliver here in Far North Queensland, and because the Albanese Labor Government is finally investing in strengthening Medicare, after 10 years of delay and denial and decay under the previous government, we are getting the care that we need closer to home, taking pressure off family budgets and taking the pressure off our Emergency Department as well.
But I hand over to the Minister who we're so grateful that you're here today, to hear a little bit about the service, but of course to talk about lots of issues to do with Far North Queensland. Thank you.
TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Thanks so much, Nita Green. Of course, as a Senator Nita Green is doing an amazing job as the Special Envoy on the Great Barrier Reef. She has been absolutely instrumental in making sure that we properly protect and preserve the Great Barrier Reef and the 64,000 jobs that rely on the Reef and its health.
It is a real pleasure to be here in Cairns today and to visit this pelvic pain and endometriosis clinic. Most young people will tell you when they're doing sex education at school that they learn about contraception, they learn about the mechanics of how bodies work. But it's not really until you start to experience something like pelvic pain or endometriosis that you see just how unpredictable our health is.
Most women, it takes about seven years for their endometriosis to be properly diagnosed. That's seven years of being treated like you're acting, or there's something wrong with you, or that you're faking it. It's completely unacceptable that there is so little knowledge about endometriosis and pelvic pain in the Australian medical profession. And so, these clinics have been set up specifically to deal with the lack of understanding of women's health in the broader medical profession.
As well as providing endometriosis and pelvic pain support, this clinic will now be able to offer support for women experiencing perimenopause and menopause. Again, something that is experienced by every Australian woman eventually.
These clinics, the extra investments in menopause and perimenopause, are just a small part of the women's health policy that my colleague, Ged Kearney, has been rolling out across Australia. We're investing well over half a billion dollars to improve women's health right across the country. That means putting new contraceptives on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Schedule for the first time in about 30 years. Popular contraceptives like Yaz and Yasmin that many thousands of young women are using, and that they used to pay for out of their own pockets, will now be subsidised for the first time. It means that there'll be higher subsidies for the insertion of IUDs and Implanon and other long-acting removable contraceptives.
By international standards, Australia has very low use of these long-acting removable contraceptives, and we know that they're safe and they're reliable, and the problem has been that they haven't been properly subsidised. So, once again, Australian women will be able to save hundreds of dollars a year because of these higher subsidies. And when it comes to menopause, we're going to see the first new treatments, again subsidised, in over 20 years added to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Schedule.
It is shocking that for so long there hasn't been the addition of these new contraceptives and new treatments for menopause and I'm very proud of the fact that our government, first ever majority female government, is getting on with the job of delivering better reproductive health care and better care for women experiencing pelvic pain and endometriosis.
But as Senator Green said, this is only a fraction of what we're doing in the health portfolio. Peter Dutton, as Health Minister, was voted by doctors as the worst Health Minister in 40 years, and we are repairing the damage of Peter Dutton's time as Health Minister as we speak.
We are restoring bulk billing, not just by opening Urgent Care Clinics, as Senator Green described, but also by tripling bulk billing incentives. That means there'll be 35 GP clinics in Cairns that will be better off if they bulk bill every patient they see. We're restoring the incentive to bulk bill every patient.
We're also, of course, making medicines cheaper. Residents of Cairns have saved $7 million so far in cheaper medicines. When Peter Dutton was the Health Minister, he cut $50 billion from our hospitals, he tried to introduce a $7 GP co-payment, push up the price of medicines by $6. That's why doctors voted him the worst Health Minister in 40 years.
At the next election, there will be a very clear choice for people who value Medicare, who want a stronger health system in Australia and who want to protect Australia from the Americanisation of our health system, as we saw last time Peter Dutton was in charge of it.
Any questions?
JOURNALIST: Do you have an idea of how many people have been through these clinics since the new subsidies and the sort of endometriosis focus again?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, that's a question that we'll get from the clinic staff, but we know that many thousands of women right around Australia have been benefitting from endometriosis and pelvic pain clinics already. This clinic's been open now since the end of 2023, so there's been a substantial number of people through the doors.
JOURNALIST: Do you have an idea how much demand there is, because we've heard from members of the community that seeking some services clinics like this that the waiting time for some services, particularly things like terminations, is many, many weeks long, which is obviously not really suitable for that kind of healthcare?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, it just shows how vital it is that we've made this extra half billion dollar investment in women's health. We know that women for many years have been waiting too long for a diagnosis of their condition and have been waiting too long to receive the help they need.
When it comes to things like termination services, this is a place that does provide medical terminations, and again, you can speak to the clinicians about the waiting times for that.
JOURNALIST: Does it highlight though, that there's a need for an increase in funding and these services to be expanded?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It's exactly why we're doing it. It's exactly why we are increasing funding for women's health by well over half a billion dollars. It's why we're opening not just the first 22 endometriosis and pelvic pain clinics that we've already rolled out, but an additional 11 if we're re-elected.
It's why we've opened the Urgent Care Clinic in the southern suburbs of Cairns, and if the government's re-elected we'll open another clinic in the northern suburbs of Cairns. We know that there is demand in the community for Medicare services; that's why we are continuing to invest more than any other government in Australian history in expanding and supporting Medicare.
It's also the reason that we are restoring funding incentives for every GP to bulk bill. What we've seen in recent years is a real decline in the number of GPs that are bulk billing all of their clients. And the fact that we've tripled the bulk billing incentive means that there'll be 35 GP clinics across Cairns that will be better off financially if they bulk bill every person who walks through the front door. That's how you deal with waiting lists, and that's how you stop people avoiding a doctor's visit because they're worried about the cost.
JOURNALIST: And looking more regionally at remote and regional Queenslanders, how is having contraceptives and some UTI treatments out of pharmacies, how is that going to help?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, this is a really important, good news story. So, the first thing to say is people who are using the newer contraceptives like Yaz and Yasmin will save hundreds of dollars a year because these will be subsidised for the first time.
Subsidising the insertion of long-acting removable contraceptives like IUDs and Implanon again will save hundreds of dollars. That means you're not having to go to the pharmacy all the time, you know, every couple of months to get a new prescription. The clue is in the name: they are long-acting, and so you can go for several years without having to go to the doctor again.
We also know that this service provides outreach to many regional communities, and as part of that outreach service and also as part of the telehealth service, are able to offer the MS-2 Step process, which is the medical termination. That is so absolutely vital for women in remote areas and isolated parts of the country to be able to do that by telehealth; get the support you need in a telehealth consultation is an absolute game changer.
What used to happen if a woman needed a termination and she was living in a remote community is she had to get in a car, get on a plane, get on a bus and travel for many, many hours. Quite often, we know that women have other children at home waiting for them, they have to organise childcare, they're away for days, pay for the hotel, pay for the bus trip. This is really making a very difficult time in a woman's life just a tiny bit easier.
JOURNALIST: With the expansion for things like menopause care, what will that mean in practical terms? I mean more staff, what will it mean?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, the expansion of menopause care means that the service here will get an additional subsidy, an additional fee for doing a session with a woman who's experiencing perimenopause or menopause, and talking to her about the treatment options, and perhaps prescribing medications or other treatments.
At the moment, a lot of that work that this clinic has been doing is unfunded, and so this gives them the opportunity to expand that service to many more women who will need it.
It also means that your ordinary GP will have the time and the resources to do these types of consultations. For the first time ever, clinical guidelines will be delivered for menopause. That's another really, really important step forward in our health system.
So, doctors will have the information they need to support women better through perimenopause and menopause. They'll have more drugs, more treatments available to prescribe on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Schedule, and they'll have the best specialists in the country working on those clinical guidelines so they can give they can get the best advice as a GP, and they can give the best advice as a GP.
JOURNALIST: With the record investment, will there be extra support for breast screening or image screening services, which have like, really struggled here in Cairns?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, I might get Nita to answer the local question.
GREEN: Yeah, thanks. The women's health announcement that we've made has covered a number of different issues that women are facing, but of course, we know that breast screening is also one of those things that women are conscious of and want access to. And so, our government has been working with the state government on how to restore those services to places like Cairns, where we have seen some of those services go away.
We know that we've had some good news recently about that breast screening coming back to Cairns. Of course, you can still access BreastScreen Queensland, the free service, if you meet the criteria. And so, we need to make sure that we're working with the state government to have hospital care, breast screen care and radiology available.
The other exciting news that you've all seen today is that SEQ University is proposing to add additional space to their already almost under construction building to provide more allied health services. And the plan there is to provide radiology as one of the courses.
So, we know that it's good to get those services in from other places, but it'll be great to grow local radiologists and have students who are currently studying and be able to access that type of course here in Cairns.
So, it's a part of a multi-pronged approach to make sure that not only do we have the services now, but we have the students studying those courses into the future so we can have more local radiologists to provide that really important care for women.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: All right, thanks, everyone.
END
