Mike Freelander
Macarthur · Australian Labor Party · Australia
“She started the longest and biggest prospective study of allergy and anaphylaxis in the developed world, called HealthNuts, which is still ongoing. She had a PhD, and her PhD thesis was on liver cell transplantation using a mouse model of Wilson's disease, a very rare but well-known cause of liver failure.”
“I knew Katie Allen in a professional capacity prior to her entering this place as the second paediatrician to be elected to the House of Representatives. I dealt with her professionally in her role as the head of the Centre for Food and Allergy Research in the Murdoch Children's Research Institute.”
“She was a really deep thinker, a really decent person and someone—like many paediatricians—who understood the implications of the social determinants of health and was willing to work hard to make sure that Australia led the way in paediatric health care. She was brave and she was steadfast. She was someone who stood up for her views.”
“Recently, we celebrated Australian Made Week in Macarthur, and to mark that occasion I visited the fantastic team at Sebel, a manufacturing business which produces chairs, stools, tables, desks and storage units in Minto in my electorate of Macarthur.”
“It's great to see the Sebel tradition of high-quality products being maintained now in my electorate of Macarthur. Harry and Queenie are long gone, but their legacy continues with a business that is employing lots of people and providing innovative products and 21st century manufacturing, including recycling.”
“It was founded by my friend Ross Doonan in 2004 and has gone on to national and international acclaim, producing products with coating. You often see them on railway stations—the signs and chairs that have wood coatings on aluminium products. I myself am doing a home renovation that will be using DECO products.”
The complete record
Every one of 341 lines we hold for Mike Freelander, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 4 of 7.
“I think one of the things we did that caused long-term harm was school closures, and they could have been much better thought through if we'd had proper evidence based policy around that. Air quality is another issue we should be thinking about, very importantly, in disease management, particularly for airborne and droplet-spread viruses such as COVID-19 but even things like influenza and some of the new and evolving respiratory viruses, of which there are many. Certainly in my field of paediatrics we are seeing new respiratory viruses evolve all the time. To support the initiative and growth in the CDC the government has committed $251 million to establish and operate the centre, with ongoing funding of $73 million allocated from 2028-29.”
“As a trusted and authoritative source of public health advice, the centre will provide clear evidence based information to the general public, health professionals and governments across the country. The centre will be empowered to provide expert advice in the most effective ways to manage all forms of disease, including leading national efforts on disease surveillance and monitoring, public health coordination and the development of response protocols. It will provide real-time data analysis, develop consistent national guidance, support outbreak investigation and help coordinate rapid responses to emerging health threats, ensuring Australia is better prepared and more resilient in future health emergencies. We did make some mistakes during the pandemic and really only realised some of them in retrospect.”
“We did that with the NHMRC scientific panel, of which I was a member during the pandemic, and we need to ensure what we are doing and the policies the CDC gives us are grounded in rigorous evidence based knowledge shaped by science and shaped by the best possible available insights. What the centre will do—beyond advising federal, state and territory ministers on public health matters—is extend the expertise to Commonwealth entities, international agencies and non-government organisations, and they all played a critical role in the pandemic. It will also play a critical role in building public awareness around health threats and equipping Australians with the knowledge and tools needed to reduce the risk of illness, morbidity and mortality.”
“Unfortunately we are seeing now in the United States that health policy is being delivered by people who are not qualified to give health policy, and people long trusted in the American system are now being ignored. Populism has really taken over from true health policy and science. We don't want that to happen in Australia, and that's why this part of the legislation is really important. The CDC has to be independent of political interference. The centre will bring together a diverse range of professionals, including epidemiologists, data scientists, public health researchers and population health experts, and we do have them in Australia. We saw that during the pandemic. We need to bring them together so they can deliver timely advice to the government.”
“The absence of such an institution during the COVID-19 pandemic did place Australia at a disadvantage. The new ACDC will position us to lead, not lag, in global health preparedness. It will also help with our neighbours in the developing world, and this is a very important consideration, considering what happened in some of our neighbouring countries. The new CDC will operate as an independent agency. While still under the portfolio of health, the CDC will operate without ministerial direction, a structure designed to build trust, safeguard scientific integrity and deliver public health advice based solely on evidence. That means the evidence the CDC gathers and gives to government will not be conditional on what the government wants to hear. I want to stress that, and that is really important.”
“This inquiry warned that another pandemic is inevitable, although its timing and nature remain unknown. That is why Australia must be prepared, and readiness must now begin. One of the most prominent and widely supported recommendations of the inquiry was the creation of a national centre for disease control, which will serve as a central hub for surveillance, data collection, evidence based guidance and risk assessment, helping to ensure a more coordinated, informed and timely response to emerging public health threats. This is what we are delivering. This aligns Australia with its international counterparts such as Singapore, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and other European nations, where they already have dedicated national public health institutions.”
“The Centre for Disease Control will be a transparent, trusted and independent body, and it will strengthen Australia's public health capability, enhance pandemic preparedness and safeguard the health and wellbeing of all Australians. We found that, during the pandemic, there were certainly some very vulnerable populations, particularly in groups such as our Indigenous population, our CALD communities and communities with long distances between them and healthcare facilities. Establishing a centre for disease control reflects a core election commitment and delivers on key recommendations from the COVID-19 response inquiry report , the inquiry for which was led by independent panel members Robyn Kruk AO, Professor Catherine Bennett and Dr Angela Jackson.”
“It was a real tribute to health workers around Australia, and I give credit to them now, as I have since that time, for their resilience, their cooperation and their ability to change policy and change their work practices very quickly—unfortunately, in some cases, not quickly enough. We know, in the aged-care places, that there were some absolute tragedies—the spread of infection without adequate infection control and without the ability to remove infected patients from aged care quickly enough. There were certainly inconsistencies around immunisation response, but, as I say, I give credit where credit is due, and I think that the responses of Greg Hunt and then prime minister Scott Morrison were pretty good overall. Our CDC is set to commence operations on 1 January 2026, and I certainly look forward to it.”
“This included not only deficiencies in medical stockpile supplies but a lack of coordination, a lack of data sharing, an overstretched aged and healthcare system and inconsistent responses between federal and state government directives. I saw that firsthand in immunisation policy. I will give credit where credit is due. I do believe that the Morrison government, and Scott Morrison himself, made some critical decisions that were very important in our initial COVID-19 response—the closure of the borders. Even though he did it reluctantly, he did it quickly. It led to a significant gain in time to get our responses in order.”
“We did very well—it's true—but it wasn't perfect, and there were a number of difficulties we had to overcome during the pandemic and in how things could have been improved. What it did demonstrate was that we did need a centre for disease control—an Australian version, not a repeat of the American version, which has its own challenges. We saw from how our country fared during the pandemic that we have amazing health resources, but we needed an efficient way of bringing them all together and a way of making sure that that information could be delivered to the government in a timely fashion and that responses could be considered and made appropriately. COVID-19 was an unforeseen pandemic, and our existing frameworks, which were primarily designed for viruses like influenza, exposed critical vulnerabilities in our national response.”
“The Australian Centre for Disease Control Bill is our government's considered response, after much consultation, to the unprecedented challenges of the 2019 coronavirus pandemic, a crisis for which we were not adequately prepared and whose repercussions we continue to feel today and will continue to feel for many years. I was a member of the NHMRC advisory committee, one of the two politicians appointed to that committee by health minister Greg Hunt during the pandemic, the other being my very good friend member of the opposition Katie Allen, and I wish her well as she goes through a number of health challenges now. We saw firsthand how our response lacked information and resilience during the pandemic.”
“I am back almost in black to talk about something that I am very fond of, and that is the ACDC. I am thunderstruck that the opposition would even think to criticise our health policy since they have had none for a number of years. Some of the comments by the opposition then are just not true. Hells bells, who made who? Money talks, and we are putting money in front of the Australian Centre for Disease Control. Are you ready for it? It will be great. We as a government will walk all over you, the opposition, in health policy any day of the week. I speak on the Australian Centre for Disease Control Bill 2025 and I thank the minister for introducing such a vital piece of legislation to our national health policy and national health security.”
“I commend the bill to the House. It is yet another sign of a government that understands health care. It's doing its best to cope with the enormous demands on the healthcare system in the 21st century and is providing equitable care to all Australians. I commend the bill to the House.”
“It's about continuation of funding to preserve quality of care and services to allow flexibility and to improve patient care and really to make sure that we have a streamlined process of joint replacement surgery and follow-up of any perceived problems. This legislation will affect our hospitals and our providers of prostheses, our surgeons in both the public and private health systems. The amendment ensures full cost recovery for the NJRR's operations, as well as supporting its role in quality improvements and data collection for joint replacement surgery. As we've said, we have over 80,000 joint replacements a year already. This is expected to increase significantly every year for a long period of time. This ensures that the levy system allows for cost recovery to the government and also improves health care.”
“Under the existing framework, the levy is imposed on medical device sponsors to fund the NJRR's post-market surveillance of joint replacement procedures, and this is very important given the longstanding lifespan of some of these devices. We are modernising how the NJRR levy is administered, and this is a really great change. The adjustment in regulatory designs allows us, the government, to respond more effectively to evolving industry dynamics, to changes in the prostheses themselves and to changes in device sponsorship and company structure without requiring constant legislative amendment.”
“Without this change, the primary issue for insurers will be the inability to recover the costs of the NJRR as the legislation is needed to clarify who is responsible following changes in the medical device industry. This amendment bill is designed to formalise and strengthen the framework governing the collection of the NJRR levy and is an important change. The central objective is to codify a clear legal basis for determining who is responsible for paying the levy, ensuring consistency with longstanding policy intent and addressing operational and legal uncertainties within the existing framework. A key feature of this bill is the creation of a 'person responsible' definition to be set out in rules, rather than in the primary legislation itself.”
“Over time, it has become apparent that this levy framework has faced issues, including a forward cost recovery method that disproportionately affected small companies, a lack of transparency in governance and financial expenditure, inadequate funding that was not keeping pace with cost pressures, and ambiguity in the scope of the prostheses list that led to complexity and potential double funding of some items. Our government agencies consulted with industries and stakeholders, and they provided feedback indicating that the levy calculation method based on billing codes on the prostheses list did not accurately reflect actual joint replacements or the cost to the registry.”
“We know, for example, with fractured hips, fractured neck of femur, once that happens, the results are much better. The shorter time it takes from fracture to joint replacement can dramatically improve results, particularly in elderly patients. We can now track that. Prior to introducing this legislation the department of health always charged the levy, consistent with the policy intent, but the existing framework requires device sponsors and manufacturers to pay a levy to fund the NJRR's post-market surveillance of joint replacement. This levy is collected by the government and is tied to the specific number of prostheses sponsored by each company. The levy amount is set for a specific financial year, which is amended annually, as demonstrated by the upcoming 2025-26 amendments, following a cost review.”
“It's a really exciting development and again a demonstration that the Albanese Labor government is committed to quality health care and getting equitable access to health care around the country. Before the establishment of the NJRR in 1993 this reporting was very difficult to trace. It was unclear as to the number of people involved, who was receiving joint replacements, how long they last for, the types of prostheses that were being used and the technique being used to implant them. Even the time of stay in hospital post joint replacement was difficult to ascertain. The time waiting for joint replacement also was difficult to attain, and this now can be looked at. The time waiting prior to surgery after it has been identified can be looked at. This is very important.”
“The registry's annual reports are widely used by surgeons to monitor their outcomes against national benchmarks, and it is very important that the profession itself is able to monitor its individual surgeons against national benchmarks and their colleagues, and indicate factors relating to device issues such as premature wear in some implants. Identifying factors such as this and the need to revise surgery more frequently can be traced using this data. This certainly improves patient outcomes. It improves the system, it improves the quality of care that we can give and it makes device manufacturers aware as well that their performances are being tracked via data collection, and this can encourage more research and innovation, better prosthesis design and better surgical approaches.”
“We're doing the small joints in the hands. This is a really remarkable development. It's very important not just for those with osteoarthritis due to age or due to overuse but to those who have inflammatory forms of arthritis like psoriatic arthritis or rheumatoid arthritis. The surgery and the treatments are becoming much more sophisticated. The degree of disability post surgery is much less. The time in hospital is much less. These details can be traced through the NJRR. Beyond administrative and financial impacts the bill amendment contributes to clinical excellence by improving data collection and our understanding of the data we are collecting.”
“Validation of the NJRR data against the health department unit record data uses sequential multilevel matching processes so all the aspects of the surgery itself, the joint involved and the prosthesis used can be traced. The validation process also identifies procedures that have not previously been notified to the NJRR, with sufficient information being collected via the state system. The data collection by the NJRR contains the most complete set of data relating to joint replacements in Australia and approaches that of the very best around the world. This is very important, as I said, as we're now moving to better and more refined surgeries in many other joints, not just hips. As I said, knee replacements are now becoming quite common. Shoulder replacements are becoming common. We're doing elbows.”
“It's very important that we can trace these replacements, trace the lifespan and trace any complications and any need for repeated surgeries. The NJRR collects data from the hospitals performing prosthesis surgeries every month. A person receiving treatment is recorded once they have been in theatre and are being operated on. This information is received via a paper based system. But a mechanism has now been established to collect this information electronically when it is feasible for the hospital, and most hospitals are now transitioning over to electronic records. The received data collected from individual hospitals is then compared with data provided by state and territory health departments, and the type of prosthesis can also be traced, leading to better data collection.”
“I really commend the national joint replacement registry and the significant contribution that it's made to our healthcare system and will continue to make in the future. Alone, reporting from the NJRR details that, between early 2023 and 2024, more than 85,000 hip and knee replacement operations were performed annually in Australia. A breakdown of these findings is made available through the national joint replacement registry, the NJRR. Their reporting has shown an increase in this figure over the years, and, with an ageing population, the demand for orthopaedic surgery is expected to significantly increase. The numbers of joints involved will also increase, as will the quality of the replacements.”
“By clarifying financial responsibility through this legislation, the bill also improves transparency for a whole range of providers, including insurers, prostheses providers, surgeons and other stakeholders, allowing funding arrangements to evolve while preserving accountability, consistency and operational continuity. It's not just a cost-effective measure; it really does safeguard Australian patient care. Remember, we're talking about prostheses that can have a lifespan of 25, 30 or even 40 years. This is very important to make sure that follow-up is appropriate and that any problems with the prostheses or even the procedures themselves can be traced through the health system.”
“This amendment bill secures this transition, ensures long-term sustainability and reinforces the registry's essential role in safeguarding the quality of joint-replacement care across Australia in both the public system and the private system. This is very important. With an ageing population and with advances in joint-replacement surgery, we are now doing more joints. We're now doing hip and knee replacements, shoulder replacements and even elbow replacements and some in the small joints in the hands and ankles. It's really remarkable to consider the progress over the last 40 or 50 years.”
“This included collecting data from all Australian public hospitals performing joint-replacement surgery, maintaining the data integrity and publishing analysis to track outcomes, identify emerging trends and address potential issues with procedures or implants over the years. Some of the joint replacements in the private hospital system were not registered. This became a problem as, increasingly, this surgery required less time in hospital, became a quicker procedure and was done more in the private system. This registry is currently funded through a Commonwealth grant agreement. The national joint register is now transitioning to a cost-recovery model supported by the levy.”
“Gradually, there have been advances in the decades that have followed, and there have also been some setbacks with newer materials that haven't been as successful as they were originally thought to be. There was a specific joint replacement that was used in Australia, developed by a group of orthopaedic surgeons, and found to be faulty after several years. They all had to be replaced, and it was very difficult to trace all the people that had had those specific prostheses, because no registry had been kept. Then we developed—basically because of that—the national joint-replacement register, which is administered by the Australian Orthopaedic Association because our orthopaedic surgeons are the ones who oversee all the aspects of the registry.”
“The Private Health Insurance (National Joint Replacement Register Levy) Amendment Bill 2025 is a very important bill. Joint replacement surgery is one of the remarkable advances of the 20th century in modern health care. For centuries, joint replacement had been attempted and never been successful until Sir John Charnley, a British orthopaedic surgeon, successfully developed the first hip replacement prosthesis in the 1960s with some fairly basic materials. The cup that went into the hip itself was polythene, and a steel ball joint from the hip itself became successful. These replacements were not perfect. They had a relatively short lifespan, measured in years rather than decades.”
“Young children have seen their kindergartens graffitied and the targets of attempted firebombings. It has an effect, an ongoing effect. It's a tragedy that our community, which prides itself on allowing people to practise their religions and to live the way they want without harming other people, is being traumatised by this ongoing antisemitism, which we must attempt to control.”
“We also can't ignore what has happened in Palestine, the tragedy of thousands of deaths that have occurred following the October 7 atrocity, and our Palestinian communities are going through much trauma as well. In my electorate, we have Palestinian nurses and doctors, who I've spoken to about this, who are really traumatised by what has happened. So October 7 was a seminal point, and we must never forget what happened, but we must deal with all the communities that have been affected in a way that acknowledges their trauma and supports them. There is much more to be done. We cannot just stand here and believe that what we have done is enough. There is more to be done, and there will be ongoing trauma from the atrocities that have occurred that will affect generations to come, I'm sure.”
“That led to the permanent closure of the Bankstown synagogue, which I briefly attended as a young adult. Antisemitism has existed for a long period of time, but, since the October 7 atrocities, we've seen it really flourish, probably culminating in the firebombing of the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne, which led to its virtual destruction. I don't believe there's a person in this parliament that believes antisemitism is a good thing. We must make sure that we do everything we can to eradicate it, and I believe the government, in its very bipartisan way, has tried to do what it can to make sure antisemitism doesn't exist in our communities.”
“Antisemitism has existed in Australia for a long period of time, since Jewish communities first started in Australia, since the time of the First Fleet. We know that many of the First Fleet convicts who were Jewish wrote their religion, which they were required to do, not as Jewish but rather as Christian, because they wanted to avoid the so-called stigma that that was associated with. We've seen antisemitism occur in Australia in the 19th century and in the beginnings of the 20th century, and a number of politicians on all sides promoted antisemitism as a way of gaining votes. We saw that in the post-World War II time of refugees coming to Australia. Antisemitism has existed since the settlement of Australia from the First Fleet. We saw it in my younger life with the firebombing of a number of synagogues in Australia in the early 1990s.”
“What happened on October 7 two years ago in Israel was a horror and atrocity, and its effects have caused ongoing trauma to Jewish communities and other communities all around the world. The taking of the hostages, their ongoing, drawn-out murders and their depictions as starving remnants of humans in the media, is absolutely shocking and a sign of the terror and the horror that is ongoing around the world, and we must never, ever forget that. Not only were these people young people killed in front of their relatives—babies and young people with talent, with all their lives ahead of them, murdered by the terror of Hamas—but the terror has been ongoing. We must never forget that, and we must make sure that we deal with the ongoing trauma that it has caused in Jewish communities all around the world, particularly in Australia.”
“Work done even before transitioning to the statutory Bonded Medical Program can count towards fulfilling return-of-service obligations, and that's a very important change. The Albanese government is committed to strengthening our healthcare system, as always. I'm very proud to be part of a government with the Labor tradition of supporting equitable access to health care. I commend this bill to the House, and I thank the minister and the assistant minister for bringing it to the House.”
“Currently, students have the option to withdraw from the program without any consequences, and I think that there still should be some consequences. If they decide to withdraw after a specific date, they will face a significant financial penalty, and I think that the Commonwealth will be able to encourage more people to take up the schemes if they know that there are rules in place. This bill proposes an important change. It seeks to extend the existing grace period from the HECS census date in the second year all the way through to the completion of the medical degree. This bill will also give the Minister for Health and Ageing new powers to create additional rules to recognise work already completed by bonded participants. This means we're in alliance with the goals of the program.”
“This scheme will now allow that to happen, which will mean she will still deliver her service in the regional area she was committed to, while being allowed time to complete her training at the highly specialised unit. This is a very, very good thing, and I fully support it. I've been contacted by a number of medical students who face this predicament, and it's honestly a shame to see the stress that some of them have been put under. I'm glad that this bill allows more flexibility. We have seen significant workforce shortages because of lack of uptake of the rural bonded scholarships, and this will allow more of those scholarships to be taken up, improving access to really high-level health care in rural and regional areas.”
“This bill will amend the Health Insurance Act to enhance the Bonded Medical Program by ensuring the consequences of breaching conditions of, or withdrawing from, the program fairly balance both the personal circumstances of the bonded participant and the broader interests of the community. It will allow all work completed by a bonded participant in good faith, consistent with program objectives, to be counted towards their return-of-service obligation. I recently met with one of my paediatric registrars who was on a rural bonded scholarship and needed some extra time to complete some subspecialty training at a specialist children's hospital. The scheme previously was very rigid and wouldn't allow that to happen.”
“It can also affect specialist training positions that require people to work in tertiary- or quaternary-level hospitals to complete their specialist training, and that can be quite difficult if you're on a rural bonded scheme. We want to make sure that people can access extra training when they need to, so there are changes to the rural bonded scholarship scheme which will allow more flexibility. We want to make sure that we see sufficient health services across regional and rural areas, of course, and we have done many things to ensure that those living in the farthest areas of our country can access the same quality health care that they need and deserve.”
“This bill, furthermore, will amend the Bonded Medical Program—a program which provides eligible students with a subsidised Commonwealth supported place in a medical degree at university in exchange for a commitment to work in a regional, rural or remote area after graduation. There have been concerns about the bonded program for some time. Students sign up when they're very young, and their circumstances often change. Sometimes it can be quite difficult for students when they get a partner or get married, or when families change, to continue to work in a region they thought they were originally going to be bonded to.”
“The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing has been in consultation with all relevant parties for these amendments—from patient representatives, stakeholders, private health insurers and hospitals to state and territory governments—and has taken feedback and recommendations to provide a seamless transition. This is what Australians deserve, and it's one thing that Labor governments have done: ensured that the Australian population can receive the health care it needs, making our healthcare system the envy of the rest of the world. Australians deserve to have fairer and affordable access to see a doctor when they need to.”
“Our government is committed to easing the cost-of-living pressures and ensuring people receive the care and treatment they need, and our government has committed funding to implement these reforms, which will further streamline the process for patients and also for medical practitioners. We are ensuring that the passage of this bill will be a further string in the Albanese government's election commitment of $7.9 billion to improve bulk-billing incentive payments, to encourage increased bulk-billing rates and to further ensure that more Australians can see a GP and their specialists for free.”
“We understand that these processes and changes can be tedious and time consuming, but we have listened to IT vendors, state and territory governments, medical peak body groups and other stakeholders who have expressed concerns with the timeline of delivering rebate changes and also with the extension of provider numbers. To provide sufficient time for medical and health industries—particularly the private sector, to allow for software updates to reflect new assignment benefit processes—this legislation is being introduced. The extensions of time will allow the health sector, medical industry providers and patients to prepare for any changes.”
“Changes were made to our healthcare system last year with the introduction of the Health Insurance Legislation Amendment (Assignment of Medicare Benefits) Act 2024, which modernised and simplified how patients assigned their Medicare benefits. In a modernised era, the changes were made to align with the times and move away from paper based processes and to support a digital assignment option. This bill supports the modernising of the assignment of Medicare benefits by addressing the limitations of the assignment of Medicare benefits and the Health Insurance Act, and it supports regulations, allowing for a patient to assign their Medicare benefits—which will underpin further increases in bulk-billing, particularly with our new supports for bulk-billing processes in the general practitioner field.”
“Over time it's become clear that parts of the registration and claims process for the scheme haven't always lined up with the rules set out in the Private Health Insurance Act, resulting in some inconsistencies with its administration. To fix that, this bill is introducing some changes to help the system run more smoothly and support the operation of the registration and claims system—which is yet again another way this government understands health care and understands the importance of getting people access to health care, making the process more streamlined. The Chief Executive Medicare is now able, with this bill, to use automated systems to handle registrations and claims. These changes will make it possible to recover any overpayments caused by system errors.”
“The private health insurance rebate is an essential element of our healthcare system, one that makes private health insurance more affordable for Australians by funding part of their premium. The premiums reduction scheme allows eligible people to choose to get the rebate at the time they pay their private health insurance premium—and I'm certainly a beneficiary of that—rather than pay the full cost of the premium and then claim a deduction back through their tax return at the end of the financial year. Under the scheme, the insurer reduces the premium payable by the policyholder by the amount of the rebate and then claims reimbursement of the amount through a system administered by Services Australia.”
“Having the right skills is critical to the success of the government's agenda. We know that. This bill will make it easier for medical practitioners who are well qualified to get access to Medicare billing. Schedule 2 of this bill will see the amendment of chapters 2, 3 and 6 of the Private Health Insurance Act 2007 to support the processes for claiming private health insurance rebates under the premiums reduction scheme. The Australian government reimburses private health insurers for the proportion of health insurance premiums that are reduced on behalf of consumers under the premiums reduction scheme. Each year, rebate repayments in excess of $7 billion are paid in this manner.”
“We're working with state and territory governments, education providers and regulators to implement the recommendations of the independent review of health practitioner regulatory settings, led by the highly respected health administrator Ms Robyn Kruk AO. This is a significant improvement to the administration of our healthcare services to ensure that overseas doctors—who make up around 50 per cent of the doctors practising in Australia, do tremendous work providing quality care and play a vital role in easing our workforce shortage and have done for many decades—will spend less time navigating bureaucratic hurdles and instead be able to care for our most vulnerable in all areas of Australia, particularly in outer metropolitan and rural and regional areas, and care for people who really need it.”
“Amendments made by schedule 2 to the bill will enable the Chief Executive Medicare to approve the use of computer programs to make more-appropriate non-discretionary decisions to allocate Medicare provider numbers, whilst all decisions to refuse a provider number will continue to be checked and authorised by the Chief Executive Medicare or their delegate. This bill will validate previously issued Medicare provider numbers that were issued by a computer program. The department has been in consultation with the relevant agencies who support the legislative component to support the automation of Medicare provider numbers and are supportive of this decision.”
“The application processes can be quite challenging and processing timeframes very lengthy, particularly for overseas health professionals, delaying them from commencing work in the Australian healthcare system and, I suspect, also preventing many from coming here. Acting on recommendation 2 of the Kruk review, this bill will amend the Health Insurance Act to streamline the application process for health practitioners, enabling them to receive a Medicare provider number more quickly and provide healthcare services sooner.”