A division of the Liberal Party of Australia
OPENING THE ROCKHAMPTON MEDICARE OFFICE
02 June, 2006
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The New Medicare Office in North Rockhampton is a great boost to the services of the people who live in North Rockhampton and that area. It will also become a family assistance office which means that all those families who need to make applications and fill in forms at the family assistance office will now be able to do them at Medicare. The new facility is very well designed and very pleasing to the eye but more importantly it’s functional and it will make it a more pleasing experience for those who are dealing with the Medicare office.
Most Australians deal with the Medicare office several times a year and its part of the Howard Governments goal is to make sure that those offices are attractive and efficient so people can get in do their business and get out and do it in a pleasant way.
Congratulations to all those that have been involved in getting this new Medicare office up and running. Who ever did the design and colouring – congratulations. I suspect the staff would have had some influence on that. This is a new bright and exciting outlet and is a frontline example of what can be done with the Medicare system which Commonwealth Governments for many years have been very proud of. Medicare Australia is central to the guarantee the government provides to all Australian for accessible and affordable health care. The budget a few weeks ago was a special budget because all of us who are tax payers found that our tax is going to fall as a result of the budget and there was a lot of money that went in to the health system and we continue to fund that as required.
Someone has given me some interesting statistics that I found amazing. On a average working day 140, 000 people visit Medicare offices around Australia, about 80, 000 of those are cash clients more then 9, 000 people call Medicare that’s about 2.3 million calls a year. Medicare Australia pays out $34.6 million in Medicare payments and $23 million in PBS payments every working day so you can understand Medicare is a very significants part of the health system in Australia.
Most Australian do have something to do with Medicare on a regular bases. We as a government, are trying to strengthen the national Medicare office network through a programme of rolling refurbishments including the intro of much more comfortable waiting areas and self service facilities. These sit down counters for customers are new and the que management system is a great benefit and the one stop counter set up allows the customers to do everything they need to do at the one time, the self service facility is for customs who are able to do it themselves.
We believe this helps provide a more relaxed more comfortable experience for customers many of them who are sick, elderly or are parents with young children. We have also been looking at the forms people complete when dealing with Medicare and we have taken advice on that and the staff have helped with advice on that and I am told from next month that Australians will no longer have to complete a form when they apply for a replacement Medicare card or when they change their address. This alone will result in 3 million less forms for Medicare to handle every year.
The other thing I want to bring to your attention is that this office is a fully fledged Family Assistance Office which means you can enrol your new baby in to Medicare and you can register with Medicare and the Family Assistance Office with one single form and that is going to be a great help to the 250 ,000 new families that apply every year.
Ladies and Gentleman this is an exciting time for Medicare. Graham and Sue congratulations to you and your staff. An office some furniture, a building can only go so far. In the end result it’s the staff that are important. So to all the staff congratulations and well done.