00:00Right across the country, bulk billing was in freefall when we came to government as a result
00:04of an almost decades-long freezing of the Medicare rebate, literally in freefall through the course
00:11of 2022 into 2023. In our first big budget in 2023, we tripled the bulk billing incentive and
00:18that started to turn things around across the country. And on the 1st of November last year,
00:24we made the biggest investment in bulk billing in the country's history,
00:28extending bulk billing support to every Australian, whether or not they have a concession card,
00:33and providing practices an additional incentive if they bulk billed all of their patients all of
00:39the time. And since then, since the 1st of November, we've seen the number of bulk billing practices
00:45across the country increase dramatically. We expected to get to 3,600 bulk billing practices
00:52by 2028. We're already at 3,800. But as Pat just indicated, we haven't seen a shift here in Newcastle
01:02and those surrounding regions, Lake Macquarie, the Hunter, particularly the Lower Hunter and the
01:07Central Coast. The bulk billing rate here in that region is 15% below the national average. It's 20%
01:16lower than the New South Wales average. And it's a whopping 30% lower than the bulk billing rate you
01:23see
01:23in western and southwestern Sydney. There you've got bulk billing rates of about 95%. Here in Newcastle
01:31and surrounding regions, it's more like 65%. The number of...
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