Ms CORCORAN (5:24 PM) — The lack of a conveniently located Medicare office has been an issue in Cranbourne in my electorate of Isaacs for a number of years. A promise was made during the 1996 election campaign that a Medicare office would be opened in Cranbourne. The then shadow minister for health, Michael Wooldridge, and the then Liberal member for Isaacs went into print promising that, if the coalition were elected in 1996, Cranbourne would get a Medicare office within 12 months. I guess this was one of those non-core promises, as we certainly do not have a Medicare office to this day. The City of Casey is now also on the job, calling for a Medicare office within the municipality. The City of Casey makes the point that it is one of the largest metropolitan councils and covers an area of 400 square kilometres. The current population is 180,000 and, at the moment, about 7,000 people per year move to Casey. We have the largest population of nought to four-year-olds—about 18,000 or 10 per cent of Casey's population. About 8 per cent of Casey's population are in the older age group and these people tend to live around the older townships, including Cranbourne.

Casey residents tend to work and use services close to home. This is because of the geographic location of the municipality and the distances between centres. Only 8 per cent of Casey's employed adults work in the city of Melbourne. Access to services is therefore very important. In Cranbourne, we have a Centrelink office, a community health service and a community information and support service. Many services are also supplied to Cranbourne residents by the Salvation Army, St Vincent de Paul and other church based groups, but we do not have access to a Medicare service. Presently, people living in and around Cranbourne have to travel to Frankston or Dandenong to visit a Medicare office. Neither of these places is convenient or easy to access from Cranbourne or from nearby towns. Offices are also located in Cheltenham, Mornington and Warragul.

The lack of a face-to-face service is becoming more and more of an issue. Medicare claims can be made by post or through a fax system located in many pharmacies these days, and this is useful. The fax service is good and probably quite efficient, if your claim is straightforward and if you know what you are doing. It allows Medicare to start processing your claim once the fax has been received, without waiting for the originals of the paperwork. The paperwork is still required, of course, and is posted by the pharmacist after the fax has been sent. The refund is eventually credited to your bank account, but this can take some weeks. I am not trying to take away from the value of this fax service, but it is essentially only a faster version of the written and posted claim system. It takes the place of the postie; it does not take the place of a claims office.

A Medicare office provides a face-to-face service. It allows people to discuss their claims, to ask about their entitlements and to ask about how to claim. It is useful for those who are unsure of, or not confident about, claiming in writing or for those who are unsure of their particular claim. The other big advantage is that claims can be processed on the spot and money can be refunded on the spot. This is very valuable to the many people who cannot afford to wait the couple of weeks it takes to process a claim through the mail or fax system. Many people are not in a financial position that enables them to pay a doctor's bill and wait for the refund. They have other bills to pay and food to buy. The situation is becoming more and more urgent as more and more doctors are now moving away from bulk-billing. The young families of Cranbourne and surrounding areas need easy access to a Medicare claims office to ensure that they have access to the health care they need and are entitled to.

I am also keen to explore the option of a model which is part way between a full blown claims office and the fax machine in the local pharmacy. There is an argument for a Medicare agency system. This would involve trained Medicare officers being placed in suitable places throughout the community to provide the face-to-face service for the commonly asked questions and for the cash refunds. I am interested in this option as an alternative to the full blown office as it would meet the two most pressing needs not being met under the existing arrangements: the need for a face-to-face service for those who need to discuss their claim or who cannot use the mail or fax system, and the need for on the spot cash refunds.

Recently, I received a letter in the mail from the Minister for Regional Services, Territories and Local Government, Senator Macdonald, advising me that the Young Australian of the Year Awards program for 2001-02 was under way. This is good stuff; it is a pity about the timing. The applications were due on the Friday before I received the letter. Further examination revealed that Senator Macdonald's letter is not dated. Then I discovered that other Labor MPs and senators are in the same boat. We just did not get this information until after the closing date. The Young Australian of the Year Awards are a good opportunity to honour the young people who have been working tirelessly in our communities. It is a good opportunity for the Australian community to say thankyou to our young people and to recognise their efforts and contributions. The delay in Labor MPs getting the material means that we have missed out on nominating young Australians for these awards. It means that we have not had the opportunity to notify relevant organisations in our electorates of the awards. I understand that the material was sent by the organisers to the minister in early August, but I and other Labor MPs and senators did not get the information, which was accompanied by an undated letter, until well into September, after the closing date for applications. This is not acceptable and one has to ask why this happened.

Access and equity are important elements in a good democracy, and the proper operation of a program is important. It gives people confidence about decisions of government, both the elected representatives and the non-elected officers. It can hardly be claimed that constituents in Labor electorates have had either access or equity to participate in such initiatives as the Young Australian of the Year Awards when the local MP is not informed of the award until after the closing date.

I have another similar but different issue. Recently, applications have been called for grants under the International Year of Volunteers equipment grants program. This is an excellent opportunity for community organisations to access funds to buy equipment that would help their volunteers in their work. The information about this grants program was received in my office only four weeks before the closing date for applications. The closing date is today, 24 September. The information was received in the week beginning 27 August, with a press release dated 28 August.

This timing shows that this government does not understand how community groups work. The typical community group has very good consultative processes in place, and these processes are an essential part of what makes these groups work. The process usually hinges on monthly committee meetings. The dissemination of this information from an MP's office would take a day or two, and this leaves the community organisation with fewer than four weeks to deal with the matter. This sort of information would normally go to the committee for discussion and a decision on what was the most pressing and appropriate piece of equipment to apply for, especially so under this system as this grant is a bit out of the ordinary. The lack of time allowed for this grant means that the normal consultative processes have to be abandoned if the application is to proceed.

This is not a good practice for any group. It also means that the people concerned have to abandon their priorities and prepare a rushed application. It means that the application will not be as well thought through as could be expected under different circumstances. It means that the application may not be as well presented as the group would like, again because of the rushed circumstances. This is another example of communities or organisations being denied adequate access to information and access to an opportunity to apply for funds to assist the many volunteers we are so keen to support and to recognise in this the International Year of Volunteers.

The final point I would like to raise today is the collapse of Ansett and the effect that has had on a small part of my electorate. We have talked about it for days. We have talked about the loss of jobs and how appalling all of this is. How many travellers will be out of pocket now as their tickets are worthless? One group of unhappy would-be travellers is the Chelsea Football Club. Members of the Chelsea footy club have worked hard throughout the year to raise funds for a club trip at the end of the season. I have been told that the members of the club raised and spent around $7,500 on airline tickets with Ansett and on accommodation, all of which is now lost. This is one example of the ramifications of this airline's collapse which are about to unfold.

The downfall of Ansett Airlines has major implications for other sporting bodies too— for all of Australian sport, not just the Chelsea footy club. Many Australian sporting organisations rely heavily on Ansett for support and sponsorship, and one wonders whether Qantas is going to be prepared to pick it up, or why they would. This is a most serious issue confronting sport in Australia, and it demands action from the minister responsible. Some examples of where Ansett Airlines have supported sport include the AFL, and there is now talk of scrapping the pre-season competition; cricket, where Ansett has been the sponsor of the summer test series; basketball, and now the national championships in Bendigo have been cancelled; and hockey, and the junior world cup in Hobart, due to start in October, is now under threat.

But it is not just the big sports and the big competitions that are being affected. I have already talked about the Chelsea footy club. It is indicative of the many thousands of small sporting clubs that now have to reassess their situations. We have talked about the ripple effect on jobs of the Ansett crash. This has an effect on sports too. Jobs will be lost in sports, and teams and competitions are under threat. The full effect of this on the grassroots sports clubs is yet to be seen, but it will certainly have an effect, and this is a pity. It is these clubs that provide sporting opportunities and recreation to so many people, not just to participants on the field but also to the support volunteers. These clubs keep sport alive and feed into the bigger teams and competitions. These clubs have been hit by the GST and now by the Ansett collapse. (Time expired)