Albany deserves certainty, not short-term fixes in primary care

MR RICK WILSON MP
FEDERAL MEMBER FOR O’CONNOR

27th May 2026

Albany deserves certainty, not short-term fixes in primary care

The Federal Budget’s extension of funding for the Albany GP After Hours Collaborative is welcome news. But let’s be clear: this is only a temporary reprieve, not a long-term solution.

After months of uncertainty, and lobbying of Minister Butler by myself, Scott Leary MLC and the City of Albany, the federal Labor Government has committed to extending the Primary Health Network After Hours Program, keeping Albany’s vital GP After Hours service operating until mid-2028. That buys time. But it also sets a new cliff edge - one that arrives in an election year, when decisions risk being shaped more by political cycles than by patient need.

What Albany needs is not another short-term extension, but certainty: either sustained funding for the GP After Hours Collaborative or a clear pathway to a dedicated Medicare Urgent Care Clinic in the Great Southern.

For Albany and the wider Great Southern, the lack of that certainty is deeply concerning.

The Albany GP After Hours Collaborative is a proven, cost-effective service that treated more than 2,300 patients in 2025 alone, with 97 per cent managed without referral to the emergency department. Costing the federal government less than $500,000 annually, it reduces pressure on hospital staff while ensuring patients receive timely care when GP clinics are closed.

This is not an untested idea - it is a working model delivering real outcomes for patients and the health system every weekend and public holiday.
Yet despite this extension, the people of Albany are still left asking what happens next.

In my letter to Minister Butler, I asked for funding certainty for the Albany GP After Hours Collaborative. I also pointed out that while the Federal Government is investing $1.8 billion building 137 Medicare Urgent Care Clinics, not one is planned anywhere in my 1.1 million square kilometre electorate of O’Connor.

These Urgent Care Clinics do exactly what Albany’s After Hours service already does: keep non-life-threatening cases out of emergency departments.

But the closest urgent care clinic is more than 300 kilometres away in Bunbury, with the only other regional clinics in Broome and Geraldton.

Regional communities could be forgiven for asking why new facilities are being rolled out elsewhere while a proven, lower-cost service in Albany is left in limbo.

Minister Butler has pointed to broader Medicare reforms, including bulk-billing incentives and expanded GP services. In Albany, this has resulted in only four clinics transitioning to full bulk billing.

But that is not the same as accessible urgent care - particularly after hours, when people need it most.

Bulk-billing clinics operate largely during standard business hours. They do not replace a coordinated, after-hours service co-located with the hospital and specifically designed to manage urgent, non-emergency cases.

There is also broader pressure building in the system. Recent changes to private health insurance rebates for older Australians are expected to push more seniors out of private cover and into the public system. For regions like Albany, where the population is older than the national average and demand for healthcare is already high, that shift will only increase pressure on GPs, after-hours services and hospital emergency departments.

For regions like Albany, gaps in after-hours care do not disappear - they shift pressure directly onto emergency departments.

In that context, short-term extensions are not enough.

Healthcare planning should not be driven by postcode or political timing. It should be driven by need, outcomes and fairness.

Albany already has a model that works. It is collaborative, locally supported and delivering results for patients.

Extending its funding for two years is a step in the right direction, but without long-term certainty, it simply delays the problem.

Regional communities deserve certainty - and Albany deserves better than waiting for the next budget, or the next election, to find out whether this critical GP
After Hours service will survive.

Media contact:
Reuben Keyser
Communications and Community Engagement Adviser
[email protected]
(08) 9842 2777
0455 125 035