Australia’s Labor party has promised a free medical advice line and expanded Medicare funding as cost-of-living pressures dominate the election campaign.
Australia’s Labor government has pledged to strengthen the country’s universal healthcare system with a free medical advice line and telehealth service if it wins the May 3 general election, where cost-of-living pressures are a key issue.
Centre-left Labor traditionally champions the protection of Australia’s Medicare system, setting itself apart from the conservative Liberal-National opposition, which emphasizes economic management and border protection.
The government has made Medicare a core election issue, pledging an extra $5.43 billion for the program in February amid concerns about declining bulk billing — a system where doctors bill Medicare directly, leaving patients with no out-of-pocket costs.
Health Minister Mark Butler said the new hotline would provide 24-hour access to medical staff for urgent care needs. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is expected to formally announce the policy on Sunday in Sydney, a critical election battleground.
Peter Dutton, leader of the Liberal-National coalition and Albanese’s main rival, has pledged $5.76 billion in Medicare funding if his coalition wins on May 3.
Early voting began Tuesday, with polls showing Labor holding a narrow lead. The campaign has been dominated by cost-of-living promises and competing plans to boost housing affordability.
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Canberra has issued a stark assessment of the changing security landscape in the Pacific, warning that Beijing is projecting force deeper into the region with diminishing transparency, complicating the delicate balance of power in the Southern Hemisphere.
Australian far-right Senator Pauline Hanson was suspended from the Senate on Tuesday. This was prompted by her entering Parliament wearing a burqa on Monday, as part of her latest push to ban the face-covering Muslim garment in public.
Latvia’s Tina Graudina and Anastasija Samoilova triumphed in women’s beach volleyball on Sunday evening in Adelaide, Australia. They secured the gold medal with a hard-fought three-set victory over the USA’s Kristen Nuss and Taryn Brasher at the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship.
Türkiye is set to host the COP31 United Nations climate summit in Antalya next year, while Australia would lead government negotiations under a compromise deal taking shape at COP30 in Brazil.
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Security concerns across Central Asia have intensified rapidly after officials in Dushanbe reported a series of lethal incursions originating from Afghan soil, marking a significant escalation in border violence.
Moscow and Kyiv painted very different pictures of the battlefield on Sunday, each insisting momentum was on their side as the fighting around Pokrovsk intensified.
Russia has claimed a decisive breakthrough in the nearly four-year war, with the Kremlin announcing the total capture of the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk just hours before United States mediators were due to arrive in Moscow.
U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed on Sunday that he had spoken with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, but did not provide details on what the two leaders discussed.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has declared the end of a 16th Ebola outbreak, closing a two month emergency in Kasai Province that pushed national and international teams into an intensive response.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary said on Saturday that data showed 10 children had died because of COVID-19 vaccination shots.
The Spanish agricultural sector has been placed on high alert following the confirmation that African Swine Fever (ASF) has resurfaced in the country for the first time in over thirty years.
French health experts are warning that the highly pathogenic H5 strain of bird flu, already devastating wild and farm animals, could evolve into a virus capable of human-to-human transmission — potentially sparking a pandemic worse than COVID-19.
China has overtaken the United States in the volume of medical research it publishes, showing a major shift in global scientific influence, according to the chief editorial leadership of Swiss-based scientific publisher Frontiers.
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