A quarter of Australian Defence Force family members are now eligible to participate in the defence family health trial, Defence Personnel Minister Greg Combet says.
Mr Combet said this meant around 13,300 additional Defence dependants could register for free basic healthcare under stage two of the trial.
That now takes defence families living in Townsville and Tully in Queensland, Puckapunyal in Victoria, Darwin, Nhulunbuy and Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, and Broome and Kununurra in Western Australia.
"Under the trial, dependants visiting these doctors will be bulk-billed for eligible medical treatments such as general practice consultations, diabetes, asthma and mental health care, health assessments and both cervical smear testing and obstetric care to name a few," he said in a statement.
But opposition defence personnel spokesman Bob Baldwin said this meant 75 per cent of defence families went without this promised health care.
He said Labor promised at the election that it would deliver 12 Defence Family Health Care Clinics and $33.1 million worth of funding to provide free health care for the families of serving ADF members.
"They have broken that key election promise and instead provided only $12.2 million worth of funding and have committed to merely trialling the program at only seven locations around Australia," he said in a statement.
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