John Anderson (Gwydir, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I think we have seen some pretty clear evidence of bungling in the administration of health in that state, including the registration of medical practitioners whom, it would have been revealed with something as simple as a Google search, should never have been employed to work in this country’s health systems.

In terms of funding, I am almost inclined to think that one of the things that we ought to be prepared to do in this country is display a little proportion and balance. Whilst, as I have acknowledged, you can always do better, the reality is that, so I am told, we spend more on health in this country than the GDP of 65 per cent of the nations on earth, and we ought to always recognise that we indeed have probably as good as the best, if not the best, health care available to any of the peoples on earth, notwithstanding the fact that administratively, as we have seen in places like Queensland, it sometimes goes seriously wrong. I would not excuse any mistakes made by the Commonwealth in that regard either. Nonetheless, I think we have done quite well.

We come to the thrust of this debate, and in many ways it must, by definition, centre on what is acknowledged as quite a serious shortage of doctors, specialists, nurses and allied healthcare workers in this country. The reality is that if we are short of them now, 10 years into government, given the training time involved, particularly in specialities, where must the blame lie? On those who, frankly, were in government before us. I would hear, if they were here, the collective groans of those who might be present on the other side, but it is a reality and I would like to focus briefly on what has happened in rural and regional Australia.

When we got into government it was estimated that we were somewhere between 600 and 900 short in country Australia of a reasonable number of GPs, and something like 900 to 1,100 specialists short. They are extraordinary figures. The then health minister, Dr Michael Wooldridge, and I undertook a country tour. We went to the base hospital in Tamworth, a big regional centre, and to Gunnedah, a mid-size country town chronically short of doctors at that stage—disgracefully short of doctors. Those doctors there were doing a Herculean task but working against the odds, and exhausted. We went to Mudgee, a reasonably well-provided mid-size town; Moree, a substantial town with some particular health needs with its high Indigenous population; and Ashford, a small one-doctor country town.

What emerged from that was something very interesting indeed, and that is that the chronic shortage of doctors and nurses we had in country areas was related to the fact that for decades—and this is why I say the previous speaker needs to have a look at the record of the Labor Party in office—we had not been training anything like a sufficient number of country kids in medicine and health care. We had known for a long time—the department of health had all the research it needed to formulate right policies and the ministers of the day should have been responding—the reality that if you want enough country doctors, nurses and healthcare specialists you have to train enough country kids. In fact, the intake of country kids had got down to four or five per cent. At one of our great medical schools, country intake was down to two per cent. Via a range of mechanisms we got that back up to somewhere around 25 to 30 per cent.

I meet country kids everywhere who are going to study medicine or who are well through with a RRMA scholarship. I meet others who have benefited from the Flynn scholarships. The point that I draw from this is that we have, since very early days in this government, been addressing a problem that predated us and even now it needs to be recognised that those doctors are only just beginning to graduate. The vastly increased supply of doctors that we will have for those areas of need is only now starting to emerge because we had to correct a very longstanding policy shortfall that predated this government.

Let me conclude by just referring to the amount of money being spent. Since we came to government, annual spending on health and aged care has more than doubled from $19 billion in 1995-96 to an expected $48 billion in 2006-07. I think that is clear evidence of a real financial commitment and a very strongly increasing medical expenditure on the part of the federal government in this country.

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