Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Chisholm for this question. She comes from an electorate which has a very large number of health professionals and has always been interested in making sure that the workforce needs of the country are well met.

Of course, since coming to office the Rudd government has been working very busily to clean up the mess left by the previous government and the previous health minister in the workforce area. For example, we have increased the cap that the Leader of the Opposition left on GP training places by 35 per cent, to over 800 places. We have increased the number of junior doctors to experience working in general practice by 10 per cent this year. We have invested in an extra 1,000 nursing places at university. Health Workforce Australia has been established to plan for the future needs and development of the health workforce, backed up by a $1.1 billion investment in clinical training. We have introduced new incentives to rural doctors, and this week I will introduce into parliament legislation which supports the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme for 10 health professions, delivering for the first time a single system for states and territories to make sure of something that the previous government, under the Leader of the Opposition, was unable to deliver: that doctors, nurses and allied health professionals are recognised across the country, saving their resources and time and allowing them to move across the country.

Contrast our record of action in the last two years with the previous government—the good old days that the former Minister for Health and Ageing, the opposition leader, talks to. He ripped a billion dollars out of our hospitals, as we know. He capped those GP training places. The result was a nationwide workforce shortage stretching across 74 per cent of the country, affecting 60 per cent of the population.

What members—certainly on this side of the House—might not know is: as ‘closed for business’ signs were going up or GPs were telling patients their books were full and they could not be seen, what was the opposition leader’s response as the minister? Did he have a grand plan to deal with the medical workforce shortage? You would think that, after four years, he might have had some plan. But I have been able to—

See this speech in context