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

I cannot let the opportunity pass because I know that the member for Petrie would not forgive me. On Friday we turned the first sod for the Redcliffe superclinic at the hospital site in her electorate. It was covered on the Redcliffe and Bayside Herald front page with, ‘Super boost for GPs: $5 million clinic to ease the strain on hospitals’. What the local community in Redcliffe told us is this will be the first time ever that GPs will be trained in the electorate of Petrie—the first time ever. Twenty medical trainees going through this superclinic, year after year, making sure that the shortages in the region will be able to be met. This is fundamentally good news and I am sure that those communities are very happy with the timetabling of this GP superclinic.

Finally, I would like to make mention of the fact that today is International Nurses Day, and the nurses who work very hard across our country should be congratulated for the hard work that they do. I know that many nurses were very excited about the investments in the budget last night, probably most importantly the $390 million for better supporting practice nurses. These are nurses who work with our doctors in general practice to provide extra services, particularly for chronic disease and prevention. This investment will allow up to 3.8 million additional GP services to be provided because of the time that is freed up while nurses provide important care to members of our community.

I would also like to encourage members of this House—I know the member for Lyons and a number of others have already put in their requests for new GP superclinics. And I am sure that, like the member for Parkes and the former leader of the National Party, John Anderson, who made pretty fast tracks to our doors to ask for a superclinic in Gunnedah, we will have backbenchers and others arguing for these investments to be made in their electorates. We will welcome those requests, we will take each of them seriously and we look forward to providing more support for members of the community who need access to GP and nursing care.

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