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

I thank the member for Petrie and the member for Kingston for those questions. I will take them both together so there is time for further questions.

Obviously, the member for Petrie is a very passionate advocate for training the health workforce. I must say that the University of Queensland’s involvement in the Redcliffe superclinic—building it essentially as a training facility as well as a provider of services—is an exciting part of that project. Some health professionals will be trained in Petrie who have never been trained in the northern suburbs of Brisbane. I think it is a great breakthrough, because—as in the situations in the Northern Territory, Tasmania and elsewhere—if we train people in areas where there are shortages, there is a better chance that they will enjoy that experience and decide to stay and then we will start dealing with some of the serious problems of a lack of a decent distribution of the health workforce. Unfortunately, that is a big part of a legacy that we inherited from the previous government.

There is $632 million in this budget to enhance our training for GPs, specialists, nurses and allied health professionals. Some of these programs are to provide local relief in rural areas; others are to simply make sure that we can train enough GPs. We need a big increase in the number of graduates who see general practice as a good opportunity for them in the future. We were very excited with the response that we received not just from the public but also from the stakeholders, because reform in health, and even investments in health, can be controversial, but to have the AMA, the ANF, the college of general practice and the Australian Medical Students Association—just to name a few—all coming out in such strong support of this initiative is a credit to our strategy.

We have had to invest in areas that were seriously neglected by our predecessors. That includes, in last year’s budget, funding the health workforce agency, established in South Australia—the parliamentary secretary’s state—and proper planning with regard to the needs of the health workforce. It also includes things like the rural incentives that come online from 1 July this year, which will help, again, with the distribution. We are very excited about the opportunities this provides. There is a lot more to be done but, with the support of good local training providers like we are seeing established at the Redcliffe superclinic, we will be able to really turn this around.

The member for Kingston asked a question relating to the budget and a very significant investment, $467 million—that is, nearly half a billion dollars. That is money that should have been committed by the previous government but never was. It is money that should have been committed even according to the Leader of the Opposition’s own measure as the health minister. Not only is this now many years late, but we are in the extraordinary position where the Liberal opposition has said that they would cut this funding. This is something that every expert across the country and every health service provider says they desperately need. Whether you are working in a rural and remote area, whether you are working across multidisciplinary teams, whether you are working in the area of professional healthcare that the member for Kingston previously worked in, you would know that being able to have electronic health records is a key that will unlock so many future opportunities that to stand in the way of this is just sheer madness. I have to say that it smacks a little bit of, ‘We didn’t do it so we’re just not going to let anybody else get on with the job.’

This is a problem and will present great problems in the community. I know that the shadow minister is aware of this. Perhaps he has been rolled by the shadow finance minister. This is an important investment in our future. It should be supported. It will be a great risk, I think, in the campaign—something that people will focus on—when we are asked, ‘What are your health reforms going to deliver compared to what the Liberal Party are offering?’ At the moment all they are offering to do is take it away and spend it on something else not health related. That is all that we know so far. That would obviously be a great disservice to the community.

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