Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I wanted to ask the minister about the termination of the Medical Rural Bonded Scholarship Scheme and in particular the streamlining of nine existing health workforce scholarship programs into a single health workforce scholarship program and the adjustment of the various obligations of a return of service from four to six years to a single year of return of service obligation. My first question would be: was the streamlining of these nine existing health workforce scholarships done to hide the cuts to this area—some $72 million over the forward estimates in rural workforce scholarships? Has there been any modelling done on doctor and allied health professional numbers in rural and remote settings as a result of these changes? Is the minister confident that this will lead to more rather than fewer doctors and health professionals in the bush?

Some technical questions: under many of these programs, if a graduate doctor wanted to avoid their return of service—say, a six-year return of service—they are obligated to, in effect, buy it out and pay for the cost of their degree. Obviously, if you are reducing a return to service from six years to one year, that has an effect on a person or an individual who wanted to buy their way out of this return of service obligation and the amount that they might pay. I would be interested to know if the recipients of these scholarships will be able to buy their way out of their return of service obligations? If so, how much will they be paying back? How can, effectively, reducing someone's return of service obligation from six years to one year mean more doctors in the bush?

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