Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

I remember when this went through back in 2022. I said at the time that this will have a huge effect on people who live in the regions and that is why we must debate this today. This decision by government has stripped doctors from the regions. It has made clinics close. It has meant that if you move into many parts of my electorate of Mayo, the local doctor surgery says, 'Our books are full and we're not taking you.' This was, I think, an incredibly callous thing to do to rural areas.

I have said it before, but we have seen doctors coming from overseas, some of whom even had contracts at the time, who were going to go work in the regions but saw the change in rules and went, 'Great, I am going to go and work in the outer metropolitan areas or even, in some cases, in the inner metropolitan areas, and I am going to live in the city. I am going to live in the affluent suburbs'—I am talking about around South Australia—'and I will work out to those areas.' They are not going to the regions.

I cannot think in my near nine years in this place of a decision by government that has had a more profound effect, negative profound effect, on people accessing health care in the regions. This was a terrible decision by government , so I absolutely support the member for Calare's work to call this on, to call for a suspension of standing orders, to deal with the distribution priority areas. Because in South Australia, we are looking at areas like Tea Tree Gully and Mitcham. The inner city, leafy suburb of Mitcham is considered a priority area and is taking doctors away from the bush. I have a rural electorate and an area that has remote medical needs—Kangaroo Island. My goodness, what must it be like if you are in Kimba or Port Lincoln or in the member for Kennedy's electorate? This was a terrible decision by government and must be reversed, so I absolutely support the motion of the member for Calare as seconded by the member for Kennedy because people can't get in to see a doctor.

I remember at the time, when this went through, we had some people say, 'Oh, I can't get in to see the doctor until late in the afternoon or even the next day.' Try weeks, try months, or trying ringing the only doctor surgery within your area to be told they won't see you at all. We had an elderly lady who had just moved to the Goolwa area, on the south coast of my electorate, ring my office, pleading with us to try and help her find a doctor.

They can't employ doctors from overseas because they all prefer to liver in the metropolitan areas. They all prefer to live in the cities, and it is this legislation the government put through that has made that possible. It has starved the bush of doctors and it was an unconscionable decision by government to do that.

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