Andrew Gee (Calare, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Today I rise to introduce the Doctors for the Bush Bill 2024.

The rural doctor shortage is at crisis point.

It's a health disaster unfolding before our eyes, and its consequences are devastating.

All over central western New South Wales and around country Australia, doctors are leaving the bush and they're not being replaced.

In the electorate of Calare, the rural doctor shortage crisis is being felt in communities big and small.

Gulgong had four doctors but no longer has any at all.

This is putting pressure on the larger towns like Mudgee. It has two medical practices, and they are both no longer accepting any new patients.

Practices in communities like Canowindra and Molong have also lost doctors and are also closing their books to new patients or adopting a locals-only policy for appointments. In Wellington, it takes two months to see a GP.

The impacts this crisis is having on the health of country people are as concerning as they are shocking.

I spoke to one doctor in our area recently who met with a patient with advanced cancer and who had not been able to get in to see a doctor and had therefore missed out on vital treatment.

The rural doctor shortage crisis has been made much worse because country areas no longer have priority for overseas trained doctors.

Before July 2022, if an overseas trained doctor, or international medical graduate as they're known, wanted to practice in Australia and bill Medicare, they had to work in a country area for up to 10 years. These country areas were known, and are still known, as Distribution Priority Areas.

Bonded medical students also have to complete return-of-service obligations in a distribution priority area.

For many rural areas, this policy was a lifeline, providing competent GPs where there were none and ensuring that country people had access to basic medical services.

But in July 2022 all of that changed.

The government upended the Distribution Priority Area system, for the first time allowing outer metropolitan areas to be classified as Distribution Priority Areas.

All parts of Australia are classified according to what is called the Modified Monash Model. There are seven categories, ranging from MM1, which is a major city, to MM7, which is very remote.

Previously areas MM3 to MM7 were classified as Distribution Priority Areas. To give people context, larger regional centres like Bathurst and Orange are classified as MM3, Lithgow and Mudgee are MM4 and Molong, Gulgong and Canowindra are MM5.

The government has declared MM2 areas as Distribution Priority Areas now, thereby destroying—

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