Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The people who live in the Wimmera Mallee are very fair minded, decent people. I always say it is not unreasonable for them to able to drive on a decent road, make a mobile phone call, have good education opportunities for their children and know that when they're unwell they'll be able to go to a doctor. It is about doctors that I want to talk this afternoon. For reasons of circumstance, we have lost nine doctors in Horsham since February. We've seen a lot of doctors leave our town, and we're having difficulty securing general practitioners. The district of workforce shortage mechanism, which assesses whether there is a shortage of doctors, is only reset in February every year. So we lost these doctors after the mechanism was reset. At this point in time we are limited in our ability to access overseas trained doctors, foreign graduates from Australian medical schools and Australian trained bonded doctors with return-of-service obligations.

I want to outline that there are some things that we need to do if we're going to attract more doctors to regional areas. There is not a shortage of doctors; that is the irony. We are overserviced in some areas yet in other areas we can't get doctors. Horsham, for example, is not the back blocks of anywhere. There's an indoor, heated swimming pool and a population of 20,000 people. We're three hours from Melbourne. We've got private schools and jobs for partners. It's a great place to live. If we're not able to attract doctors into Horsham, we've obviously got some of the settings wrong.

Certainly, at the moment, a rural GP will receive $3 more on a bulk-billing than a doctor practising in the city. But I think that there does need to be an overlay where we work out what the population base and service of doctors to that population is, as opposed to what it is in another area, and try to move those to become more equal. Currently, we work on a doctor being able to service a population of about 980 people, and in some areas we've got doctors who are servicing substantially more. We're overservicing in some areas—I suppose that is the best way to put it.

I would argue that we have to look at the rebate that we pay and perhaps pay more to areas where they are having trouble attracting doctors and less to areas where they are overserviced so that we can start to incentivise in a greater sense to ensure we get doctors into those country towns and into those regions. People who live in the regions are Australians too, and they deserve the same level of care. If we are going to use our taxpayers' dollars to rebate health, we need to make sure that that rebate is being equally shared across areas so that we can attract more doctors.

If you're a doctor looking at this, come to the electorate of Mallee. We've got the best people, the best foods and the best place to live. We'd love to have you. We need you, and we will support you.