Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, congratulations. Well done, Milton.

In 2019 the Morrison government cut back the areas of Australia where overseas trained doctors and doctors in the Bonded Medical Program can practise. This change contributed to the GP crisis we've witnessed in our nation. It meant that in regional areas, particularly on the fringes of our capital cities and major provincial cities, there would be trouble for GP practices recruiting GPs as older GPs retired. I spoke with medical practices in rural Walloon, in Riverlink Shopping Centre in Ipswich Central, and in Karana Downs in outer Brisbane, all of whom were anxious and troubled by this decision.

The new distribution priority areas define areas of Australia which allow overseas trained doctors and bonded medical program doctors to access the MBS and therefore practise in those areas. The modified Monash model is how the federal government defines location: city, rural, remote and very remote. MM1 is the major city classification; MM7 is very remote. It's MM2 areas—regional areas within a 20-kilometre drive of a town of over 50,000 residents—places like Ipswich, the Somerset region and even the Karana Downs region in Brisbane in my electorate, which were so adversely affected by the decision of the Morrison government.

With the support of local doctors such as Dr Catherine Hester and Dr Tony Bayliss in the Colleges Crossing Family Practice and many other local doctors, I started a campaign straightaway to have the Morrison government overturn this tragic decision. I could see adverse health outcomes for hardworking families and battling individuals across Blair, which already had 50 per cent of GPs who are non-Australian. With the support of the Darling Downs and West Moreton Primary Health Network, the West Moreton Hospital and Health Service and, indeed, Mr Speaker, you as the member for Oxley, I wrote to the regional health minister, the member for Parkes, on 7 August 2019, asking the government to reverse the decision and make an exception to the changes. Unfortunately, he wrote back to me, on 23 September 2019, saying that unless there was a dramatic reduction in the number of GPs employed in my area or a substantial drop in health outcome services for my region, there would be no change. I wrote to him again on 8 January 2020 asking him to reconsider the decision. He wrote back again on 10 February 2020 saying that the Distribution Advisory Group endorsed the current methodology used to determine DPA status. I wrote again on 30 March 2021, talking about the idiocy of the current changes that he'd made, which had such an adverse impact, cutting rural towns in two. I wrote to the minister inviting him on 10 June 2021, and I wrote again to the new minister, the member for Lyons on 27 July 2021.

Labor initiated a Senate inquiry into this issue, talking about the critical lack of doctors accessing regional areas across the country. I made four speeches in parliament urging the government to change, on 15 October 2019, on 6 February 2020, on 12 August 2021 and on 9 February 2022. In this place, I urged the government to change their decision.

We made a commitment on 4 February saying that if we got into government we would make the change by designating regional centres, such as those classified in MM2 areas, as DPA for the purpose of GPs. On 22 July 2022, I thanked the minister for making that change. More than 700 areas, fully or partially, got that change in classification, including in my area and in your area, Mr Speaker.

GP practices now, in exceptional circumstances, in catchment areas MM1, outer metropolitan, and MM2 areas only, in Ipswich, in Kilcoy and Woodford could get access to GPs in these circumstances. GP practices with an election commitment in MM2s and other selective catchments in Lowood, Rosewood and Springfield to Redbank, could get access. This is about the Albanese Labor government being concerned about regional health outcomes in a way that those opposite, who pose and preen and posture in this place about supporting regional Australia, failed to do. That history of correspondence and speeches in this place showed that the Morrison government had failed to look after regional Australia in terms of health outcomes and in my area. It's only the election of a Labor government that made the difference in terms of health outcomes in regional Australia.

Andrew Leigh (Fenner, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the question be now put.

Question agreed to.

I move:

That the House do not adjourn.

Question agreed to.