Phillip Thompson (Herbert, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Primary health care in Australia is in crisis. We know that for a fact. Getting in to see a doctor is becoming more difficult. People are doing it tough. GPs are doing it tough. They are being asked to do more for less and with less. Medicare needs to keep up with the times and increase its funding. We need to see more bulk-billing and we need to provide patients who are struggling with cost-of-living pressures with the ability to access help for minor health conditions before they become chronic, lifelong, costly problems.

There have been plenty of challenges in this area for some time. But there is something that reared its head towards the end of last year that is going to have extremely costly impacts if it's not addressed. The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners has done a survey of its members and found that this challenge will result in almost 20 per cent of general practices being forced to close, nearly 80 per cent of GPs passing an increased cost on to patients as gap payments and increased fees, and many GPs leaving general practice altogether. In my electorate of Herbert, it will have a massive negative impact for the people of Townsville.

This challenge is coming from a familiar enemy to common sense and good governance—that is, the Queensland state Labor government. One of these challenges is payroll tax. This sick tax which GPs have never had to pay is now going to hit them because of a recent tribunal ruling. To be honest, I don't think that the payroll tax is a good tax. But this tribunal found that tenant GPs who pay a percentage of their earnings to a clinic, rather being on a paid wage, count as employees for payroll tax purposes. Why is paying payroll tax a problem for GPs? Because GPs are generally not employees. The RACGP says this decision disrupts established business models for practices which now face the inevitable choice of charging patients more or shutting up shop. Most GPs don't own clinics; they are sole traders, contractors, who provide their service at a practice. They don't get annual leave or maternity leave, and GPs who own clinics already pay payroll taxes on wages payments to reception staff, nurses, practitioner managers. We know how tight these practices are already. Overheads are going up, but Medicare funding isn't keeping pace.

Any additional cost like this is going to result in a huge disruption to health and care for our community. The last thing we need when we're all begging for more doctors in our communities is for GPs to give up the profession. We cannot afford to see a huge drop in the number of patients being bulk-billed. We cannot afford to see patients being charged extra. We cannot afford increased ambulance ramping at our public hospitals, which are already at breaking point in Queensland.

The Queensland state Labor government, after this decision, could have come out and said very clearly that they will change the rules for GPs and provide an exemption. Instead, the Treasurer has been licking his lips, seeing only a new revenue stream to help plug his budget black hole. At the very least, he could have said this new definition applies from now on. Instead, his Queensland Revenue Office has said it won't audit the last financial year. That means the GPs will be slugged last year's payroll tax, and they'll also be up for paying it indefinitely.

We know how hard it is to see a GP, especially in the regions. It can be quite challenging, and we see more people leaving the profession. We could do more to support our GPs by allocating more funding to WIPs, or workforce incentive programs, and PIPs, or practice incentive programs, which will help our GPs to be able to do the awesome job that they do. I remember some years ago when I saw my GP, there was an intern in the practice. That intern was a trainee GP. They would sit there and help with going through the process and going through the initial assessment. We saw a spike in people wanting to become general practitioners. But that has now gone, and WIPs and PIPs have also fallen by the wayside. Now we see less people wanting to be a GP, which is a fantastic career. I would encourage people to take up that program.