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

On 1 February I co-hosted the inaugural SA future GP forum with the General Practice Registrars Australia. That brought together registrars, pre-vocational doctors and general practice students from across 21 universities across Australia. The aim was to hear how we can help these students and registrars ensure they go through a pathway to being a general practitioner. That's because fewer than 10 per cent, or around 10 per cent, of medical students actually decide to become GPs now. That's down from 50 per cent in previous decades. Why? There's a few reasons

One of the reasons is the inequitable pay difference between being a registrar in a hospital and going into a GP practice. What we know is that we need to fund medical practices around Australia to take on students, to take on registrars. There's around a $31,000 difference in pay and that is meaning fewer students are going through this pathway. We also need to lift the Commonwealth supported places to study medicine. That has effectively flatlined in the last decade. With an ageing population and a growing population, what we're seeing is a shortfall of 10,000 GPs across Australia. That's what the AMA is saying. That's the cliff that we're facing. It was great to hold this forum, and I look forward to fixing this issue with the parliament.