Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Wang for his question. I am a great supporter of the work of SARRAH. Indeed, just this week, I was very privileged to be at a dinner that they were holding for one of the young people who have been a beneficiary of one of their internal scholarships. There is absolutely no doubt that allied health is incredibly important when it comes to health service delivery in rural and regional areas, and indeed it was a discussion that I was having with them just a couple of days ago.

But we do have to be mindful as the government that our scholarships are appropriate, efficient and well targeted. So, across a range of areas at the moment, we are reviewing the scholarship arrangements. We need to make sure that the taxpayers' dollars that we are responsible for are effectively spent and efficiently spent. It certainly does not detract from the work that SARRAH do. Indeed, as I have said, they prosecute the case very well for allied health services across our rural and regional communities. But we as the government do have to be responsible. We have to make sure that we are managing the taxpayers' dollars that we are responsible for in a very efficacious and, as I say, responsible way. So we will be looking at SARRAH. We will be looking at things across a range of areas when it comes to scholarships to make sure they are targeted and giving us what we need, which is better health outcomes in rural and regional areas.