Perin Davey (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Hansard source

I just want to acknowledge I actually heard some very good news from Senator Pratt in her contribution. I was very relieved to hear that the new government will be continuing the former coalition government's model of multidisciplinary team based care, which I had the pleasure of announcing the pilot for under the former regional health minister, Mark Coulton. So I'm very pleased that our coalition government policy will be continued.

I'm also pleased to hear that the regional training programs will be continued, such as the Murray-Darling Basin medical school—which recognises that, if you train in the regions, you're more likely to stay in the regions—and our rural generalist pathways. I hope that includes the rural generalist pathways for registered nurses and allied health professionals as well. I didn't hear whether the new government will continue, as we termed in the pilot, the Murrumbidgee single employer model, which improves the working conditions and the contractual arrangements for GPs who move to regional areas. That was something that our government implemented.

What I didn't hear from Senator Pratt is how the new government's changes to the distribution priority areas are going to help us achieve an increase in the rural and regional health workforce. How can the new government look people in the eye and say that an overseas trained doctor should get the same incentives and benefits to work in Newcastle as they would if they were going to work in a GP clinic in Cessnock or Scone? How can they say that they're putting these hard-fought for, overseas trained doctors in bonded Australian medical places in Western Sydney compared to Broken Hill or Burke? It doesn't stack up. There are already significant inequalities—yes, our government was in place for nine years and, yes, we put in the hard yards, because there is no silver bullet on this issue. We acknowledge there is no silver bullet. But we worked very hard talking to the Rural Doctors Association, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and the allied health professionals on how to address this issue, on how to train more in the regions and retain more in the regions.

This one policy announcement by the new government has the Rural Doctors Association of Australia now warning that they are 'fearful' for rural communities right across Australia that are now at extreme risk of losing their doctors as they take up positions closer to the cities, abandoning their rural and remote patients who will be left with no access to care close to home. They went further and made a harrowing call that Labor's policies will cost the lives of rural and remote patients who already suffer poorer health outcomes than their city counterparts.

Just this afternoon I had a meeting with council representatives from Far North Queensland. They told the story of how, in their small community, they have a doctor, they have a district nurse, and they have a policeman, but how, if there is a road trauma or an accident overnight due to workplace fatigue management—which is a very serious issue in regional areas—there is a snowball effect. They would love to have the extra workforce. But how can they compete if we're saying that the distribution priority areas can have someone in Townsville rather than in remote Far North Queensland?

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has noted that these hospitalisations in rural areas can be avoided by getting more GPs out there. The Labor Party's policy will not do that. (Time expired)