Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise in support of the Health Insurance Amendment (Provider Number Review) Bill 2007 and to commend this legislation to the House. The history of it is quite plain. When we came to government, we introduced major changes to the Medicare provider number system for new medical practitioners. We were keen for those who were newly graduated to seek postgraduate qualifications before they were able to access the right to work under the Medicare benefits scheme. We also knew there were doctors who would undertake further training and workforce experience once they had finished their university book learning.

The effect of these changes was very clear: it was about improving the quality of doctors by giving them a rounded series of experiences that would add to the quality, in a quite effective way, of those in the workforce. It meant that a lot of young doctors were encouraged—you may say coerced—to work towards a fellowship with a recognised medical college. It also included the recognition of general practice as a distinct medical discipline. We see the role of general practitioners in our community as an enormously noble task. I am sure that in Tasmania, where you come from, Mr Deputy Speaker Quick, you have your own doctor. We all have our own doctor, who we get to know and trust.

The doctor who my parents took me to from the age of about 11, Terry Russell, shocked us all a few years ago when he decided to move away from general practice, take no more names on the books and move into the specialisation of circumcision, which left us a bit high and dry as a family. It certainly left me high and dry; I had no need for his services from that point on. I was very happy to eventually find some other doctors. I was quite amazed at the time that the opposition was banging on about the lack of bulk-billing, because every doctor I was able to access in my electorate was a bulk-billing doctor. We have about a 90 per cent bulk-billing rate in my electorate. We have had a very successful increase in the number of general practitioners and medical specialists, bulk-billing and otherwise, in my electorate. It is excellent. We have a public hospital, the QEII, at Nathan and a great private hospital in the Sunnybank Private Hospital, where unfortunately my mother is sitting today. At the end of it, these are good and reliable medical facilities that are staffed by great doctors.

What a difference, though, the last 10 or 11 years have made to medical services across the south side of Brisbane and in the electorate of Moreton. I remember when I was the candidate for Moreton in 1995. Dr Wooldridge, who was the shadow minister for health, became a very good minister for health in the first couple of terms of the Howard government. Michael Wooldridge and I went to the QEII hospital at Nathan. Peter Beattie was the Queensland health minister at the time and refused to allow me as a mere candidate to go into the hospital on the political visit of the shadow minister for health.

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