Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure to rise to speak today about the initiatives of the budget and what they deliver to all Australian people—in my case in particular to the people of the Riverina. We have had an enormous benefit out of the budget and I certainly thank the ministers involved. The member for Macquarie, Kerry Bartlett, and I worked very hard, with an extremely good proposal from Charles Sturt University, in order to address the supply side of the problems of access to dentists. It is a fact that Australians in rural and remote areas have had limited access to dental care. There was data that showed that access to dental services within a capital city was around 56 dentists per 100,000 people; however, in rural areas there was a much lower level of access to services, with around 31 dentists per 100,000 people and decreasing.

Charles Sturt University have embarked upon a program of deliberate training for rural professionals to offer rural services in rural areas. It is an absolutely sensational concept. They are not being all things to everybody. They have absolutely changed the way in which their programs are formulated and funded, and decided that rural Australia requires and deserves more rural professionals. In order to do so, Charles Sturt University decided they would undertake this badge to ensure that this was made available to those people who want to enter into the rural stream and who generally, if trained in a rural area, will stay in a rural area.

They have built up significant success stories. When Charles Sturt University was able to offer pharmacy, there was great angst from many of the sandstone universities that a regional university should be offering this course. Prior to Charles Sturt University being able to offer pharmacy, we were getting an average of about two pharmacy graduates per year into rural areas—that includes Canberra—so of course we were not able to offer pharmacy services in many areas due to the lack of trained and skilled pharmacists. Since Charles Sturt University have entered into training in pharmacy and offering a pharmacy degree, of an average 41 students who might complete pharmacy, 39 are staying within rural areas in order to practise.

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