Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

The reality is that when we were elected to government one of the first decisions made by our government was to increase the number of training places for nurses, so an extra 1,000 nurses are graduating every single year. That has, of course, led to over 3,500 more nurses being in the system than otherwise would have been. The member for Bowman also referred to the new National Regulatory Registration and Accreditation Scheme introduced by our government which replaces 85 different professional and state and territory boards across the country with one. This is a great reform which is streamlining the system. It is making sure that the very committed nurses, doctors and others who want to work in the Northern Territory where there are no health professionals to help fill a gap or who want to move from Tasmania to Queensland can do so.

Of course this was an enormous task, with hundreds of thousands of health professionals moving from individual registration systems for 85 different professions and states and territories into one. If the member had been interested he probably would have seen a statement issued last Thursday by all state and territory health ministers and me as the Commonwealth Minister for Health and Ageing. Having dealt with a range of issues, we invited AHPRA to come to the Health Ministers’ Conference. All health ministers across the country are responsible for this system. It is not a Commonwealth system; it is a national system, and we together have taken steps to ensure that some of the teething problems—which were significant in some states but not in others—have been dealt with. What the member might be interested to know—

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