Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you to the member for Wakefield for his question. I am delighted that he has an interest in the rural workforce, something that I know you and I share. It is vital that we get right the pipeline of doctors, allied health professionals and nurses to our rural areas. It is important that where we fund scholarships—and we invest significantly in these areas—those scholarships work for the individuals who avail themselves of that opportunity, the government and also the rural community. I will make some general comments about this measure of streamlining our health workforce.

What I want to say to the member for Wakefield is that we are redesigning and streamlining. The actual detail of every single scholarship in every circumstance is not something that I am going to announce today, because I undertake consultations and—particularly in this area—my assistant minister, Senator Nash, undertakes consultations to make sure we get this right. In future, most scholarship recipients will be required to agree to complete a one-year return of service in a regional, rural or remote area of Australia. I appreciate the member for Wakefield's point about a longer-term return of service, but our experience is that this has not worked particularly effectively in the past. What I would always say to junior doctors, interns and registrars about the opportunity to work in rural Australia is: 'We do not want to hold a stick to your head, we want to encourage you. We want you to see after your experience of, for example, a rural generalist practice that this contains an exciting opportunity for you in your professional life.' We know that there are ways that we can encourage doctors in those early years to appreciate and see what rural practice can bring them. While there will be a reduction in the funds available for scholarships under our new health workforce scholarship program, our scholarships will be much better targeted to priority areas. There will be no fewer scholarships for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people under the new program. We are creating a more flexible, equitable and efficient scholarship system for the health workforce with an obligation for its recipients to give back something appropriate.

The new scholarships scheme will provide more flexibility and better targeting of scholarships to meet priority areas such as rural and remote locations and health workforce profession and skills shortages. The majority of health students are able to complete their studies without a scholarship, so the vital thing for us is to make sure this is targeted. When I have talked to some professionals, they have acknowledged that the challenge of getting the allied health and nursing workforce out to rural and regional Australia is not really about a scholarship. The appropriate measures are in place to make the studies for nursing and allied health quite affordable. The issue is about that very big move. If you have not grown up or experienced life in the bush, it is about that move from city to country. The incentives that we can put in place are valuable, but they are not the whole picture. We know that we have to be responsible with our spend in rural scholarships and we are going to do that. I look forward to a better targeted system that does not have so much back office or administration funding and makes sure that it works in partnership with our other measures to get the rural health workforce right.

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