Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

The purpose of the Higher Education Support Amendment (2022 Measures No. 1) Bill 2022 is to give effect to two changes which were previously introduced by the Morrison government. The first is a substantial initiative for rural, regional and remote Australia, which is to give effect to the coalition's HELP for Rural Doctors and Nurse Practitioners measure announced in the 2021-22 MYEFO. This measure provides a partial or full higher education loan program, known as HELP, debt deduction for rural doctors and nurse practitioners who reside and practise in regional, rural or remote Australia once they complete their studies.

The coalition introduced this measure to encourage doctors and nurse practitioners to relocate to rural and regional Australia by reducing their outstanding HECS-HELP debt. This is a substantial incentive, given that the HECS debt for doctors can be up to $100,000. The need for health professionals across regional and rural Australia is particularly important, though, with around one-third of our population—around eight million people—living in rural, regional and remote areas. It's of great concern that this group of Australians experience poorer health outcomes than those in metropolitan areas.

According to the OECD Health at a glance report in 2017, Australians have one of the highest life expectancies in the world. But when we dig deeper into the data the life expectancy rates between people in metro areas and those in regional and remote areas differ by about five years, with even greater differentials for Indigenous Australians. Much of this is attributed to less access to preventative health services, such as GPs and nurse practitioners. Around 20 per cent of people in regional Australia report not having access to a general practitioner nearby. In fact, around 65,000 Australians have no access to GP services within an hour's drive of their home. Consequentially, they access less care and are at greater risk of death from preventable and treatable conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease. Overall, there's a 20 per cent increase in disease compared to those living in metropolitan areas.

This measure will go a long way to addressing this by providing access to essential health services. We hope that around 850 GPs and nurse practitioners will take up this initiative. The value of debt reduction applied will be guided by where eligible doctors and nurses locate to, using the Modified Monash Model. This model depicts the remoteness of a location on a scale, with category MM 1 representing a major city and category MM 7 representing a very remote location. The locations for this measure will be in the areas of MM 3 to MM 7.

For example, doctors and nurse practitioners who choose to work in a rural or regional area will need to provide a minimum of 24 hours a week of Medicare billed services for a period equivalent to the duration of their whole degree. For doctors, this is usually around eight years. For nurse practitioners, this is around three years. These areas include locations like Dubbo and Lismore in regional New South Wales or Busselton in Western Australia.

Doctors and nurse practitioners who choose a remote area to work in will need to provide a minimum of 24 hours a week of MBS billed services, for a period equivalent to half the duration of their degree, to have their full HECS-HELP debt waived. This would equate to around four years for doctors and 1½ years for nurse practitioners, so these are very substantial incentives. I'll repeat that: a doctor who's graduated goes and works in a remote area for half the duration of their degree—let's say it's an eight-year degree—they do it for four years and they have their entire HECS debt waived. Gone. It's the same for a nurse who does that.

These areas include Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, Mallacoota in my home state of Victoria or Bruny Island in Tasmania. They are real, great incentives for new doctor and nurse graduates to go to these regional and remote areas, and we think they'll have a sizeable impact. That's exactly why we introduced this measure into the parliament at the end of last year. Unfortunately, the parliament was prorogued before the measure could pass.

The measure itself will be backdated as per the coalition announcement in the 2021-22 MYEFO, and eligibility and retrospectivity commence from 1 January 2022. This measure builds on the coalition's significant investment in health, be it through Medicare and high bulkbilling rates, more listings on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, record hospital funding or more mental health services. We will be moving an amendment, and I'm happy to table that amendment.

Our amendment seeks a review of the policy, which we would have done in government as a normal part of reviewing new policies. The review seeks to assess the policy's implementation, take-up and effectiveness in filling those particular workforce shortages across regional, rural and remote Australia. But a critical part of the review, which we have in this amendment and which we hope will get the support of this parliament, is to specifically assess other skills shortage areas in those regional and remote areas to see if a similar style of policy could equally be applicable for those skills shortage areas. It might be, for example, in mental health services. It could be engineers, which we often lack in regional or remote areas. Possibly, we can investigate having those HECS waivers for new graduates going into those areas, as well. That's what we're arguing this review should do in our tabled amendment. I urge the government to support this amendment to ensure that we can continue to provide Australians who live in regional, rural and remote areas with the services they need and should have access to.

The bill also changes the definition of a grandfathered student to clarify the grandfathering arrangements under the Job-ready Graduates Package of reforms to higher education, known as the HELP grandfathering measures. These measures meant that, when the job-ready graduates program came into place, most of the fees for students went down or stayed the same. But there were some courses where the fees went up, and these grandfathered arrangements were put in place to ensure that, if you'd already started a degree at a certain price point, that price point would be maintained for the duration of the degree.

This particular amendment ensures that an honours year of study at the end of your degree is also considered to be part of the overall degree, as far as the grandfathering arrangements are concerned, rather than being a new degree which consequently attracts a higher fee rate. It's a very straightforward, clarifying amendment. That was always the intent of the job-ready graduates program, but this will absolutely make sure that those students who started their degree under the lower rates will continue all the way through to the completion of their honours year under that rate, as well.

I commend the government and Minister Clare for re-introducing this bill. I particularly commend the government for adopting the coalition's policy—a very good policy which we introduced towards the end of last year—of providing those HECS and HELP waivers for the doctors and nurse practitioners who go and work in the regional and the rural areas. We think it will make a difference. We're confident it'll make a difference. It will make a difference in getting more doctors and nurse practitioners out to more regional and remote areas. In doing so, it will make a difference to the health outcomes of all of those Australians who live in those locations.

I thank the government for reintroducing the coalition's bill. I commend the amendment which we have put down, which will reassess how this is all going after a couple of years and take a look at whether or not any other skills shortage areas should additionally have the benefit of these types of HECS and HELP waivers, applicable through this bill for doctors and nurses. I commend this bill and the amendment.

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