Terry Young (Longman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to rise to speak on the Higher Education Support Amendment (2022 Measures No. 1) Bill 2022. The reason I am so pleased to speak on this bill is that it finalises the bill which was first introduced by the coalition in the last term. Unfortunately, due to the election, the previous bill lapsed. I'm pleased the current government has acknowledged its value, and it will hopefully be passed in the near future. It will achieve great outcomes.

One of the greatest challenges facing rural and remote regions in our country is an inability to attract and recruit professional people such as GPs, nurse practitioners and teachers to those communities. This means our people in the country, including many of our Indigenous citizens, are not receiving the care that they need. The coalition identified this issue, and a policy was formulated to address this via means of financial incentives. This bill will mean that doctors and nurse practitioners that make the decision to relocate to regional or rural areas with a Modified Monash, or MM, rating of MM 3 or higher will have their university HECS-HELP debt either reduced or completely waived depending on the Modified Monash rating of the community where they provide the service.

We know that when people are exposed to these remote and regional locations a percentage of them will make the decision to permanently settle there. Some will fall in love with the town, the community. They may find their future spouse and start a family there. Whatever the reason, this would not happen unless they first moved there. This bill encourages them to do just that.

For those GPs and nurse practitioners who choose to return to their original places of residence, their communities will also benefit as just about every community across our nation is screaming out for more GPs. So everyone's a winner. The community then benefits by having a resident health practitioner looking after their health needs, which is very important, as the data tells us that individuals living in regional Australia experience poorer health outcomes than their city counterparts. This is attributed to the fact that they have less access to healthcare professionals. The added bonus is that these communities will have new residents that will contribute to the local economy. Another benefit is that students contemplating which degree to pursue may choose to select medicine or nursing, knowing that their university tuition will be heavily or fully funded.

This bill also rectifies the anomaly around grandfathering arrangements under the job-ready program to ensure that honours students remain eligible for the grandfathering arrangements where their course started pre 2021. This was another coalition initiative in the last term of government and, again, I'm pleased that this government has continued to run with it.

To be eligible for this program, doctors and nurse practitioners will need to work in a community with a Modified Monash rating between MM 3 and MM 7. They will need to provide a minimum of 24 hours a week of MBS billed services for a period equivalent to the duration of a full degree. The other great news is the measure will be backdated as per the coalition's announcement in the 2021-22 MYEFO, and eligibility will retrospectively commence from 1 January 2022.

The HECS-HELP debt for doctors can be up to $100,000. According to the AIHW report Australia’s health 2022, GPs living in regional Australia experience greater job satisfaction than those living in urban areas—another great reason to make the move. This bill will hopefully help address the issue of only one in seven graduates in medicine choosing the path of general practitioner. If this issue is not addressed and rectified, then we will continue to see greater load put on our already struggling and overloaded emergency departments or, even worse, people simply won't bother to seek medical treatment at all, which will lead to poorer health outcomes.

In speaking to people in my electorate of Longman, there is a great appetite to see the return of the family GP, where your local doctor looked after you and your family's health needs, sometimes for generations. Many people are tired of using the public system and the larger corporates, where they often don't see the same doctor twice. This bill will hopefully go some way in returning to this method of health care. I look forward to seeing the outcomes of this bill, and, if successful, I would like to see it implemented in other demand vocations, such as teaching, for regional communities. This is a good practical bill—first developed by the coalition—that delivers numerous benefits. I commend the bill to the House.

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