Andrew Gee (Calare, Independent) | Hansard source

The further away you live from a city, the shorter your life expectancy—that's the shocking truth about Australian health care. The fact is that people in remote areas are dying 15 years earlier than their city cousins. The sandstone curtain of the Great Dividing Range doesn't just divide city and country; it divides us on our life expectancy and our access to health care.

Last week I met with Mudgee doctors Rebecca Devitt and Tim Jones. They informed me of the immense difficulties in attracting doctors to the bush. The rural doctor shortage crisis is getting worse, and the government needs to act.

One thing the government can do right now is give Charles Sturt University an extra 10 places for its medical school. There's an application in with the health minister as we speak. This game-changing program trains doctors in the bush for practice in the bush. There are only 47 students at present, and more are desperately needed. Government changes to distribution priority areas saw a great movement of overseas-trained doctors away from the bush.

My Doctors for the Bush Bill remedies this, and the government should get behind it. It restores the priority that country areas should have in accessing a GP. Country people demand and deserve nothing less than equality in access to doctors, medical services and affordable health care. We are sick and tired of city-centric health policies. The government must address the rural doctor shortage crisis on the double.

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