Mark Butler Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the House
2:20 pm
Sorry, Speaker. And it was about the shortage of doctors in parts of metropolitan Australia, which is why we've leaned so heavily into trying to ensure that more medical graduates train as GPs. This year, there are more GPs in training than ever before. Last year was a record year. We've broken the record this year. We expect more again next year. But still we need more doctors than we've got.
As the member says, generally our distribution levers have distinguished pretty sharply between the big cities and rural and regional Australia, so that doctors coming from overseas—which is the question the member asked—are required to practice for 10 years in rural and regional communities. Now, there are parts of, particularly, outer-suburban Australia who are really struggling—who have lower doctor rates per head of population than many parts of regional Australia. And we are grappling with that question. We've engaged with doctors' groups and patient groups to see whether there is a more forensic way in which we can deal with those doctor shortages. But, every time we have an overseas doctor go into the cities, rural communities understandably complain that that's taken from them.
So I'm happy to engage with the member more about that. It's not particularly simple, though.
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