Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Would the minister advise the House how the government is boosting the number of doctors in Queensland? What barriers does the government face in lifting doctor numbers in my state?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bonner for his question. I can assure him that this government does not just talk about more medical student places; we are actually delivering more doctors for people right around Australia, particularly in the great state of Queensland. Since 2000 the number of publicly funded first-year medical student places has increased by 30 per cent. By 2011 the number of medical graduates a year will increase from the current level of about 1,300 to 2,100—that is a 60 per cent increase—thanks to already implemented measures by this government.

Premier Beattie persists in claiming that Queensland’s doctor shortage is somehow all the federal government’s fault, even though the number of medical graduates a year in Queensland has increased by 25 per cent since 1996, even though the Howard government has established three new medical schools in Queensland and even though the number of publicly funded first-year medical student places in Queensland has almost doubled from just over 200 to over 400 since 1996.

The problem in Queensland is not so much a shortage of doctors but a shortage of doctors who are prepared to work in hospitals run by the Beattie Labor government. Last year 761 doctors resigned from Queens-land public hospitals in just eight months. That is a 20 per cent staff turnover in just six months. What does it say about the quality of the management of the Queensland public hospital system that in two years they have lost 1,691 from Queensland public hospitals? That is a 40 per cent staff turnover in just two years. That is a disgraceful, appalling result and it is wholly and solely the responsibility of the Beattie Labor government.

Premier Beattie says that this does not matter because they have recently appointed some 825 doctors to Queensland public hospitals. So they are replacing experienced doctors with inexperienced doctors and they are replacing Australian trained doctors largely with foreign trained doctors. That certainly does not encourage people to have confidence in the public hospitals of Queens-land. I ask the people of Queensland: who do you trust? Do you trust the Howard government, which is delivering more medical student places, or Premier Beattie? Why would you ever trust a government which has lost 40 per cent of its own public hospital doctors in just two years?