Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Menzies for mentioning Veterans' Health Week. In Palmerston in my electorate in the Northern Territory we have a lot of veterans.

I rise to speak about the provision of health services and, in particular, GPs in our electorates. The Rural Other Medical Practitioners Program, ROMPs, provides a full Medicare rebate to eligible practitioners in specific locations, despite the fact that they may have completed their training overseas. Most of Darwin and Palmerston falls under ROMPs, but several medical practitioners and clinic owners have approached my office and raised concerns because newer suburbs in Darwin and Palmerston are not listed as being included in the program.

The Northern Territory, including my electorate, has some of the lowest numbers of GPs per capita. As an example, the suburb of Rosebery has half a GP per 1,000 people, whereas Sydney has about nine GPs per 1,000 people. I've written to the Minister for Health and the assistant minister about this; however, their response is that they don't seem to care too much about this. According to them, they are satisfied with the current GP levels in Palmerston, which are 18 times less than those in Sydney. I call on the government to immediately review the suburbs of Darwin and Palmerston that aren't currently listed on the ROMPs program and work to make sure that all suburbs are covered.