Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education. What is the Albanese Labor government doing to train more nurses and doctors to strengthen Medicare for decades to come?

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I thank my friend the member for Macnamara for his question.

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He is magnificent; that's a good point. I thank the magnificent member for Macnamara for his question.

We need more nurses, and we need more midwives too. These are people who've signed up to do some of the most important jobs in this country—people who will look after us when we're sick and help women during childbirth. A big part of their university degrees is prac—practical training—and it can sometimes be very difficult. I'll just give you one example. For a lot of nursing students, while they're studying part time, they often work at a local hospital as an assistant in nursing. When they do their prac, it's often at the same hospital, and they have to give up their paid part-time job to do it. So that can cause financial difficulties. It can mean that, sometimes, they don't have the money they need to pay for parking, to pay for public transport or to pay for petrol. The good news is that paid prac has now started. We promised it and we're delivering it. It's real cost-of-living help—real practical help—for the practical part of the university degree for nursing students, midwifery students, teaching students and social work students as well. It started on 1 July, and I can advise the House that already more than 30,000 people have applied to get it.

We need more nurses, but, as the member for Macnamara asked, we need more doctors too. In the election, we promised to set up a new medical school at the Queensland University of Technology. We promised it and we're delivering it. I can advise the House that it will start training doctors from 2027.

We also promised to deliver end-to-end medical training in Launceston at the University of Tasmania so medical students can complete their whole degree in Launceston. We promised it and we're delivering it. It will start from next year, 2026. We also promised to set up a new medical school at Charles Darwin University in the Northern Territory. We promised it and we're delivering it. It, too, will start from next year.

We also promised, during the election, to roll out 100 extra medical Commonwealth supported places next year. Universities will be able to bid for these extra places, and applications for them opened last week. The focus here is on training more GPs. It's all part of strengthening Medicare. It's part of the biggest-ever investment in Medicare to make it easier to see a doctor for free. We promised to train more doctors to do it and we are delivering it.