Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

He promised to fix the problems three years ago and nothing happened. In fact, they got worse—Senator McLucas will be well aware of that. The problems in North Queensland that she and I are intimately aware of have got worse in the three years since Mr Beattie promised he would fix them. Again this year Mr Beattie has smiled at everyone and said: ‘Yes, dear. Isn’t this a terrible problem? I will fix it.’ But what has he been doing for eight years? Accordingly, I have no confidence in the proposition that the health problems we have in Queensland will be fixed so long as Mr Beattie and his cronies are there. More bureaucrats will be put into it and more advertising will be done. Mr Beattie has been running huge full-page advertisements for the last six months. I suspect they will stop now, the election being over. These advertisements were paid for by the taxpayers. Instead of putting the money into medical services, where it should have been put, it was put into advertising. We have had all the promises. We have had the nice pictures. We have had the announcements. But mark my words: in three years time things will not have improved. You only have to talk to anyone in the health areas to know this.

I have been approached by any number of nurses who say to me: ‘Because of the Commonwealth government we have been able to get places in universities, but we cannot get training places in Queensland hospitals.’ The training places are essential for those nurses to complete their work. I have doctors coming to me who are also grateful to the federal government for providing all these additional university places for would-be medical practitioners. But, once they finish, they have nowhere to go for their training in the Queensland hospitals. The Queensland hospitals, according to the AMA, and the hospitals in all other states, are cutting those training positions. That is of great concern to me.

The federal government has, over the 10 years that it has been in power, made a significant difference to medical services in country Australia. It has done this in so many ways that time today does not permit me to go through them all. I just want to mention one aspect of where the federal government has improved considerably the prospect of better medical treatment in country areas of Australia, and that is the introduction of a medical school at James Cook University, in Townsville, the city where I have my base. The James Cook University medical school is a real success story. I certainly give credit to Professor Bob Porter AC, who was the planning dean. When he first joined JCU in 1997 he was responsible for getting Australian Medical Council accreditation for the MBBS—that is, the Bachelor of Medicine Bachelor of Surgery. He originally came from Monash University, where he was the leading light in the development of the university’s medical school. Professor Ian Wronski, who is the executive dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Health and Molecular Science at JCU, also deserves significant credit for the great successes the James Cook University medical school has achieved.

The first-year numbers this year of Commonwealth funded places at JCU’s medical school were 83, which is a creditable contribution. Last year, in December, I was privileged to attend the graduation of some 58 students from the first MBBS program at James Cook University. I am delighted to hear that 64 per cent of graduates indicated that they were going to work in rural areas of Australia. That is absolutely fantastic, and it will certainly arrest the drain over recent years resulting in a paucity of medical practitioners in country Australia and certainly in country Queensland.

Fifty-six per cent of the graduates said they would remain in North Queensland, which means they will stay in Townsville, Cairns and Mackay. Even so, it shows the wisdom of the Howard government’s approach to problems in the bush. It is a long-term solution, but the long-term solution had to be undertaken. The thought was—and it is justified by the statistics—that there is a greater likelihood of country young people who enter medical schools in a non-capital-city university staying out of the capital cities. In the past, too many country kids would go to a capital city university to do their medical course and would get involved with a partner from that area, resulting in their staying in the capital cities. Very few of them went back out to the country.

This initiative of getting medical schools into regional areas—Townsville is just one of them but it is the one I am most familiar with—is already paying dividends. It means that the citizens of country Australia—which is where I live, in a country town in North Queensland—will have better prospects of getting a doctor in the years ahead. So congratulations to James Cook University medical school and all credit to Dr Wooldridge, who initiated this program, and the health ministers of the coalition government over the last 10 years.

This program has been very significant in getting a better deal for country people but, whilst the Commonwealth government continues to look after country people and to help the medical profession, regrettably all of the state governments—and my state of Queensland in particular—seem to be working against country people. I again mention the cut in the training positions. I urge the Queensland government to do something about that. There have been comments about the Commonwealth taking over the hospital and health systems in the state. It is an appealing thought, because the states have made such a botch of health, but the set-up—the infrastructure and the way it works—makes it impossible for the Commonwealth to take that over in the foreseeable future. One would hope that the states would learn from the disasters that have occurred.

I do feel sorry for those Queenslanders who, over many years, have approached me and my colleagues in tears about their health problems, which in many cases have been terminal and could not be treated because they could not get into the state hospital system. Whilst the leadership of the coalition might not have been what Queenslanders wanted, certainly the state coalition has an excellent policy that, if you cannot get into a public hospital and you have a life-threatening disease, the government will pay for you to go to a private hospital. I would hope that the new Queensland government will take that up. I think that is a vain hope, because the Queensland government has shown no interest over the last eight years in addressing the disaster that has overtaken public health in Queensland.

I will very briefly mention the need for increased technology in the provision of medical services. I was at Palm Island recently, and a new system was demonstrated to me. It could be technically explained, but I will not even attempt to do that. I will explain it in the way it appeared to me. Palm Island is a remote place. It is not all that far from Townsville but it is across the sea and it is difficult to get to. The medical people there do a fabulous job in difficult circumstances. They are working on a system whereby the local practitioner can, by means of television and telecasting, get the advice of specialists in Townsville to deal with problems that arise unexpectedly.

There has been something like this in place for some time in western Queensland, but I am told that this is a more interactive approach. A GP in a remote area who is faced with a life-threatening situation can look at the television screen and get advice from a specialist and even some help from the specialist to show how it is done. I know the Commonwealth government has been very much involved in the provision of these improved technological aids to allow the expansion of good medical treatment right throughout Australia.

I conclude my remarks by commending this bill to the parliament. The bill represents a minor procedural change, but the objective of the change is to reduce the current complexity in recognising medical specialists and consultant physicians under the Medicare system. It is anticipated that this amendment will significantly reduce the time taken between receipt of an application from a medical practitioner and the recognition. That will help the health system improve. It is an initiative which deserves commendation, and I commend the bill to the Senate.