Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

The decision is about creating additional workforce—that is behind the decision, right?—so that these other areas that are having trouble attracting GPs are able to work through the program. Yes, we accept that there are significant workforce shortages in rural and regional areas—and it's not just GPs but a whole range of health workers—but we also have them in other areas of the country, and we need to respond to that as well. Part of the reason we are putting in the urgent-care clinics; the $220 million grants program for GPs to put in place supports in their practices to help meet some of the pressures they are seeing, plus some of the other incentive programs is to come at this from a number of different ways. There is no silver bullet. (Time expired)