Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

For more than 90 years, the Royal Flying Doctor Service has been a lifeline to rural and regional communities, delivering not just emergency care but also essential primary care to communities in need. But the barriers faced by patients in regional areas are also faced by our healthcare trainees. Rural healthcare students often have to relocate for study, face financial pressure and leave their social supports behind, yet, when they do graduate, they are far more likely to return and serve in those very same communities.

That's why the Royal Flying Doctor Service's Give Them Wings scholarship is so important. Now in its 14th year and largely community funded, it provides $6,000 to support our future healthcare professionals, enabling them to overcome these challenges and get a taste of rural medicine. At a ceremony for scholarship recipients I recently attended, I heard from Audrey, who researched cancer outcomes in Gippsland and saw the real gap between city and country health; Sandra, who chose medicine after witnessing the vital role of her GP in her regional community; and Ruky, who, after moving from Nigeria with her two children, has decided to become a nurse and give back, inspired by the care her grandmother received.

These healthcare workers will go on to serve but also to inspire others, and that's the multiplier effect in action thanks to the flying doctors. Strengthening and supporting rural communities is what the flying doctors do, and this is why the Albanese Labor government has backed them in, with $75 million towards more dental, mental health and primary care, and has also committed to an additional $1 billion over the next 10 years to further support them and give them certainty. Thank you to all the staff, the dedicated healthcare workers on the ground and in training, and of course the many donors and philanthropists who back in the flying doctors.