PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS

Mr CONAGHAN (Cowper) (11:51): I like to give credit where it's due in this place, and I commend the upcoming expansion of the Commonwealth Prac Payment. Any initiative that responsibly encourages our locally grown health workforce is to be commended and implemented as quickly as possible, so I take my hat off to the government for this policy. But this bill gives me an opportunity to make a further plea today on behalf of regional communities to go one step further and recognise the sectors of the health workforce that the current expansion ignores, sectors that we in the regions desperately need to be nurturing and increasing in number.

On this side of the floor, we absolutely welcome the inclusion of clinical psychology, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech pathology, paramedicine, radiography, pharmacy, rehabilitation therapies, audiology and podiatry. But that list just needs to be a little larger. It should include medical students, those studying to be a GP or a specialist.

It should include optometry. It should include dietitians, and it should include veterinary students. As you would expect in regional and rural areas, our GP shortage is rapidly getting worse with every single passing year.

Finding a timely appointment with a GP in my electorate on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales has never been harder, which is currently forcing residents in need into emergency departments. While the urgent care clinic in Coffs Harbour is a welcome addition—they need one in Taree—it isn't open in the hours that we were promised when it was launched, because of staff shortages.

We know that the pipeline of new graduates replacing our existing GP network is almost non-existent, and we need to address this immediately to ensure that our primary care network doesn't further erode. But sadly that would-be workforce is not included in this expansion, making general practice less appealing for students struggling with those expenses. Every medical industry body is passionately pointing this out to us—none more eloquently than the RACGP's president Michael Wright, who stated: On-the-job training is what has given us such expert clinicians all around this country, but this unpaid training places a major financial burden on many medical students.

Placements really can act as a barrier for some of our brightest students choosing to go into medicine, and it's particularly hard for people from disadvantaged populations, people in rural areas, and people from lower socioeconomic groups. Out of all of these courses the medical degree is the longest, and the impact of these placements on finances are the greatest for future doctors, so excluding them from this, it just doesn't make any sense.

Then there are the allied health fields like optometry and dietetics. To best illustrate this, I want to read from a letter that I received from Poppy McIntyre from Port Macquarie. Poppy is an 18-year-old full-time pharmacy student at the University of Sydney, and she writes: I know from experience that for many allied health students the greatest financial hardship occurs during mandatory clinical placements.

These placements often require students to reduce or completely stop paid work while continuing to meet the cost of rent, transport, food, and study, placing many under severe financial stress. I was pleased to see the recent expansion of the Commonwealth Prac Payment to support more allied health students during mandatory placements, including me in pharmacy.

But I was disappointed that students in other essential allied health disciplines remain excluded from this support, an exclusion that is difficult to justify given the placement requirements of these degrees. Dietetics students are required to complete more than 800 hours of unpaid clinical placement, while optometry students typically undertake 400-600 hours of unpaid placement before they can graduate.

The financial burden can be overwhelming and has the potential to discourage students from entering. She goes on: I respectfully urge you to advocate for the Commonwealth Prac Payment to be extended to include dietetics, optometry, and all allied health students … Poppy, I couldn't have said it better myself. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Wilkie ): The time allotted for this debate has expired.

The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.