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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 10 Hansard (24 September) . . Page.. 3623 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

should be for health. The Commonwealth knocked that out in this agreement. It said the Commonwealth will decide what the CPI is. This is not a generous agreement.

The federal health minister, Senator Patterson, did not change one bit, one sentence, one full stop in the Australian health care agreement that the territory signed. We did not get any new money by signing it, but what we did get is a shift in the policies, as they were previously not applied to the ACT. The only reason we got that shift was that we played hardball, but we were also pragmatic. We did not do what Mr Smyth wanted us to do, which was roll over, play dead, be nice and just sign. We were pragmatic but we played hardball, and we got the outcomes that we felt were realistic and on which we could actually get the Commonwealth to agree.

What does this mean for the people of Canberra? What it means is that the outer metropolitan GP incentives are now applied to Belconnen, Gungahlin, Weston Creek and Tuggeranong. That means doctors from inner metropolitan areas in other cities now get a $30,000 relocation bonus if they bring their practices, or if they choose to relocate, to Gungahlin, Belconnen, Tuggeranong or Weston Creek. It is good result for those areas and we will be promoting that incentive hard.

We also got the declaration of the ACT as a district of workforce shortage for GP services. This means fast-tracking for overseas-trained doctors to come and work in an existing ACT practices to fill the gaps where there is a shortage of doctors. We have already seen two doctors take advantage of that in the past month.

We got $5.5 million from the Commonwealth's pathways home program to meet the cost of our new subacute facility-that is a significant change-and we got 50 transitional aged care beds. Those are important wins for the ACT.

MS DUNDAS (3.43): I will take the opportunity to actually speak to the substantive motion as well, so I only need to speak once to the many amendments that are here before us. I will be supporting the motion, but I will be supporting amendments circulated by Ms Tucker that water down the self-congratulatory note of this piece of private members business and allow us to get on with the greater issue of looking at health care in the ACT.

I am supportive of the measures that have been obtained during the negotiations, specifically including declaring the ACT a district of GP shortage and including Belconnen, Gungahlin, Weston Creek and Tuggeranong in the outer metropolitan GP incentive scheme. I believe that these measures that have been obtained through the federal health care agreement will go some way to alleviating the crippling shortage of GPs in Canberra and improving bulk-billing rates.

In March this year, the electorates of Fraser and Canberra had the third and sixth lowest rates of bulk-billing out of the 150 federal electorates across the country. This situation is nothing short of appalling and it is about time both the federal government and the ACT government did something to address the crisis. I understand that Minister Corbell believes that reaching this agreement is a step in that right direction. I do understand that he believes that some concessions have been won through the negotiations that will allow the ACT government to alleviate the situation that we are currently facing with the GP crisis.

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