Page 3305 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 20 August 2008
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Apparently, the minister gave assurances last year that the same thing would not happen again, but of course it did. Yet the whole point of the ANU medical school, as the then health minister, Simon Corbell, pointed out to us in this place, was to produce doctors who would be more likely to stay in the ACT. He said:
What is really important about this facility is not just that we are teaching our own doctors but that we are providing facilities for teaching our doctors, which will mean that they will be more likely to stay in Canberra, that we will grow our own medical workforce.
A number of ANU graduates have been unable to find places this year, as we have heard. I understand from a graduate who contacted me that even though they are now on a waiting list there are no promises, no guarantees. That is really ridiculous, but it truly represents this government’s lack of ability to manage. They are focused on spinning yarns about their achievements and all the Stalinist self-promotion of million-dollar artworks to glorify their reign. They have failed to focus on the real issues that affect everyday Canberrans—like accessing affordable health care.
The other point of interest raised by the recent inquiry pertained to another issue with respect to GPs that I have raised more than once publicly. I refer to the ACT government’s barriers to allow local doctors to employ overseas doctors. I will quote Dr Sharma from the ACT Division of General Practice, who spoke to the inquiry. When referring to the government’s plan to employ someone to promote the marketing of Canberra as a place for GPs to come to, she cited the “enormous red tape” involved in “trying, for example, to recruit an overseas trained doctor, because that is just an impossible task at the moment. A lot of GPs in town just give up; it is just too hard.”
What is the government doing about this? The Canberra Liberals are about proactive action. Of course, it suits the health minister to bag anything we propose out of hand. As we have heard, for anything that we come up with that is positive we hear negativity from this health minister, not like we have done. We have graciously accepted some of the things that the government have proposed, and the minister acknowledged that yesterday. Yet all this health minister can do, because now she is on the back foot, expecting the federal government to bail her out at some time or other, is to sit on her hands. We have been proactive and what does she do? She bags our very positive initiatives.
Mr Stanhope: Like what?
MRS BURKE: Of course, it suits the health minister to—I have got a raft of what we have done. It is not like your housing affordability plan, but we will not go into that now. Her policy has been to wait to be bailed out yet again by the commonwealth government. But what did we see in the Canberra Times? The federal health minister announced recently that it is not going to happen. The Canberra Liberals have presented, as a first part to its health policy “a healthy choice” a raft of positive initiatives. Contrary to what the minister tried to portray in this place yesterday, I have worked and will be continuing to work with such groups as the AMA, the ACT Division of General Practice, Health Care Consumers and others.
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