Page 1311 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 25 March 2009

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Paper

Mr Speaker presented the following paper:

Commissioner for the Environment Act, pursuant to section 22—Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment—State of the Environment Report 2007/08—Letter to the Speaker from the Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Water regarding the timing of the Government’s response, dated 23 March 2009.

Health—general practitioners

MR HANSON (Molonglo) (3:22:): I move:

That this Assembly:

(1) notes:

(a) that the Stanhope-Gallagher Government has failed to adequately address the decline in general practitioner (GP) numbers across the ACT; and

(b) that of specific concern to the Opposition is the Government’s unwillingness to:

(i) take responsibility for the decline;

(ii) convince the Federal Government to provide adequate resources to arrest and decline; and

(iii) provide a clear strategy to reverse the current situation; and

(2) recognises:

(a) that the ACT has the lowest number of GPs per capita in Australia;

(b) that GP clinics across the Territory continue to close;

(c) that the number of aged and ageing in the community in need of access to GPs for ongoing primary care is increasing;

(d) that over seven and a half years the Government has failed to attract and retain appropriate numbers of GPs to the ACT and that this failure has placed immense stress on our public hospital system; and

(e) the merits of further investigation into:

(i) GP clinic closures since 2001;

(ii) the current level of GP shortages in the ACT and the reasons pertaining to this shortage;

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