Wednesday, 18 October 2023

 Mary-Anne THOMAS (Macedon – Leader of the House, Minister for Health, Minister for Health Infrastructure, Minister for Ambulance Services) (14:15): I rise today to update the house on the Allan Labor government’s commitment to making sure a job in health care continues to be a great choice for all Victorians. We have over 340,000 Victorians working in the healthcare sector right across our state. Since we came to office in 2014 we have grown this workforce by 40 per cent. There are 36 per cent more nurses and midwives and 66 per cent more doctors in our hospitals today than when we came to office, and the really great news is almost a quarter of those are working in rural and regional Victoria.

But we know it is still way too hard for Victorians to access the primary care that they need. It is still extremely difficult to access a bulk-billing GP, and one of the reasons is the previous Liberal–National federal government failed to train enough general practitioners. We are investing $32 million to incentivise GP training. The package will deliver 30,000 top-up payments to 400 trainee GPs every year for the next two years so that they do not have to take a pay cut.

We are not stopping there. We will keep investing in our healthcare workforce. The house well knows that this government is making it free to study nursing and midwifery right across the state. On top of this, we have 7000 scholarships to ensure that our current nursing and midwifery workforce have the opportunity to upskill and grow their careers in Victoria’s fantastic, world-class public healthcare system. Only a Labor government will invest in health care, will back in our workforce and will deliver the care that – (Time expired)