ADDRESS TO PARLIAMENT - PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS - Rural and Regional Health Services

Firstly, I want to commend the member for Mallee, the shadow assistant minister for regional health, on bringing to the parliament this vital motion. It is important, and if there's anybody in this place who would know just how integral it is to the success, prosperity and productivity of rural, regional and remote Australia it is the member for Mallee, whose husband of 47 years, Philip—my favourite Webster—is a long-serving GP at Mildura. He understands fully the pressures that the rural areas of Victoria face. Rural Victoria is just like the rural areas of any other state, and I found it very interesting—intriguing, in fact—to hear the east coast Labor members talking about distribution priority areas, as if they would really know!

When you really go out to regional Australia and to remote Australia, where you can kick the red dust around, there's such a shortage of doctors, and but for the Nationals that shortage would continue. We have, along with our regional Liberal cousins, put forward policies that have helped ease the situation, through the National Rural Generalist Pathway. I commend the member for Parkes, who gave a wonderful valedictory speech, for the work that he did, and I commend the member for Lyne, who spoke earlier in this debate, and the shadow minister now at the bench for the work that they have done, the work that they are doing and the work that we will do in the future.

I look at the Murray-Darling Medical Schools Network situation, particularly in Wagga Wagga. We have a young student there by the name of Madeline Ingram. She was educated at Mater Dei Catholic College. She's just 23 and in her first year at that wonderful facility. It is a bright and shiny new facility. It's yet to be opened—three storeys with a car park underneath. It's replacing Harvey House, which is an old nurses quarters, which has been in use since 1936. But, as the member for Lyne said, the important thing is that it's not about buildings; it's about the people. There's so much work that Dr Gerard Carroll, Dr Nick Stephenson and others have done to make this a reality, to get the professionals in. They've given of their own time, just as Dr Philip Webster has done for many years, to make sure that we get the best outcomes in rural and regional health, and that's what it's all about.

Madeline Ingram spoke to me at the topping-out ceremony on 15 April. That's when the 18-metre height was reached for this building, which will overlook Edward Street in the medical precinct right next to Wagga Wagga Base Hospital. She talked about the 90 students who will learn there, and she talked about the importance of doing the course, which ends up getting you your doctor's degree, from start to finish in a rural setting. All too often in the past we've seen the brightest and best of the students start their course. They go off to Sydney to do a couple of years and never come back. They fall in love with somebody, just like the member for Mallee did all those years ago—not too many, Member for Mallee, but you get my drift. Indeed, we want our student doctors to learn from the best, like Dr Carroll, Dr Stephenson and others. We want our doctors to be able to have beautiful new infrastructure, where they can feel the ambience and they can feel that there is a future in a rural setting.

We also want them to be let loose, so to speak, on our rural patients, because it shouldn't be that when you are in pain you have to catch a plane. It should be that in our regional hubs, such as Wagga Wagga, Orange, Mildura, Shepparton and Dubbo, we have those rural medical schools through that Murray-Darling network. We have the buildings. We have the people. We have the political will, thanks to the National Party. It has been the National Party that's pushed that. It's been the National Party that's delivered that. I am so very proud that it is making a difference along with all the other options and policies that we will bring forward to the next election.

The member for Mallee is right when she says that the burden of disease experienced in the population increases with geographic remoteness. It's not right and it's not fair. Let's not forget that it was these regional and remote Australians who carried this country during the COVID pandemic. They were the ones who still mined. They were the ones who still farmed. They were the ones who helped our balance of payments. They're the ones we should never ever neglect and make sure they've got the best health outcomes in the future.