One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce’s threat to force new doctors to go bush has a surprise target: his own daughter.
The former deputy prime minister says metropolitan-based GPs should be barred from participating in Medicare unless they spend a period of time practising in the regions.
But it’s now emerged that his own daughter, Caroline, is a recent medical graduate who has found work in the big city.
Mr Joyce called for debate on Sunrise this morning on making regional service a condition of new doctors being eligible for a Medicare Services Provider number, which is required for bulk billing and pathology referrals.
He then let slip that he knew all too well that not every medical graduate wants to work in the bush immediately after leaving university, even if they plan to return one day.
He was responding to Tanya Plibersek’s claim that a better way to get doctors to work in regional areas was to expand training places at regional universities.
“My daughter went to one of the regional medical facilities, she graduated as a doctor, and guess where she now works? Brisbane,” Mr Joyce said.
As a result, Mr Joyce conceded that in his lived experience, Labor’s approach hasn’t worked out so well in terms of keeping doctors in the regions.
Asked by host Nat Barr, “Did you suggest staying in the bush?” Mr Joyce admitted he tried that.
“Yes. She gets a better lifestyle and more money if she goes to the city,’’ Mr Joyce replied.
While Mr Joyce did not name his daughter on air, it is understood he is referring to his daughter Caroline, a medical graduate from Newcastle University in NSW.
Mr Joyce has six children. He has four daughters (Bridgette, Julia, Caroline, and Odette) with his first wife, Natalie, and two sons (Sebastian and Thomas) with his current wife, Vikki Campion.
Declaring there was “an abundance of doctors in the cities,” Mr Joyce downplayed the impact of bulk-billing rates while spruiking his new policy on Sunrise this morning.
“In some regional areas, we don’t even have a doctor in a hospital, a full-time doctor, you just don’t have it,’’ he said.
“You have a hospital, but no doctor. And we’ve been waiting years and years and years.”
“You’ve got areas that certainly have women, but they have no obstetrics. So a big problem, if someone wants to have a baby, and that’s remote towns.
“There has to be an obligation.
“All we have at the moment now is locums, and they come in and cost you about $3500 a day in some areas,” Mr Joyce said. “That is unviable.”
Mr Joyce argued on Sunrise that voluntary incentives had failed and that regional Australia was facing a deepening healthcare crisis, with some country hospitals operating without a permanent doctor.
“We’ve been waiting years and years and years for the major parties to come up with a policy to get medical services into regional areas,’’ he said.
He said the closure of obstetrics services in regional towns — including centres “not very remote at all” — highlighted the scale of the problem, forcing governments to rely on costly fly-in, fly-out locums.
Mr Joyce said that his daughter’s decision illustrated why stronger measures were needed to redistribute the medical workforce.
“So you’ve got to force them out of it,” he said, before adding: “Not force — but there has to be an advantage if you spend a period of time in regional areas, particularly at the start of your career.”
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, appearing alongside Mr Joyce, rejected mandatory service requirements, saying Labor was instead investing heavily in training and incentives to build a permanent regional workforce.
“We completely agree that we want to see more doctors in regional areas,” Ms Plibersek said.
“That’s why we’ve increased the incentives for doctors to go there, and that’s why we’re investing $816 million in training new GPs.”
She said 2100 new GP training offers would be made this year, with half of those places located in regional Australia.
“Taxpayer-funded, half of those training places will be in regional areas,” she said.
“In Launceston alone, there will be 20 new GP training places.”
Ms Plibersek argued that doctors were far more likely to remain in country communities if they trained there.
“We know that if someone trains somewhere like Launceston rather than Sydney or Melbourne, they’re much more likely to stay there,” she said.
“When they train there, they stay there. We know that.”
Mr Joyce dismissed urgent care clinics as a short-term fix that failed to provide continuity of care.
“You walk in, next time you get a different doctor. Next time again, a different doctor,” he said.
“If you have endometriosis, if you are having a child, if you have a chronic illness, you want to see the same doctor.”
Responding to Mr Joyce’s policy idea, Ms Plibersek said. “He’s saying you have to punish them if you want them to go bush.”
