Senator NEAL(11.42 p.m.) —There certainly has been a decline in spending on hospitals. I would suggest that the $800 million that this government has cut out of hospitals in this budget has probably got something to do with it. But there certainly is some connection between what the states expend in health and what money is provided to them in this area by the federal government.

In terms of the proposal that is before us, I want to clarify a number of issues that were raised by the parliamentary secretary where he misrepresented the position that I put in the second reading debate. The parliamentary secretary seemed to make a statement that we were opposed to the training of GPs. I have to say very clearly and very strongly that that is not the case. We are very supportive of the general concept of training in all the professions—particularly in the area of general practice in medicine.

What we are concerned about is not the issue of providing training at all but the issue of fairness and the implementation and how this is being done retrospectively. We believe that the main purpose of this legislation that the government is putting into place is not to enhance the standards of general practice but to place a gate to reduce the number of general practitioners using Medicare.

That is not inherently bad in itself. We are well aware that during the time that we were in government this was an issue that Labor health ministers grappled with and tried to bring about. But the real question is whether it is fair to put a gate in seven years after someone has commenced a medical degree or whether it would be fairer to put the gate in before they ever commenced. That is very strongly our view—that it is unfair to put a gate in after someone has undertaken six years of a medical degree and one year of internship and, in some cases, even more time than that.

The situation that is created is that the medical graduates themselves expend a lot of time, effort and money in gaining this training. Not only that but also, through our university system, where we provide a portion of money in training, public money is being wasted training doctors who will not get through the gate which you put in seven years on—not only seven years on but also retrospectively.