I hope this email finds you well. 

I wanted to let you know that last week in Parliament I launched the Parliamentary Friends of General Practice along with the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, which I will co-chair with Dr. Gordon Reid MP and Senator Susan McDonald. This is a forum for GPs, together with MPs, to highlight the issues faced by general practice and also advocate on the initiatives and policy actions that can address these.

I would welcome your insights on issues that are affecting your practices and clients, so I can effectively represent you and speak to your specific needs. As most of you would know, having worked as a local GP, I am aware of the pressures GPs have been and are currently under, and I addressed these in Federal Parliament this week.

I invite you to read the speeches I gave, highlighting specifically, the need for structural reform and a multifaceted approach to address the GP crisis and reverse the falling trajectory of new GPs entering the workforce. You can view the three speeches I gave here:

23 November 2022: Lack of health funding in the Federal Budget
28 November 2022: Addressing the GP crisis
29 November 2022: Improving integrity and transparency of the Higher Education Support Amendment Bill 2022 

I am pleased to report that the House accepted my amendment to the Higher Education Support Amendment Bill to include a review clause to assess the effectiveness of the measure by requiring review periods, reporting, and for those reports to be tabled in Parliament. 

I look forward to working with you collaboratively to ensure government is addressing the needs of and improving support for general practice. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch by calling my office on 9913 9566 or emailing [email protected] 
 
Best regards
Sophie.