Barnaby Joyce

One Nation has floated a proposal to tackle Australia’s chronic rural GP shortage by requiring doctors to spend time in the regions before enjoying full Medicare billing privileges in the cities. From the reaction in some quarters, you would think someone had proposed cancelling anaesthetics. Apparently, asking newly minted doctors to spend a stint in the bush now qualifies as conscription, economic coercion and constitutional catastrophe. Let’s inject a little oxygen into the room. Medicine