Professor Paul Torzillo

Priya, you probably know that general practitioners who work in remote areas do get a remote area benefit, and that's actually linked to their use of Medicare.

So that if we stop using Medicare on the 1st of July, which I think the board will decide, then we'll have to find some money to supplement the income of those practitioners, obviously.

So there are lots of spin-offs of us being unable to use Medicare.

That's just one of them.

We wrote to the minister in November last year and had a response that indicated the department would be communicating with us and would...

find some ways to make this work for us.

Well, that didn't work.

That didn't work.

I've subsequently written again to the minister on the 28th of last month and I've spoken to the minister's office and there's been no response.

And I think around the remote sector, the communication from the Commonwealth has been pretty quiet lately.

I think at the moment their intention is to go ahead with this.

Look, they've been negotiations between NACCHO and the department and the minister's office.

I'm not aware about where those arrangements are at the moment.

I mean, our...

Information is at the moment that what's been proposed is going ahead.

So I don't think the negotiations have made a difference to that.

Thanks very much for your time.

I appreciate it.