“Medicare is not financially sustainable for GPs to go into practice on their own anymore; the days of having a family doctor are long gone.”

It sounds kind of right but also seriously wrong — the days of having a GP are not long gone, surely. Things are not that bad.

But this is the Queensland Minister for Health, Yvette D’Ath, the politician who has been promoting the dangerous idea of filling some of the voids with pharmacist prescribing and diagnosing.

That debate continues. But in her recent visit to Cairns, she spoke about how her department is working on ways to attract and retain GPs.