GPs would fail to gain a provider number unless they agreed to spend a period of time in the bush as a sort of “quid pro quo” for the nation.

This is that latest idea of new One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce.

The former deputy prime minister who had now teamed up with Pauline Hanson, says GPs choosing to remain in the cities would still be free to practise medicine, but they would be denied a Medicare provider number. 

“It is just like an accountant or a solicitor or anybody else: you offer a bill and they pay the lot and [but] there is no rebate for the taxpayer,” he said in his first interview on One National policy since he quit the National Party.