Since coming to office, the Albanese Labor government has delivered on our commitment to open 137 Medicare urgent care clinics, with six clinics now open in the ACT, and we have made a record $8.5 billion investment to strengthen Medicare to deliver more bulk billing and more doctors and nurses so you can see a GP for free.

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I know that this is making a real difference in my electorate of Bean as well as across the ACT. However, there is a catch. Being able to see a bulk-billing GP is reliant on being able to recruit the GPs to staff the clinics, and there are some puzzling barriers to recruitment.

We have seen more doctors join our health care system in the last two years than at any time in the past decade. There are more doctors registering to practice in Australia and record numbers of junior doctors are training to become GPs, but this takes time.

This pressure on the health workforce has quite a variety of causes, and I am certainly not suggesting there is one neat fix. But there is one part of it that is far easier to solve than we are making it.

I have recently spoken with doctors who trained in the EU, in some of the most well-regarded medical schools in the world, who wish to start working in our community. Unfortunately, they face significant hurdles and have to make their way through a set of hoops that does not really make much sense.

It struck me, however, that Europe sorted this out years ago. For example, a doctor who qualifies in France can practise in Germany automatically, or almost anywhere else in the European Union, because the member states agreed to recognise each other's qualifications. Thus, a GP from Paris is good enough for patients in Berlin, but apparently not good enough........

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