What a week, or more appropriately what a weekend we had. On Saturday night we wrapped up a very successful AMA national conference, which included the election of your new President and Vice President — Dr Michael Bonning and Dr Sarah Whitelaw .
In my opening address , I highlighted some of our key achievements over the past couple of years, but also noted just how much patience you need to have in medico-political advocacy, because effecting change and influencing decision making can take many years. Having had over 15 years with the AMA, it's nice to see some things finally come to fruition this year.
[Link to full wrap up]
Minister for Health, Disability and Ageing Mark Butler addressed the conference telling delegates the AMA has always been a fearless advocate for the profession, and reiterate that our advocacy does influence their decisions, and our considered opinions are held in high regard.
The minister mentioned several policy areas, again referencing specialist fees as a "barbeque stopper", but he finally acknowledged most doctors are billing reasonable fees, and more work needs to be done to understand outliers. This shift in focus has taken sustained advocacy by us for the best part of a year now and it's nice to see the narrative start to shift.
The minister also mentioned that the MBS review advisory committee report on GP time-tiered rebates would drop in the coming months, and that he’s aware there is more to be done on Medicare reform. We are hopeful this will mean we see some traction on our proposal through the Modernise Medicare campaign for reform to the rebate structure .
Other health leaders who gave shout outs to the AMA included Director General of the Australian Centre for Disease Control Professor Zoe Wainer, who commended the federal AMA for our leadership on advocating so strongly for an Australian Centre for Disease Control. Australia’s Chief Medical Officer Professor Michael Kidd thanked the AMA for our national Have the jab chat campaign, which encourages people to have a conversation about immunisation with their trusted GP.
A favourite session of mine was a workshop presented by our Council of Doctors in Training demonstrating practical skills in advocacy – from pitch development through to social media and political meetings. Their approach was entertaining, but also full of pearls of wisdom.
There were so many other highlights, including, of course, our annual awards and you can see the list of amazing and inspiring winners in this newsletter.
We expect to be announcing the date and location for next year’s conference soon so please keep an eye out and save the date.
After the excitement of the national conference and the glitz and glamour of the Gala Dinner it was back to business as usual this week, which included a meeting with Department of Health, Disability and Ageing representatives on the Thriving Kids initiative. I'm as disappointed as you are by the lack of information available for a program starting in just weeks. We were firm in our approach and will keep pressing the department for more details.
On Wednesday, I met with independent MP Monique Ryan to discuss specialist fees and the broader pressures affecting access to specialist care. We had a constructive conversation about the challenges facing patients and doctors, and the importance of policy settings that support timely, affordable access to high-quality medical care.
And today I’ll be representing the AMA at a Parliamentary committee hearing on the Private Health Insurance Amendment (Modernising the Private Health Insurance Rebate) Bill 2026. Our submission on the Bill warns the proposed changes to private health insurance rebates for older Australians could increase pressure on public hospitals and undermine already struggling private hospitals. We are urging the government to protect older Australians on lower incomes by exempting those on the base-tier income from the proposed changes.
It's conference season and I'm off to the Creative Careers in Medicine conference this weekend.
I hope you've got some fun planned too
See you next week!
