Queensland and NSW both delivered state budgets which will ease pressure on rural patients travelling to access medical care.
This week’s NSW and Queensland state budgets won’t have a direct impact on GP funding, but both contain measures which will protect vulnerable patients.
Because primary care is traditionally a federal responsibility, state budgets don’t often touch on general practice funding directly.
But that’s not to say that primary care is entirely unaffected.
Several important initiatives – namely payroll tax – are entirely state controlled.
New South Wales
While there were no changes to payroll tax arrangements in NSW, the budget papers did reveal that the second year of the state’s Bulk Billing Support Initiative had resulted in $9 million of savings to GP practices.
GP clinics have not traditionally paid payroll tax on contracted doctors. Over recent years, various case law developments have clarified that, in many cases, payroll tax obligations do indeed apply.
Under the NSW Bulk Billing Support Initiative, which went live in 2024 following an amnesty period, GP clinics which bulk bill above a certain threshold of patients can claim a rebate on their payroll tax.
In the 2025-26 financial year, the rebates claimed totalled around $9 million; next financial year, this is expected to go up to $10m.
The Isolated Patients Travel and Accommodation Assistance Scheme, which subsidises costs for patients who travel more than 200km per week to access non-GP specialist treatment, received a funding boost of $71.7 million.
“The State Government funding for travel and accommodation is vital for our patients outside big cities who need to travel for care and will be very welcome for our rural and remote GPs and their communities,” RACGP NSW chair Dr Rebekah Hoffman said.
“Funding patients to access the care they need from GPs with Special Interests in each Local Health District would also unlock access to care, whilst reducing demand on our hospitals.”
The NSW budget also included $631.9 million to support the implementation of Thriving Kids as part of the $1.1 billion package co-funded by the commonwealth, $38.7 million for AI scribes to go to 6000 clinicians, and $184.1 million for frontline specialist domestic and family violence programs.
AMA NSW president Dr Fred Betros, however, was not pleased about the state budget’s lack of funding for the primary care sector.
“There is also no clear funding announcement for preventative health to keep people out of hospital in the first place,” he said.
“NSW cannot keep waiting until patients are sick enough to need an emergency department before the system takes them seriously.
“Without proper investment in prevention, chronic disease management, specialist outpatient clinics and early intervention, hospitals will continue to carry pressure they were never designed to absorb.”
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Queensland
Unlike its geographical neighbour, Queensland has a blanket exemption on payroll tax for all general practice businesses.
In his budget speech on Tuesday, state treasurer David Janetzki did, however, make oblique mention to continuing to support the viability of general practice as a small business, and during question time on Wednesday he called the exemption decision “good news for patients and Queenslanders”.
RACGP Queensland chair Dr Cathryn Hester said that, as a Queensland practice owner, she felt confident in the current settings for small businesses.
“What [Mr Janetzki] was flagging was that he wants healthy small businesses and he wants thriving general practice clinics,” she told The Medical Republic.
“This is building on the payroll tax exemption and the fact that our land taxes are the lowest in the country as well. So basically, it was just a move towards … encouraging small business and general practice as a small business rather than a state-run facility.
“That’s obviously part of their view of how things are going to work best for Queensland.”
Where Queensland and NSW did align, however, was in funding for non-GP specialist patient travel. The Patient Travel Subsidy Scheme received an extra $11.7 million for the 2026 financial year, boosting the private motor vehicle fuel subsidy rate from 34 cents per kilometre to 45 cents per kilometre.
“They’ve also made a commitment to ensuring that the subsidy processes are going to be easier for patients to do,” Dr Hester said.
“At the moment part of the part of the problem with it is that it takes a long time for the travel subsidies to be approved and to go through the administrative processes, but they’ve made a real big commitment towards speeding those processes up and making it easier to apply for travel subsidies and speeding up the distribution of the payments as well.
“That will be really helpful, especially for GPs working in rural and remote areas.”
AMA Queensland board chair Dr Maria Boulton said she was disappointed not to see the subsidy raised by a larger amount, considering the ongoing petrol crisis and the fact that Queensland is Australia’s most decentralised state.
“We would also have liked to have seen an uplift in the funding for accommodation, because at the moment it stands at $70 per night, which is not enough,” she told TMR.
“Already, patients who travel for their care already have so much to worry about – the travel, finding people to care for their dependents, and not being near home.”
Queensland’s budget also included $37.5 million over five years for kindergarten health checks, $74 million for safe water and sanitation in First Nations communities, and $31 million for influenza immunisation programs.
