It is absolutely disgraceful that over 4700 fully-qualified Australian-born and Australian-trained GPs are receiving only half the Medicare payments of their colleagues while fully shouldering the same responsibilities and performing the identical work.
And there is a shameful disparity in genders. For various reasons (including taking time out of the paid workforce to have children) female GPs in the early 90's were much more likely to fall “between the cracks” into this invented category of so-called “Non-VR” GPs, where even the ability to choose where to work is effectively determined by government policies. (These Aussie GPs are conscripted to country and remote areas...)
We’re sure you can easily imagine how this could happen. As well as women taking sole responsibility for the bearing of children, society still often expects them to shoulder most of the responsibility for rearing them. Women GPs are thus much more likely to have to "postpone" their own career for the sake of family harmony, or move to follow their spouse for a promotion. And women are still expected to be the primary carers for elderly relatives. Thus women GPs have been especially vulnerable to the impact of this appalling bureaucratic policy.