GP Registrar Association Questions

GP Registrars Association 7/8/26 – Dr Gavin Colthart

1. What has motivated you to nominate to be President?

As GP’s we are members of a dominantly taxpayer-funded profession, with core ethical principles of equity and justice, and a tradition of evidence-based practice. But we are facing an accelerating corruption of the values, laws, and institutions on which our ethics and role are based. The far-right politics sweeping over us at unprecedented speed does not value universal healthcare, sees the public service ethic as “woke”, and regards scientific evidence as a nuisance. We should continue to promote GPs as central to primary care, battle the Medicare monster, and advocate for adequate GP funding, but we need to go further. To do this effectively I believe we need to radically democratise the College to help the Board pursue courageous advocacy outside its comfort zone.

2. What is one thing you believe the College needs to do differently going forward?

My key proposal is that we harness the commitment and skills of non-office-holding GP’s and trainees via a randomly selected council empowered to add to Board agendas and initiate non-binding member polls on key issues. Random selection (sortition) has a long history and has been used, for example, in Ireland to help the country move towards a referendum on abortion. It helps free members from “elections as popularity contests”, reduces the risk of partisanship, and promotes active engagement in politics. Composition is checked to ensure it reflects the diversity of the membership, much like selecting study populations for research. Councils are usually supported by a small research and support secretariat, with time commitments variable but often under a few hours per month.

3. What do you see as the key issues impacting the future GP/RG workforce?

I have been involved in medical practice and politics for several decades and none of the threats we feel so urgently today – such as funding pressures and role erosion – are new. And we are still here. But I worry that we are in a perilous historical moment. Limiting ourselves to advocacy on these issues won’t protect us from the degree of role constriction and ethical challenge we could face in the kind of non-democratic surveillance state towards which Australia is currently being seduced by forces which do not have our best interests at heart. Time to fight with our fellow health professionals against erosion of free speech, corporate control of democracy, and divide-and-conquer rhetoric.

4. What advice would you give a future GP/RG?

There will always be a role for awesome GP’s striving to deliver the best care for all. People respect doctors and we can continue to earn their respect by ensuring anything for which we advocate is in their interests as well as ours. Why do we want more sensible fee structures? So we are not exhausted from trying to see too many patients and can’t spend time listening, so we have capacity to do things patient’s value but which don’t pay well, such as phone consultations (or just calls to follow up on patients of concern).