CSU has campaigned for several years on the need to build a medical school in regional Australia as the best way to address the chronic shortage of GPs in regional Australia.

In a nutshell, the employment patterns of its regional graduates in existing health disciplines show that the best way to get doctors to practice in regional and rural areas is to recruit and train them there. This is the rationale behind CSU’s latest bid, a joint-venture with La Trobe University to launch the Murray Darling Medical School.

The Murray Darling Medical School missed out in the recent federal budget, despite the concept being supported by The Nationals, and yet out of the blue Mr Abbott announced the government would help fund a medical school at Curtin University.

Predictably, the Australian Medical Association has attacked that plan in what its president Professor Brian Owler called a “calamitous captain’s call” by Mr Abbott.

However, Health Minister Sussan Ley is also a convert to the plan, telling a medical students’ association she supported the idea.

And the Curtin announcement must be good news for the CSU/La Trobe bid. 

It shows that the influence of the AMA is not insurmountable and questions about an oversupply of medical graduates and the ability of the health system to provide the intern placements to complete their training can be overcome, with political will and funding.

With National MPs John Cobb and Mark Coulton backing the plan by a university with an unrivalled reputation in delivering what regional communities want, the momentum is beginning to swing in CSU’s favour.