We have ourselves to blame for these shortages. Australians are only too happy to bleat about elites, universities and taxpayer funded tertiary education. They complain bitterly about having to foot the bill for what they believe is the university student lifestyle - all political protests and toga parties.

They resent seeing their money spent on what they believe are academics in ivory towers with no understanding of the real world. They've quite happily sat by and watched the rug being pulled out from under public education which feeds potential doctors and so on into the tertiary sytem, which in turn would have supplied us with the experts we now don't have.

COUNTRY GAL
Have you heard of the recent court case in the US where a judge is seeking several million dollars in damages from a dry cleaner? He left his suit for cleaning and his trousers were lost.

Lawyers lead the charge in litigation and are very willing to cater to the greedy or vengeful. One of their more socially destructive activities is the “no win no fee” invitation. Have you ever wondered where the playground equipment has gone from public parks?

I wonder, Country Gal, if there should be more scholarships in Country Universities for Medical GP's, Nurses and Teachers even Police. These are not flamboyant skills or academic indulgence for the sake of it. Universities like the Charles Sturt, Central QLD, Southern Cross and the one in the NT. (Pardon my ignorance).

I notice that the University of Melbourne and QUT are sponsoring this. If any of those are reading this, do you agree that medical and educational campuses from your Universities could be funded and subsidised by the Federal Government to expand to the the bush?

Australian Universities subsidise the administration of campuses off shore, for example UNSW in Singapore and other Asian countries. This is purely for export and business.

Law is a selfish beast as a profession, and it has better financial returns and rewards than medicine, nursing or teaching. Their University fees are often lower than for medicine. This is not a good incentive to encourage more into medicine.

The other part of Law: training the actual Police, who are on the "beat": tend to be overworked and underpaid. The Police Station in Adelaide this week damaged by school kids in holidays demonstrates that we have police shortages in every state of Australia.

So we need more scholarships and less HECS fees in medicine, nursing and teaching, especially in the bush. I guess I should include policing.

Is this better than always having to import professionals from overseas when we are not absolutely sure about their standards, and lately, their agendas are for living in Australia?

Tell me that I am not moaning. This is constructive thinking on how we could be doing things better.

Saintfletcher
I feel you are on to something constructive here. The waiving of HEC’s for students of engineering, medicine and nursing will help. The lowering of entrance levels to medicine for country students as suggested by Country Gal is also very positive.

saintfletcher, one of the problems with expanding medicine to country uni's is mostly lack of exposure to a teaching hospital. This is being addressed by Sydney uni in conjunction with UNE and the base hospital at Tamworth. I believe Charles Sturt are now offering a pre-med degree. Some of these unis also offer good pharmacy degrees, with discounted entrance requirements for country students - my sister benefited from this at Charles Sturt. Mind you, they only discounted by 5 points which is not very significant. The HECS cost on medical topics (required for pharmacy) is the top bracket, and pharmacy is a 4 year degree, not 3 years like many. Medicine is even longer.

As far as law goes, I see people's points. I deal with many lawyers on a very regular basis, and for the most part I see people that are genuinely trying to help their clients. Most of what I see is non-litigation type work - conveyancing, loan and mortgage agreements for business, lease contracts, estate planning (wills, testamentary trusts), business succession planning and the like. Law can be financially rewarding, particularly at the top levels, but I guess I make my judgement on what I see in the country, and I can comment on this given that I am an accountant with both doctors and lawyers as clients! For the most part, doctors make more than lawyers, although they work longer hours to do so, with the added inconvenience of night calls to the emergency room. I dont envy doctors their job nor do I think they are paid too much for what they do.