Prime Minister Christopher Luxon believes that Labour’s new GP loan proposal fails to tackle the actual workforce shortage in the sector.
Labour Party Leader Chris Hipkins said at the party’s annual general meeting in central Auckland that if elected next year, the party would offer doctors and nurse practitioners low-interest loans to help them start new practices or invest in current ones.
Hipkins said Labour would provide up to 50 loans each year, targeting regions lacking general practitioners or clinics that have fully or partially closed books.
Luxon said the sector’s actual issue was not the number of clinics, but “actually about getting more doctors.”
“That’s what we’ve been focused on.”
Luxon highlighted the government’s plan to back a new medical school at the University of Waikato, which will include adding 120 training places each year from 2028.
This is in addition to 100 extra spots at the Universities of Auckland and Otago over this term.
“It’s about expanding the GP workforce, but it’s also about opening up this pathway for nurse practitioners and nurse prescribers, [who] can do a lot of the work of GPs, freeing them up for other appointments,” Luxon said.
Luxon also noted that GPs who took out loans to buy clinics would face Labour’s proposed capital gains tax when they eventually sold them.