Report from Australia

Abstract

G’day to you all from Australia. In Queensland we have had some good rain; however, unfortunately many of our communities missed out and remain in severe drought. Of course, the usual Australian weather continues with a large amount of places that were in drought now experiencing floods!! As one new arrival to Australia from England commented--it is certainly not easy to predict the weather in Australia.
We are in the midst of a state government election in Queensland with the incumbent government promising to focus on health if re-elected. Most of us are not quite sure why they could not have already implemented what they are promising (more nursing places, decrease in nursing workloads) regardless of an election--but I suppose that is politics. The Australian government also comes up for election again this year, and we expect that they too will make lots of offers in the areas of health and education.
In rural health, one would almost say that things are very quiet. Certainly there are still major nursing shortages in Australia, regardless of geographic location. The nurse practitioner movement in Australia, is also moving ahead (with the exception of Queensland--another election promise) albeit slower than any of us thought it would. Research studies are being undertaken to develop nurse practitioner competency standards for Australia and New Zealand. It will be very interesting to see what eventuates from this research.