Why We Need Your Voice
Imagine getting sick and knowing help is hours away. Imagine watching your child struggle while you wait weeks – sometimes months – to see a doctor. Imagine living every day with the fear that when you need care most, it won’t be there.
This is the reality for millions of rural Australians.
Farmers who grow our food, truckies who keep our shelves stocked, teachers, nurses, small business owners – the people who keep this country moving – are being left behind by a health system that wasn’t built for the bush.
Every year, these 7.4 million Australians (or 30% of the Australian population) receive and access between $1,090.47 and $4000 less in healthcare funding per person every year compared to someone in the city – an $8.35 billion shortfall per annum despite their economic and social contribution.*
Behind those numbers are very human consequences:
- Fewer doctors, nurses and allied health professionals in country towns.
- Longer wait times for even basic care.
- Families forced to travel hundreds of kilometres for treatment.
- Chronic conditions left unmanaged until it’s too late.
Right now, nearly 19,000 people in Remote and Very Remote Australia have no access to primary healthcare within an hour’s drive.
No one should have to choose between their postcode and their health.
Why This Petition Matters
By adding your name, you’re standing with the 7.3 million Australians who live outside major cities. You’re telling our leaders that enough is enough: rural people deserve the same quality care as those in the city.
Your signature is not just a number. It’s a message of hope to families who are waiting, travelling, and too often suffering in silence. It’s proof that Australians everywhere believe fairness should not stop at the city limits.
Together, we can demand urgent investment in rural healthcare – more doctors, better infrastructure, and innovative solutions that ensure no one is more than an hour away from help when they need it most.
Sign today. Share widely. Stand with rural Australians.
Because distance should never decide who gets to live a healthy life.
Supporter Comments
Raylee Huggett
Queensland 4350
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It is exceptionally hard for small communities to gain and retain health professional - doctors, nurses and allied health. Our rural communities are the backbone of our country when it comes to food production - feeding our nation. For Australia to continue to be able to continue to feed our nation, primarily the larger and smaller cities on our coasts, we need to ensure we have healthy and well looked after regional and rural communities to help sustain our food supplied. If it's not viable for people to continue to live in our rural communities that support our nation through the food they grow, then people will not move or stay in these communities and these communities and the farms they support will cease to exist. This terrible trend has been occurring across our Australia as more rural communities continue to lose many of the services that they had in the past.
January 28, 2026
Narelle Mcdonald
NSW 2395
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Imagine having to wait 8 - 9 weeks or more to see a Dr. imagine not being able to see a Dr as the books are closed. Drs don’t want to come out to the bush!! Imagine selling,, no giving stock away cause you need the money for feeding family paying Bills .
Imagine being 6th generation farmer and worrying about passing farm on to the next generation.
life on the land is hard at times .. I wouldn’t live anywhere else. Please stand behind your farming and country community’s ..
February 16, 2026