Queensland Health Minister Backflips on Workforce Plan Deadline
Queensland Health Minister Tim Nicholls said on November 10, 2026 there is no timeline to release the state's health workforce plan, despite saying in August it was being finalised. Opposition Leader Steven Miles called for its urgent release a year after the workforce gap analysis.
Queensland Health Minister Tim Nicholls has dropped a deadline to release a plan to attract more clinicians into the state's health system, saying on Tuesday in Rockhampton that there is no timeline for its release. The backflip on the workforce plan deadline comes a year to the day after an analysis showed the scale of the shortfall.
In August, Nicholls said the plan was being finalised and would be released "a little later this year".
Asked about it on Tuesday, he gave a different answer. "No, we want to get it right. And getting it right is not a deadline for a headline, which was the modus operandi of the former government," he said.
He said the government would release a plan "that people can have faith in" once its investigation was finished.
What the analysis found
The workforce analysis, released a year ago, found Queensland needed 6,000 new doctors and 46,000 health workers by 2032. A plan to show how the state would deliver them was due to follow.
The analysis also showed a gap between regional and metropolitan areas. In some allied health professions, regional workforce gaps were as high as 50 per cent. About 72 per cent of workforce growth had occurred mainly in metro areas.
A fifth of the state's registered health workforce is approaching or at retirement age.
Doctors and opposition react
AMA Queensland president Associate Professor Erica Gannon said a plan was vital. "The workforce gap analysis was a positive first step in developing a sorely needed, system-wide workforce plan," she said.
"Regional and remote Queenslanders will suffer the most without a comprehensive plan to get more doctors into the system," she said.
Opposition Leader Steven Miles called for the plan to be released urgently. "The best time for a workforce plan was a year ago. The second best time is today," he said.
He said that in the year since the LNP promised a plan, "all we have heard from them is excuses".
Nicholls said the work was continuing. "We're doing the proper planning around the workforce plan, but we're not letting the grass grow under our feet," he said.
Separately, Training Minister Ros Bates announced an expansion of the government's free nursing program, with a further 2,000 TAFE places available.
