The colleges took over delivery of the Australian General Practice Training program in February 2023, replacing the regional training organisations that ran it before.

Places are not the constraint and the Commonwealth is expanding them anyway. Up to 1,500 fully-funded GP and rural generalist places commence each year, and under the Strengthening Medicare package that rises by 200 in 2026, 300 in 2027 and 400 from 2028. From 2026, 100 rural generalist places previously delivered under a separate scheme move into AGPT — a consolidation this database supports, since it removes a parallel pathway for the same outcome.

What determines whether those places fill is employment conditions, not supply. A doctor moving from a hospital into general practice training changes employer, and in doing so has historically given up accrued leave, salary certainty and continuity of entitlements — while their peers who stay in hospital specialties do not. That is the structural fact behind sustained advocacy from registrar and supervisor organisations, and behind the government's own stated aim of making GP training conditions similar to hospital-based programs.

The terms themselves are set in an unusual place. See A doctor enters and completes general practice training.