The machinery for fast-tracking IMGs is meant to include internal wiring to ensure the medical colleges have some control over who can work as a specialist in Australia.

But unless some of the big questions being asked find a satisfactory answer, those wires risk being severed.

Under the fast-track pathway, the specialist colleges were expected to supply a list of overseas qualifications they deemed substantially comparable to their own.

It is the key element meant to ensure standards are maintained in the absence of any detailed assessment by the colleges of the individual specialists being brought in.