The Primary Health Care Research, Evaluation and Development (PHCRED) Strategy aims to improve Australia’s output of high-quality research from primary care. We compared publication rates from general practice, medicine and surgery for the period 2000–2007, and found that general practice publications increased since 1990–1999 from 1.0 to 3.0 publications per 1000 general practitioners per year. However, general practice publication rates have plateaued since 2000, and represent only 2%–5% of the equivalent rates for medicine and surgery. This finding suggests that more time and sustained investment in PHCRED are essential to see tangible outputs from funded research in general practice.