Every element of Australia’s health system is in trouble. But you’d never know it from looking at this year’s budget.
Every previous Labor government since the second world war had good reasons to boast of its performance in health policy. The Albanese government, on the evidence, does not.
The 2024-25 budget leaves the nation’s crumbling health system to crumble even further. The few positives — delaying PBS indexation, expanding some GP clinics, a mental health call line — are minor. But the core responsibilities that this government continues to ignore are massive.
Having given so much money away by endorsing Scott Morrison’s agenda on tax cuts and submarines, this Labor government has further entrenched the budget’s structural deficit. Even when inflation is brought under control, there won’t be the money to undertake the major investment in health and other areas that the country so urgently needs.
Read the full article at The Policy Post:
Martyn Goddard is a public policy analyst specialising in health and state government funding. He was a member of the Australian Council on AIDS and Related Diseases and its clinical subcommittee; as well as the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee. He also served as a health policy officer at the Australian Consumers' Association (Choice).
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