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BUDGET 2024 🗞️Budget 2024-25: A missed opportunity for rural health equity

BUDGET 2024 🗞️Budget 2024-25: A missed opportunity for rural health equity

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Audio clip from Treasure Minister Jim Chalmers ⬆️

The National Rural Health Alliance says the Federal Budget fails to address rural-urban health care disparities.

"The Budget falls short of our expectations. It is disheartening to observe the government's lack of responsiveness to rural voices and its failure to commit to comprehensive reforms that would offer sustainable and long-term benefits for rural communities," said Nicole O’Reilly, Chairperson of the National Rural Health Alliance.

The further an Australian lives from an urban centre, the lower their life expectancy. They are also twice as likely to die from preventable illness. Rural men are 2.5 times and women 2.8 times more likely to die from potentially avoidable causes than those in urban areas. Many rural people have no access to primary healthcare services within an hour’s drive from their home. They use Medicare up to 50 per cent less than those in cities, showing that people rather not make the long journey or wait long hours to access health care somewhere else. As a result, the burden of disease in remote areas is 1.4 times than that of major cities.

“Evidence is clear that per-person spending on healthcare is not equitable. We know from the Evidence base for additional investment in rural health in Australia, that each person in rural and remote Australia is missing out on nearly $850 per year of healthcare access equating to a total annual rural health underspend of $6.5 billion.

“Funding could have enabled rural Australians to access health and medical services in their local communities. We call on the government to make a better commitment at the next opportunity to ensure that our rural communities are looked after,” said Ms O’Reilly.

“The National Rural Health Alliance welcomes the commitment to support rural training opportunities. The establishment of the Charles Darwin University Menzies Medical Program which aims to educate home grown doctors is vital for growing the next generation of rural doctors. We acknowledge the new Commonwealth Prac Payment and the opportunity it will provide to support students to experience rural based clinical placements.

“We are also pleased to see the Royal Flying Doctors Service supported with top up finding to deal with the increasing costs of service delivery of vital services they provide to rural communities. But their model is only one that addresses the vast variety of health care needs across rural and remote Australia. There are many struggling rural and remote primary health care services that are on the brink of closure and need support and significant reform.

“There is much more to be done to address the inequity in health care outcomes for rural and remote Australians,” said Ms O’Reilly.

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Meanwhile, Emma Greenhalgh, CEO of National Shelter says “The Commonwealth government have made significant investment towards solving the housing crisis since coming to office and this Budget builds on that investment by targeting initiatives to remove impediments to the construction of housing including training construction workers and funding enabling infrastructure.

“These are critical measures to expedite the supply of new housing to the market and also contribute to speeding up the supply of social and affordable housing. The additional measures to support community housing providers and Housing Australia are welome to expand their capacity to respond to the housing crisis,” She added.

Greenhalgh said The further increase to Commonwealth Rent Assistance will continue to provide some relief to private rental households in housing stress. The further relief from energy bills for households, extending eligibility for existing higher base rate of JobSeeker payments, and freezing the maximum Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme are all measures that puts money back into the hands of those who need it most and are in immediate crisis.

However, we still need to see a more meaningful response to poverty and cost-of-living for low-income households by significantly increasing income support and allowances.

Tonight, our members were seeking a Budget that supports the very businesses who have the opportunity to boost economic growth, bring down inflation and build for all Australians but are currently hamstrung by their capacity and increasing costs to deliver, said Master Builders Australia CEO Denita Wawn.

“The Federal Budget has finally recognised the importance of a holistic, cross-portfolio approach to solving the housing crisis and made some inroads but has fallen short of supporting the businesses required to deliver on those projects, said Master Builders Australia CEO Denita Wawn.

Australian Constructors Association CEO Jon Davies says the $10.1 billion allocated to cover cost increases on existing projects, rather than new projects, is a wake-up call.

“We can’t afford to continue with business as usual; planning needs to be improved and construction costs need to be lowered to ensure the country can afford the infrastructure it needs,” said Mr Davies.

The Australian Government's Future Made policy could be used to dramatically lower the cost of construction by investing in modern methods of construction (MMC).

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BUDGET 2024 🗞️Budget 2024-25: A missed opportunity for rural health equity

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