Introduction by Croakey: The Department of Health and Ageing hosted a post-Budget webinar on Wednesday, attended by five health portfolio ministers.
“The portfolio ministers will participate in a Q&A session with the Secretary of the Department of Health and Aged Care, Blair Comley PSM,” said the invitation. “This is an opportunity to connect and ask questions about what the Budget means for you and your organisation.”
But, as Croakey editor Jason Staines discovered when he attended the briefing, the opportunity to ask questions does not mean they will be answered or even acknowledged.
Jason Staines writes:
The Federal Government wants to have a new National Health Reform Agreement (NHRA) signed off with the states this year, and hopes to have a new Aged Care Act in place as soon as possible.
In a post-budget webinar hosted by the Department of Health and Ageing, Health and Aged Care Minister Mark Butler also said $882 million in funding announced in Tuesday’s budget would be aimed at assisting “longer stay, older patients” who often found themselves remaining in hospital due to a lack of discharge options.
The first step, said Butler, was trying to keep people out of hospital in the first place if there were alternative treatment options available. Those who did need hospital care should then be discharged as soon as possible, rather than languishing in a bed waiting to be discharged.
The funding in this year’s budget was only a down-payment, said Butler, and was the first step in the long process of reform in the area.
Aged Care Minister Anika Wells said the Government was still working through the feedback provided to the Aged Care Royal Commission in developing a new Aged Care Act, saying the Commonwealth was “absolutely committed to introducing this as soon as we humanly can”.
The Minister dismissed suggestions from one anonymous questioner that her Taskforce was provider-heavy, saying it was well-balanced in terms of representatives from providers, consumers and workforce.
The session — hosted by Department of Health and Aged Care Secretary, Blair Comley — also included Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care Ged Kearney, the Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention and Assistant Minister for Rural and Regional Health, Emma McBride, and Senator Malarndirri McCarthy, the Assistant Minister for Indigenous Health.
As well as the NHRA and the new Aged Care Act, the hour-long webinar also touched on women’s health, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and Australia’s prospects at the Brisbane Olympic Games given the boost in funding for the Australian Institute of Sport.
Minister Butler also spoke on the future of the National Mental Health Commission, saying that its work will be rolled into that of the Department, although this was only a short-term measure. A 2023 investigation into the Commission found it was incapable of meeting its mandate of providing accountability for mental health. It also found the Commission was plagued by high levels of organisational distress, low morale, and deep divisions. Ultimately, it recommended moving the body into the health department.
The Minister said the Government was working to understand options for the Commission’s future, which could include transitioning it into a statutory body. Ultimately, however, there needed to be a discussion with the sector on the Commission’s role.
There was little focus on First Nations peoples’ health during the briefing, with a number of submitted questions not put to the panel by Comley, who was moderating the session.
However, Senator McCarthy did speak of budget measures aimed to improve outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, particularly in the areas of overcrowding and homelessness in communities, and there was mention of $12.5 million to address period poverty in First Nations communities by delivering free period products and measures to assist nurse practitioners, which will support Birthing on Country.
Tuesday’s budget also contained $10 million to maintain investments to the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO) for targeted and culturally appropriate mental health support services.
However, as Croakey has reported, NACCHO and other Aboriginal community controlled organisations are deeply disappointed by the Budget, with some organisations describing it as lacking vision, and “utterly shameful”.
Further, analysis by health policy analyst Charles Maskell-Knight concludes that nominal growth in spending on First Nations health programs is now negative – spending in 2027-28 is forecast to be less than 2024-25. “We could take the Government’s commitment to closing the gap more seriously if it was prepared to commit funding over the medium term, allowing grant-funded organisations stability and certainty,” he wrote at Croakey this week.
In one of the few opportunities where she was offered a question, Senator McCarthy was asked if those culturally appropriate mental health services would be delivered by ACCHOs. She said the obvious answer was yes, or they would not be culturally appropriate.
Other First Nations-related health measures include $11.1 million over five years to expand coverage of the Closing the Gap PBS Co-payment Program to all PBS medicines and $94.9 million over two years to support management of communicable disease control in First Nations communities.
Questions were also raised about the absence of measures related to the Centre for Disease Control and funding for implementing the National Health and Climate Strategy. However, these also were left unanswered as they were never put to the panel by Comley.
The format of the webinar — five speakers, one hour, and an entire health budget to dissect — did not lend itself to comprehensive questioning.
However, it allowed for the efficient filtering of questions that the panel may have preferred to avoid, such as those on First Nations health and the CDC. While it makes for a positive 60 minutes of chat about the good, avoiding the bad engenders neither trust nor goodwill.
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