This is a rolling wrap of reaction to the 2020-21 Federal Budget, which comes in the wake of the health, social and economic devastation of the coronavirus pandemic. It compiles reaction to developments affecting health and healthcare, with a focus on the social determinants of health and health equity.
Read Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s Budget speech here.
See also this separate story on the Public Health Association of Australia’s response to the Budget, which said it “borders on disastrous”, and had “bypassed any substantial investment that will strengthen the whole nation’s future long-term health.”
See also this rolling wrap of responses from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations on what is in and not in the Budget.
Budget still wanting on much-needed mental health reforms
Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP)
The RANZCP welcomed the $5.7 billion in mental health funding over the next year, and the government’s ongoing efforts to ensure the mental health and wellbeing of Australians through the pandemic and continued commitment to suicide prevention as a national priority.
However, “we are still missing that fundamental investment in redesigning a mental health system we so urgently need now and into the future,” said RANZCP President Associate Professor John Allan.
Like many others in mental health, Allan said it was unfortunate that the government has still not made public the long-awaited final report of the Productivity Commission Inquiry into Mental Health which it received in June.
“Without the blueprint for comprehensive mental health sector reform it is difficult to move beyond short-term and discrete injections of funding,” he said, urging novel and bold solutions to address the major – and decades old – system weaknesses, fragmentation, inconsistencies and service gaps which factor too much in people’s mental health care experiences today.
He said:
This means real root and branch structural reform involving changes to the way in which federal and state governance and funding works so as to instill a better single source of funding to reduce waste and the duplication of services, and to improve care co-ordination and patient outcomes.
“There are also real issues with the maldistribution of our mental health workforce and the lack of access to services for people residing in regional, rural and remote areas that you might be able to find in the city.”
RANZCP said it was pleased to see the funding of an additional 10 training places each year for psychiatrists to specialise in veterans’ mental health care, and “cautiously” welcomed the government’s proposal to offer community-based mental health services through private health insurance.
It said other key announcements included:
- Ongoing support for telehealth services
- Funding for implementation of recommendations from the MBS Review Taskforce
- Medicare-subsidised psychology sessions up from 10 to 20 sessions nationally ($100.8m)
- Mental health support services for people impacted by the 2019–20 bushfire emergency ($50.3m)
- Additional 10 training places each year for psychiatrists to specialise in veterans’ mental health care
- Additional research program funding for the (Black Dog Institute and Everymind) Prevention Hub ($2.1m)
- Expansion of Individual Placement and Support program to support young people with mental illness into the workforce
- Increased availability of grief and trauma support services for aged care ($12.5m)
- More aged care specialist counselling teams to provide expert psychosocial services ($11.3m)
Budget winds back refugee numbers, supports amid “offshore blowout”
Refugee Council of Australia
The Refugee Council said the Budget is another blow for refugees and asylum seekers, in the midst of growing international need and desperation for those already caught up in mandatory offshore detention in Australia and cutbacks in financial support to those living here.
The Council said the Budget outlined plans to cut the Refugee and Humanitarian Program back by 5,000 places from 2018-19 to 13,750 places per year.
This delivers a saving of $911.3 million over the next four years, but comes as the Department of Home Affairs has allocated $1.19 billion to spending on Australia’s offshore processing regime in 2020-21, following a $436 million (83%) blowout in expenditure in 2019-20, it said.
The Council says spending on financial support to people seeking asylum has been reduced to just $19.6 million in 2020-21, a reduction of $120.2 million in the yearly spend in just three years.
It said payments under the Status Resolution Support Service (SRSS) program have been reduced from $139.8 million in 2017-18, to $93.4 million in 2018-19 and $39.5 million in 2019-20. The $52.6 million allocated for this measure in the 2019-20 Budget was underspent by 25 per cent, largely by refusing support services to the majority of people seeking asylum regardless of need.
The Refugee Council said the Budget allocates $10.6 million over five years to implement the Government’s next five-year National Action Plan to Combat Modern Slavery 2020-25.
It says this funding will help equip businesses to manage supply chain risks, provide multi-year grant funding opportunities for organisations to deliver projects to combat modern slavery in Australia, and assist international partners to address modern slavery and human trafficking.
Budget fails to deliver real investment in nursing, midwifery and aged care
Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF)
The ANMF said that, despite the Treasurer’s acknowledgement of healthcare workers as ‘heroes, the Budget provides too little investment in nursing and midwifery and even less for aged care workers.
It questioned the Government’s claim of record funding for aged care, “given it is deferring action in chronically-understaffed nursing homes, until the completion of the (Aged Care) Royal Commission in early 2021.”
ANMF Federal Secretary Annie Butler welcomed the Budget’s funding for mental health services, the NDIS and PBS listings for drugs to treat a range of diseases, including ovarian cancer, leukaemia, melanoma and Parkinson’s disease, but she said there is little investment in the nursing and midwifery workforce and even less for aged care workers ahead of the Royal Commission’s final report.
“It’s disappointing that there’s no action on job security and no action of improving wages and conditions for aged care workers. So, despite the much-vaunted promises of meaningful measures for working women, this Budget fails to deliver – the promised ‘thanks’ is just more words, not real action,” she said.
Butler said even the additional 23,000 extra home care places will do little to reduce the long waiting list of over 100,000 elderly Australians waiting up to 12-months or more for an appropriate home care package.
“If jobs are the cornerstone of the national economic recovery-plan, the ANMF is calling on the Government to act now and address the dangerously inadequate levels of qualified nurses and care staff working in aged care,” she said.
Downpayment for wider reforms and investment
Consumers Health Forum
The CHF said the Federal Budget provides for the beginnings of a “revolution” in health care that should be a down payment for wider reforms and investment to meet 21st century needs, including a further commitment to telehealth after the six month extension to March 2021 expires.
CHF CEO Leanne Wells said the COVID-19 pandemic had shown the strength, and the opportunities for more public investments to improve Australia’s health system, and proven that the link between the health of the community and of the economy is “inextricable”.
“The telehealth disruption shows that transformative change is possible in healthcare and we hold great ambition for the scope of services that will be possible under the 10 Year Primary Health Care Plan currently in development,” Wells said.
The CHF welcomed the $408.5 million addition to improve care and quality of aged care, but said “much more is needed in both funding and deep systemic reforms to this failing system”, including further investment in hoe care packages to meet the estimated 100,000 shortage in places.
The doubling from 10 to 20 the number of Medicare-funded psychological services would be readily used by many, “but will continue to mean many people without the means will be left unable to afford many psychologists whose higher fees are not covered by Medicare”.
Wells said she was pleased to see a strong rural health strategy, including new ways of providing health services to smaller connected rural communities across NSW, and that adequate provision is made for the manufacture and supply of a COVID-19 vaccine should one become available”.
CHF also welcomed changes to private health insurance, including extending the eligibility age of dependent children from 24 to 31 and allowing people with disability to remain on a family policy.
“A potentially transformative change to the overall health system is to extend health insurance cover to home and community-based care for mental health and general rehabilitation services,” Wells said, urging that this be clinically appropriate and be a choice of patients and doctors to make without pressure from health funds.
“Many people with insurance will welcome this change, but it will be outside the reach of most people who do not have private cover. Both federal and state governments need to do much more to ensure such timely innovations in health care are available to all Australians.”
Modest start to reversing under-investment of the past
Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association (AHHA).
AHHA Chief Executive Alison Verhoeven said the Budget makes major and welcome commitments in health and aged care to address the major challenges Australia has confronted during the COVID-19 pandemic – “but there are many areas of significant need where more effort is required”.
‘Under-investment for too many years has weakened our health and aged care system. Tonight’s funding is a modest start towards reversing some of the poor decisions of the past,” she said.
Verhoeven welcomed the commitment to fund 23,000 additional home care packages in aged care, and to strengthen palliative care and the aged care workforce,” she said but she said much more work will need to be done in aged care over coming months and years “to ensure that the shocking experiences that some families and residents have endured, and the failures in quality, are fully addressed”.
‘While mental health investments in tonight’s Budget will improve access to care, it is disappointing that the Australian Government did not use Budget 2020 as an opportunity to implement mental health reforms proposed by the Productivity Commission,” including community based mental health services delivered within regions.
See a separate statement on mental health funding here, which notes the Productivity Commission delivered a final report on 30 June 2020, which has not yet been tabled.
‘We hope that when the Government responds to the report, they will look beyond the current COVID-19 pandemic to the ongoing long-term need for community mental health services’, Verhoeven said.
‘The challenges will be severe as people try to deal with job losses and economic insecurity, which can lead to emotional insecurity and ongoing mental health issues. The cuts to Job Keeper and Job Seeker will only compound these problems, which are likely to be long-term for many,” she said, urging the Government to “go hard and go now” on mental health.
Verhoeven said it was disappointing that there is only a limited focus in the Budget on strengthening preventive and primary health care, and no announcement on an Australian Centre for Disease Control which could have positioned Australia to better deal with future pandemic challenges.
Actuarial reviews of private health insurance arrangements would do little to address the immediate pain felt by policy holders whose premiums continue to rise while value continues to fall.
New funding for rural primary health care was welcome, though should be brought more quickly to scale.
‘Providing the additional funding needed to ensure our acute system can respond to the increased health demands as a result of the pandemic, as per earlier announcements, is a critical measure both to respond to the pandemic and to allow “business as usual” services to continue to be delivered effectively.
‘Health and medical research investment, like the additional funding for services, is an investment in our nation’s recovery’, she said.
See further AHHA statements on telehealth (“long term vision nowhere to be seen”) and on welcome investment for younger people in aged care.
Welcome support for “upstream factors” but mental health report must be urgently released
Suicide Prevention Australia
The national peak body for suicide prevention welcomed the fiscal measures announced in the Budget, to help increase the number of jobs and boost infrastructure investment, but warned of ongoing severe stress and suicidal risk caused by financial hardship.
“While there is no ‘new money’ for suicide prevention and mental health, the Budget tackles the upstream factors that the evidence tells us link with distress,” Suicide Prevention Australia CEO Nieves Murray said.
“Factors like unemployment, financial security and social isolation have been heightened by COVID-19 and the consequent recession.”
Murray said Suicide Prevention Australia was heartened to see the JobMaker Economic Recovery plan and the $4 billion hiring credit program, and extra cash payments for welfare recipients, but it called on the Federal Government to consider raising the base rate of JobSeeker in the longer term.
“We know there is a strong association between economic recession and increasing distress, particularly in high-income nations, therefore we need to assess the impact of removing the coronavirus supplement before it’s due to end,” she said.
Echoing other calls, Suicide Prevention Australia said it was urgently awaiting the release of the Productivity Commission’s mental health final report and the interim report into suicide prevention, “which have been sitting with Government for some time”.
“The Federal Government’s investment in suicide prevention to date has been welcome and necessary but we have no time to lose in making further, smart and timely decisions that will make a meaningful difference to the lives of people living across our communities.
Leaves too many behind, fails to act on social housing, climate action
Australian Council of Social Service
ACOSS says that while the Budget provides some glimmer for hope on jobs for young people, it comes as “a crushing let-down for many others without paid wor”.
ACOSS CEO Dr Cassandra Goldie said it has missed key opportunities for job creation initiatives that would have delivered public good, particularly in female-dominated sectors, instead focussing on projects that will take longer to get off the ground.
Of particular concern is that it failed to deliver a permanent, adequate JobSeeker rate — leaving more than two million people uncertain about their future beyond the end of the year, when income support rates will go to their pre-COVID levels ($40 a day for JobSeeker).
Goldie said ACOSS welcomed the wage subsidy for under-35s who are badly impacted in this recession, but said it must be “urgently extended to people of all ages who have been unemployed for a year or longer”.
“People without paid work will see no benefit from the income tax cuts brought forward in today’s budget, which mainly go to people who are lucky enough to have jobs, with the largest amounts going to people on higher incomes. There is also no income support in this budget for people on temporary visas, who have been left behind in the pandemic.
Goldie welcomed extra funding for aged care, including 23,000 aged care packages, but said this was “far short of what is required to meet the shortfall for home care”. So too was extra funding for community services, including mental health.
Goldie also lamented the failure to invest in social housing and climate action.
“The Budget misses key opportunities to generate jobs quickly by investing in social housing construction to reduce homelessness, and in energy efficiency upgrades for low-income households to reduce energy bills and climate emissions.
“In a year that has not only seen the COVID-19 crisis but also the bushfire crisis, the Budget gives too much to prop up fossil fuels that contribute to the climate crisis, instead of accelerating the shift to clean energy and helping people and communities strengthen their resilience to climate impacts.
“Overall, the Budget does not deliver enough investment to pull us out of the historic slump we’re in without leaving people behind. The Government will need to do more to ensure that we are all in the recovery together,” Goldie said.
Some good news for older Australians, but other asks missing
Council on the Ageing (COTA) Australia
Australia’s peak body of older Australians has welcomed a number of significant Federal Budget initiatives in pensions and aged care, but expressed concern “about the plight of mature age and older workers who received no targeted support despite being equally vulnerable to long term unemployment as a result of the COVID induced recession”.
COTA Australia Chief Executive Ian Yates said older Australians will be very pleased to see an additional 23,000 home care packages at a cost of $1.6 billion, a record increase, but they will be disappointed there is still no commitment and plan to get waiting times down to 30 days and ensure no one is prematurely forced into residential care.
Yates said COTA also welcomed other aged care initiatives, including:
- $29.8 million to implement the Serious Incident Response Scheme to provide better protection for residents in aged care
- $91.6 million over four years to create an independent assessment service for the new residential care assessment and funding tool
- $35.6 million over two years to extend the Business Improvement Fund, to help restructure residential aged care
- Commitments to upskilling aged care workers in dementia and funding the Aged Care Workforce Industry Council, “which now needs to deliver leadership in workforce reform”.
Yates said pensioners will be very pleased about additional pension supplements of $250 in December and $250 in March, but COTA is disappointed there is no increase in the “inadequate” Commonwealth Rent Assistance maximum rate, and that older unemployed people “will still have their savings plundered by the Liquid Assets Test at the very time they should have retirement savings protected”.
COTA also welcomed the huge range and depth of economic stimulus measures in the Budget, including targeted support for young people, but was disappointed there was no parallel support for older Australians, who are “equally vulnerable to redundancy, age discrimination and being locked out of the workforce”.
COTA also welcomes the announcement of an extra $1 billion in loan funds to support development of affordable housing, and the abolition of Capital Gains tax on ‘granny flat’ arrangements provided there is a formal legal agreement in place to protect the interests of the older person.
Missed chance to build social housing, as homelessness and rental insecurity increase
National housing and homelessness campaign Everybody’s Home
The Everybody’s Home campaign said the Government’s failure to fund an increase in social housing in the face of huge and growing unemployment and cuts to income support payments will result in a surge of people becoming homeless or living in extreme rental stress.
Spokesperson Kate Colvin said investment in social housing after decades of falling funding would have created new construction jobs, apprenticeships and homes for a growing number of renters facing housing insecurity and at risk of homelessness — “an opportunity of a lifetime to kill two birds with one stone”.
“We now face a perfect storm for homelessness to increase – with people who have lost income ‘trading down’ to cheaper rentals, and squeezing out people on the lowest incomes,” she said, saying building 30,000 social housing properties over four years would have created 18,000 construction related jobs a year and helped pull Australia out of recession.
Colvin said the Federal Government had made small temporary increases in funding to remote Indigenous communities in Queensland and Northern Territory, but remote housing funding was still less than half the funding level in 2017/18.
The Budget also includes more concessional loans for affordable housing, but nothing for the subsidy needed to make new housing affordable to people on low incomes, and it includes a cut of $41.3 million from homelessness funding in July 2021.
“COVID-19 exposed just how important our homes are, and how flawed our housing system is. Australians are looking for a new approach to the economy and Budget 2020 has totally let them down,” Colvin said.
Millions to be cut from vital homelessness services
Homelessness Australia
As well as a failure to include stimulus spending in urgently needed social housing, Homelessness Australia chair Jenny Smith said the Budget contains a “devastating” $41.3 million cut to homelessness services from July 2021.
“The Treasurer had a choice to make, and he has chosen homelessness for tens of thousands of Australian families. Without increases in social housing and with even less resources for homelessness services, many families will become stuck in homelessness for a long time”.
“The Government has ignored advice from all corners: from top economists, property industry and community sector leaders, as well as popular support from the community; all calling for the Government to invest in social housing to both create thousands of new jobs each year and to deliver enormous social good.
“Despite soaring demand, tonight’s budget has put services in an impossible situation,” she said. “Slashing $41 million in homelessness support in July is senseless and cruel”.
Welcome regional funding, but gas industry subsidy “betrayal” for planet
Oxfam Australia
Oxfam welcomed an additional $304.7 million committed in the Budget to support Pacific nations and Timor Leste to respond to the coronavirus crisis, but urged that this funding is permanent and broadened beyond Australia’s immediate region.
“This ‘temporary and targeted’ fund doesn’t come close to contributing our fair share to the global response as one of the world’s wealthiest nations, -and it explicitly ignores the massive and urgent need that has been further exacerbated by this crisis in countries outside our region, such as Yemen,” Oxfam chief executive Lyn Morgain said.
Morgain said the temporary boost to Australia’s international COVID-19 response also must be viewed in the context in which it comes: “after six successive cuts, and in the midst of an unprecedented crisis that has caused a massive increase in need.”
She was also concerned that the announcements on foreign aid were light on detail, so it was unclear whether the additional regional funding came via cuts to programs in the Middle East, Africa or Asia.
Oxfam has estimated an additional half a billion people could be pushed into poverty by the impacts of this pandemic.
Morgain also slammed the Federal Government’s funding to expand the gas sector as “a betrayal of Australian taxpayers, our Pacific neighbours and the entire planet”.
“The significant investment of close to $53 million …into the flailing fossil fuel industry is not only fiscally irresponsible, but a treacherous act against our Pacific neighbours whose existence depends on us taking serious action against climate change,” she said.
“With China recently making a significant pledge to be carbon neutral by 2060, Australia is becoming increasingly isolated on this issue and risks undermining its position in the region.”
“A briefing paper released by Oxfam in July, Australia’s energy future & the recovery from COVID-19, showed gas was a very unstable foundation on which to rebuild an economy and build a better future.
A down payment on a better aged care system?
Leading Age Services Australia (LASA)
The aged care peak LASA welcomed Budget investments in aged care to meet the needs of older Australians and said it hoped this will be the start of ongoing investment and reform ahead of the final report from the Aged Care Royal Commission in February 2021.
“Hopefully, this Budget is just a start, a down payment on a better age care system” said LASA CEO Sean Rooney, adding that evidence to the Royal Commission had highlighted “deep structural problems with funding for aged care”.
Rooney said that while this Budget does not address all of these issues, “it does lay a platform for the future”, including with the $1.6 billion commitment to an extra 23,000 Home Care Packages, raising the number of packages to 180,000, which will help drive down wait times that have been up to two years or more.
He also welcomed the increase in Medicare Benefits Schedule items for mental health support for aged care residents, but urged extra funding for extra workforce to help aged care residents receive visitors “in a safe way”.
Welcome steps but Budget relies on vaccine and no major COVID-19 outbreaks
Australian Medical Association
Federal AMA President Dr Omar Khorshid has commended the Federal Government’s $16 billion COVID-19 health response and further stimulus spending but he has warned that the Budget is banking on a COVID-19 vaccine arriving by next July and “assumes any further COVID-19 outbreaks will be localised and contained”.
“A safe, effective and widely available vaccine is not guaranteed for next year and if it doesn’t eventuate and a large outbreak occurs, economic recovery will be threatened, along with mention many Australian lives,” he said, urging the government to be willing to rethink scaling back JobSeeker and JobKeeper if a vaccine-led economic recovery is delayed or doesn’t eventuate.
“Governments cannot drop the ball and must continue a broad range of strong policies to keep COVID-19 out of the community in order to ensure a sustained health and economic recovery,” he said.
Korshid commended a number of specific health portfolio measures:
- Essential continued funding to support the COVID-19 response in hospitals, pathology testing services, GP respiratory clinics and temporary COVID-19 telehealth services
- Retaining $448 million for patient enrolment in General Practices
- $2 billion over four years in expanded aged care, with $1.6 billion for 23,000 new home care packages and $103 million for COVID-19 residential care outbreak preparedness
- Increasing the number of Medicare funded mental health consultations from 10 to 20
- Extending eligibility from 24 to 31 years for adult children to remain as dependents on their parent’s private health insurance policies
- Preserving $448 million for the deferred patient enrolment program.
It had also taken “a modest step” to continue health insurance for younger people by adjusting ages of children able to use private health services through their parent’s health cover and committed to an actuarial review of private health reform proposals outlined in the AMA’s Prescription for Private Health report.
“Beyond these modest measures, the Budget has left most other challenges in health care for another day. More is needed on preventive health. More is needed on long term public hospital funding. Private health is facing viability issues, and General Practice in particular needs help now,” Khorshid said.
Good signs for rural doctors, but more needed next May
Rural Doctors Association of Australia
The RDAA welcomed “good signs” in the Budget of the Government’s commitment to its Stronger Rural Health Strategy, by addressing the maldistribution of medical workforce in Australia and getting more doctors to the bush.
This includes:
- $50.3 million to progress the first tranche of recommendations from the Rural Health Multidisciplinary Training (RHMT) evaluation, which will boost university-based health training in the regions. There are four elements to this investment:
- $3.3 million to support new innovative primary care employment models – work to be led by the National Rural Health Commissioner Ruth Stewart.
- $125 million to support clinical trials in the regions.
RDAA acknowledges the Government’s significant investment in relation to the COVID response, such as expanded mental health services, expanded Medicare items for telehealth, and respiratory clinics. The small business supports implemented by the Government have also been welcomed by rural general practices.
Mostly, the RDAA said, it has its eye on the future – seeing Tuesday’s Budget as an “appetiser” for a further boost in rural medical workforce investment in the next Federal Budget in May 2021.
Lack of support for mental health of health workforce
Australian Medical Students’ Association
The peak body of Australian medical students said it was disappointed the Budget has not allocated any funding to addressing the severity of the medical workforce mental health crisis, saying medical students are at a greater risk of mental health conditions and suicide than the wider Australian community.
“The profound challenges of 2020, from a disastrous bushfire season to a viral pandemic, mean that the psychological and social health of Australians require additional mental health support,” said AMSA President Daniel Zou. “Everything from COVID-19 to medical education this year has further overwhelmed the scarce mental health support initiatives for medical students.”
Zou said only $2.1 million out of the additional $5.7 billion for health is announced to continue the Prevention Hub via Black Dog Institute and Everymind. There was a clear need for funding targeted towards the mental health of the medical workforce, and to support implementation of the Everymind National Medical Framework for Junior Doctor and Medical Student Mental Ill-Health, he said.
No significant BBV/STI or AOD measures
The Australian Injecting and Illicit Drug Users League (AIVL) has expressed disappointment there is little evidence of new investment in the alcohol and other drugs (AOD), blood borne virus (BBV) and sexually transmissible infection (STI) sectors to address additional demand and challenges for service delivery associated with COVID-19.
“In the 2019 Health Budget, AIVL welcomed the Australian Government’s announcement of an additional $45.4 million over four years, commencing in 2019-20, to step up public health prevention and promotion activities around BBVs and STIs to deliver on the goals of the National BBV and STI Strategies. However, we note that majority of this funding is yet to be allocated to any activities, despite the obvious challenges in staying on top of prevention and treatment priorities in the context of COVID-19,” said AIVL CEO Melanie Walker.
“In addition, while access to AOD treatment services has at times been restricted in light of COVID-19, there doesn’t seem to be any significant additional investment in these services to address COVID-19 related bottlenecks and increased demand,” she said.
Walker said the Health Budget papers do contain some good news for people who use/have used drugs in a broader sense, with significant investments in the areas of mental health, telehealth and new PBS listings for liver cancer. There are also several NHMRC grants to projects relating to Hepatitis C (including in custodial contexts) and methamphetamine use.
“In summary, while we are happy that the funding for BBV/STI initiatives announced in last year’s Health Budget still stands, that money needs to flow if it’s to do any good, particularly in light of the additional pressures and constraints on services due to COVID-19.”
Before the pandemic, between 200,000-500,000 Australians were being turned away from drug treatment each year due to a lack of capacity in the sector. Those numbers were likely to be even greater now given temporary service closures, rising unemployment and additional pressures arising from the pandemic, she said.
