Liberal – policy announcements
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health
- Invest over $4.6 billion to prioritise and improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, focusing on improving health infrastructure and providing better support for maternal and antenatal care, aged care and mental health services.
- Implement the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Plan.
- Invest $13.9 million to support 300 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander undergraduate students in health-related disciplines.
- Invest $8.6 million to establish the National Closing the Gap Policy Partnership on Social and Emotional Wellbeing and help reduce the devastating impact of mental ill-health.
- Invest $5.9 million to catch up on missed health screenings
- Additional $296.5 million for rural health.
- $146 million to attract, support and retain rural health professionals.
- $99.3 million for 80 additional Commonwealth Supported Places so more students can study medicine at rural campuses.
- Invest an additional $33.3 million over four years towards a 10-year strategic agreement with the Royal Flying Doctor Service worth almost $1 billion.
- Invest $18 million in CareFlight to guarantee rescue and emergency aeromedical services for remote and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in the Northern Territory.
- Invest $4.1 million in Little Wings to deliver aeromedical transport services for seriously ill children across rural NSW, with an expansion planned for ACT and Queensland.
- Invest $17.2 million in Heart of Australia so five mobile clinics can continue to deliver diagnostic, treatment and follow-up care services to 32 communities in Queensland.
- Commit $130 billion into aged care funding over the next four years.
- Implement a five-year program covering the 148 recommendations from the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, structured across five pillars and backed by $19.1 billion in additional funding.
- Invest $14.3 million to expand the Rural Health Medical Training Program in aged care.
- Create a new at-home support program to meet the individual needs of senior Australians and bring together services currently provided through the Commonwealth Home Support Program, Home Care and Short-Term Restorative Care.
- Increase the number of Home Care Packages to 275,957 by 2025-26.
- Increase respite care places by 8,400 places each year.
- Provide $3.9 billion for 200 minutes of direct care and 16 hours on-site nursing daily, moving to a phased implementation of 24/7 nurses and 215 minutes of direct daily care by 2024.
- Invest $20.1 million to transition to a new funding model that better supports the needs of aged care residents.
- Improve the quality of nutrition and care with an additional $3.2 billion for daily basic fee.
- Grow the aged care workforce, including additional 48,800 training places for aged care workers, 5,200 clinical placement of nurses and 13,000 new personal care workers.
- $345.7 million for improved medication management services in residential aged care.
Primary Care
- Grow Medicare funding from $31.4 billion in 2022-23 to $35.5 billion in 2025-26.
- Provide additional $30.1 million for the National Preventive Health Strategy 2021-2030.
- Cut the PBS General Co-payment by $10 from 1 January 2023 (meaning maximum the price Australians pay for PBS medicines will drop from $42.50 down to $32.50.
- Reduce the PBS safety net to benefit over 2.4 million concession card holders who will need 12 fewer prescription to reach the safety net to be eligible for free medicines.
- $55.7 million to encourage Australians to catch up on regular health checks, diagnostic screening and other preventive health activities.
- $273.1 million to expand eligibility for the Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) initiative from 1 July 2022 to an additional 71,000 Australians with Type I diabetes.
- $66 million to increase access to Medicare funded MRI scans in regional, rural and remote Australia.
- $333 million towards the physical, mental, social and economic health and well-being of women and girls through the National Women’s Health Strategy 2020-2030.
- $10.6 million to establish a culturally and linguistically diverse Health Advisory Group to help all Australians understand the importance of preventive health and access to health services.
- $22.1 million for Multidisciplinary Outreach Services to deliver improved clinical care and reduce hospital admissions.
- Boosting public hospital funding by $9.8 billion.
- $648.6 million for Stage 2 of the National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Plan.
- $52.3 million to support Lifeline continuing to deliver digital mental health and telephone counselling service.
- Expand headspace services to 164 sites across Australia by 2025-6.
Research
- Invest $6.8 billion in medical research.
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Labor – policy announcements
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health
- Work with NACCHO and other community-controlled and health services to close the gap in First Nations health outcomes.
- Invest in capital upgrades in Aboriginal community-controlled health services, including the Yadu Health Aboriginal Corporation in Ceduna, Kambu Health in Ipswich and the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress clinics at Lytyentye Apurte (Santa Teresa) and Mutitjulu.
- $52.9 million for a First Nations Health Worker Traineeship Program to support up to 500 First Nations trainees to do Certificate III or IV accredited training as Aboriginal health workers or practitioners. Trainees will receive on the job experience and mentoring in local Aboriginal Community-Controlled Health Services (ACCHOs).
- $45 million for better renal services in the city and bush that includes up to 30 four-chair dialysis units and $15 million for small-scale water infrastructure projects that improve access to clean water, critical for dialysis and also stopping the spread of Trachoma and other diseases.
- Work with the Coalition of Peaks and all levels of government to raise ambitions and ensure sustained progress on the current National Agreement on Closing the Gap.
- Improve the condition and safety of housing in remote Indigenous communities which is vital in stopping the spread of Trachoma.
Aged Care
- Make it mandatory to have a registered nurse onsite 24 hours a day in residential aged care facilities.
- Lift the average care time for each resident to 215 minutes per day – providing an average of an extra 35 minutes of care time per resident per day than current levels.
- Back a real pay rise for aged care workers to ensure we can recruit the workforce we need to provide safe, quality care to a growing number of older Australians.
- Establish a registration scheme for personal care workers to protect residents and further professionalise the aged care workforce.
- Improve care continuity by requiring providers to preference direct employment, addressing the overreliance on temporary staff.
Disability Services
- Stop the cuts to NDIS plans by introducing an Expert Review that will guarantee plans are not being unfairly reduced.
- Putt people with disability back at the centre of the NDIS by identifying and solving the problems with the design and operation of the scheme, ensuring solutions are evidence based and codesigned with people with disability, their families and carers, service providers and workers and increase the number of people with disability on the NDIA executive and board.
- Publish data so the scheme can be properly monitored, evaluated, and interrogated. Identify gaps in the current evidence base and gather more information, data and research.
- Share governance with people with disability and their families and State and Territory Governments, and ensure the scheme is working with mainstream services.
- Strengthen the disability services sector with a review of NDIS pricing, markets and compliance, and develop a comprehensive NDIS workforce strategy.
- Tackle the barriers to service delivery in remote areas of Australia and other areas.
- Pause the current changes to Supported Independent Living (SIL) that are being progressed without proper consultation.
- Investigate the $500 million Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA) underspend to ensure people with disability can access appropriate housing.
Overseas Development Assistance
- Increase Overseas Development Assistance to Pacific countries by $525 million to support Australian bilateral and regional aid and development projects in Pacific countries and Timor-Leste. This includes expanding existing projects and developing new ones and will include support for health and disability.
Primary Care
- Establish an Australian Centre for Disease Control (CDC) to prevent non-communicable (chronic) as well as communicable (infectious) diseases.
- Boost workforce incentives for rural and regional GPs to support the engagement of nurses, allied health and other health professionals and provide multidisciplinary team-based care.
- Expand the Innovative Models of Collaborative Care program across rural and regional Australia to attract, support and retain rural health professionals.
- Introduce Medicare Urgent Care Clinics (bulk-billed) which will make it easier for Australian families to see a doctor or a nurse when they have an urgent, but not life threatening, need for care.
- Reinstate Medicare support for telehealth psychiatry consultations across regional and rural Australia, ensuring everyone has access to mental health services regardless of where they live.
Research
- Create the Advanced Strategic Research Agency (ASRA) for technology sharing, research and development.
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The Greens – policy announcements
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health
- $371m to self-determined, community-led First Nations health services to increase their capacity to care for their own communities
- Ensure people have early access to preventative programs and provide funding of $1.07b to build First Nations owned healing places
- Expand Gold Card access to First Nations Elders aged 60 and above so they can access the healthcare, treatment and services they deserve
- Grow the First Nations health and wellbeing workforce to provide culturally appropriate care to their communities
Aged Care
- Provide $6 billion per year to increase hours of care to 4 hours 18 minutes per resident per day, introduce staff to resident ratios, increase wages and improve conditions and training.
- Phase out for-profit providers.
- Guarantee a human rights based approach to aged care and physical and chemical restraints
- Invest $260 million to keep the home care package waiting list clear
Disability Services
- Implement public sector workforce strategies to boost employment of women, First Nations, CALD people, and people with a disability.
Global
- Increase Australia’s aid budget to 0.7% of GNI by 2030
- Use a boosted foreign aid budget to invest in COVAX to support global equitable vaccine access
- Adopt a human-rights centred approach to foreign policy
- Use diplomatic relationships to advocate for human rights around the world
- Place the human rights and self-determination of women and girls at the centre of Australian development assistance programs
- Establish an independent development oversight agency
Public Health & Hospitals
- Reinvest private health insurance rebates back into the public system, slashing out of pocket costs
- Fund hospitals and clear public hospital surgery wait lists
- Make telehealth a permanent part of Medicare
- Fund team based healthcare for people with chronic conditions
- Invest an extra $8 billion by legislating equal funding of hospitals between the Commonwealth and states
- Invest $4.8 billion to ensure mental healthcare is fully covered under Medicare by providing unlimited sessions with a psychologist or psychiatrist with no out of pocket fees
- Invest $2.5 billion to implement a national rollout of the Individual Placement and Support program to help young people impacted by poor mental health find stable work
- Increase the number of peer workers by 1,000 workers, so those with lived experience can provide invaluable support to those going through recovery
- Advocate for the development of specialised, ongoing mental health training for medical students and GPs
- Establish a National Centre for Disease Control to lead a unified, apolitical health approach across the entire country and ensure we can deal with the threat of new emerging diseases
- Improve the health of every person at all life stages – not just when they become sick, so we can reduce rates of preventable disease, poor health and avoidable hospital admissions
Research
- Making Australia a global leader in science, research and innovation, with a $17.8 billion investment in the sector over the decade
- Investing $5.5 billion in universities, the powerhouses of the research ecosystem, and improve job security for scientists and researchers.
- Establish a Secure Work for Researchers fund, to help universities and research institutes transition their workers to secure employment.