Health
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7th September, 2013 The Labor government abandoned its promise to reform Australia’s health and hospital system. Health care costs skyrocketed, particularly for private health, but promised health, dental and disability care schemes were left to the next government to pay for. |
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22nd May, 2013 Labor announces new tax levy of 0.5% to pay the cost of the NDIS, reversing earlier commitments that there would be no such levy |
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14th May, 2013 2013 BUDGET • $14.3 billion allocated for Disability Care scheme over seven years • Medicare Levy to rise by 0.5 per cent to 2.0 per cent to partially fund Disability Care • Cuts to the Extended Medicare Safety Net and Medical Expenses Tax Offset to save $1.7 billion over four years • Medicare bulk billing rebate for GPs frozen to save $664 million • New means test to be applied to aged care from July 2014 |
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4th May, 2013 Business Council of Australia report predicts that by 2050 health and aged care expenditure will rise from 28% to 46% of the Commonwealth Budget and from 26% to 41% of State Budgets (Deloitte Access Economics - The Australian) |
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24th April, 2013 40% of aged care providers do not want to sign new aged agreements to lift workers pay and qualify for a share of $1.2 billion of government payments which is conditional on a union workplace agreement (The Australian) |
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24th April, 2013 Labor cuts $1.2 billion from Aged Care Funding Instrument over the forward estimates in its Longer Living Better package |
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2nd April, 2013 Labor spends millions advertising its reversal of hospital funding cuts to Victoria but has not returned the money (Financial Review) |
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2nd April, 2013 Victorian hospitals hit by an extra $6.7 million in energy costs because of the carbon tax in the first six months - bills up an average of 15 per cent (Herald Sun) |
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18th December, 2012 Labor rips $1.6 billion from public hospitals resulting in lost hospital beds, nursing staff and vital services while Canberra leases more office space for its new health bureaucracies. Elective surgery waiting lists continue to grow under Labor, $4 billion has been cut from private health insurance and the chronic dental disease program abolished |
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19th October, 2012 Gillard Government has collected $850 million in dividends since it converted Medicare Private to "for profit" status in 2009 (Senate Estimates) |
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17th October, 2012 Health expenditure will fall by $165 million this financial year in spite of a large population using more services. $520 million less will go for Medicare services and benefits, $203 million less on hospital services and $574 million less on health services. Departmental administration will increase by $39 million (Senate Estimates) |
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26th June, 2012 $3.5 billion of aged care developments shelved since the announcement of the Gillard Government's new aged care package (Senate Hansard) |
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17th May, 2012 Auditor General begins probe into Labor's GP Super Clinic program following reports only 24 of the promised 64 clinics are operating. At least 9 will not open until 2015-16. Few of the clinics are in locations where there is a GP shortage (The Australian) |
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22nd March, 2012 GP super clinic at Modbury opened in November 2010 still has no permanent doctors. Another newly opened Adelaide clinic is being staffed by doctors borrowed from a nearby private practice. The two super clinics cost $50 million to build (The Australian) |
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29th February, 2012 Health Insurance Premiums expected to rise by $150 per year for an average family even without the Private Health Insurance Rebate changes. Since in office Labor has never had an annual increase below 4.5 percent - a figure described as "horrible" by Julia Gillard when in Opposition |
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28th February, 2012 The cost of Labor's new e-health electronic health record system has blown out by $300 million to $760 million (The Australian) |
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29th December, 2011 Only 30% of 1.2 million eligible teenagers are accepting Labor's $160 dental checkup vouchers. Parents say there is no point in getting a checkup when they could not afford any recommended treatment. Meanwhile 400,000 people are on waiting lists for state funded free dental schemes and Federal Labor pushed ahead with attempts to abolish the Coalition's successful $750 million a year Medicare Chronic Dental Disease Program (The Australian) Rural Doctors Association President Dr Paul Mara says doctors will cease providing after hours services after the Government drops its incentive payments in 2013 (The Australian) Only 19 of the original 31 GP Super Clinics promised by Labor at the 2007 election are fully operational. 7 months before the end of the first phase of the five year program (64 promised in total) two have been scrapped and three have required an extra $13 million of funding. Only four bulk bill all patients (The Australian) |
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23rd December, 2011 Of 10,493 residential care beds available for allocation this year, only 7,935 were sought. Even fewer will be built as the Government subsidies no not cover costs. However, 24,000 applications were received for community care (in home) services, but only 1,698 were offered (The Australian) |
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30th July, 2011 The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare says children living in remote areas are 30% more likely to be overweight, twice as likely to die as infants and were 40% to 50% less likely to meet literacy and numeracy standards |
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7th July, 2011 Federal Government backs down on more of its so called national health reforms, abandoning a plan to move public hospital patients who have waited too long for elective surgery into private hospitals, and watering down wait times for emergency treatment. The GST clawback has been ditched and the States will continue to run their hospitals and the federal agency being established to monitor public hospitals will have no authority |
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14th June, 2011 Government announces plans to close Medicare Easyclaim facilities, mostly in regional areas |
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10th May, 2011 BUDGET 2011-12 Government announces a mental health package totalling $2.2 billion over five years but most of the money is at the end of the program and not provided for in the Budget. Actual expenditure on mental health in 2011-12 is reduced. New expenditure on mental health is only $583 million over four years Increased expenditure on the Headspace Program for mental health for young people - $19.7 million over five years compared with Coalition’s commitment of $225 million over 4 years Limits placed on the Better Access Program’s number of services for people with mild or moderate mental illness — the Medicare rebates for doctors were reduced in the Budget, saving $582 million $138.7 million provided to continue bowel cancer screening program for four years $550 million in cuts to pathology services over the next five years $613 million for new PBS listings over five years but still a long list of unfunded approved new medicines Labor Government will try again to close down the previous Government’s Chronic Disease Dental program by 31-12-2011 $52.6 million over four years to provide 50 dental internships per year Government commits again to break its election promise and means test Private Health Insurance Rebates costing consumers $1.9 billion directly Capital funding for new hospitals halved from promised $10 billion to $5 billion but money provided for hospital development in Hobart ($340 million) Tamworth ($120 million) and Port Macquarie ($96 million) Savings of $212 million in provision of high level residential care of aged Australia Number of funded MRI units to increase from 125 to 208 over 4 years |
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16th February, 2011 Labor spent $13 million on advertising health changes before the election which have now been axed |
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6th February, 2011 Hundreds of health professionals, including dentists, psychologists, and physiotherapists have been prevented from practising because the Federal Government's new Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency which started in July last year has not yet processed the registration |
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12th December, 2010 Health Minister Roxon acknowledges that new Local Hospital Networks will not be "local" with only 46 in total between NSW, QLD, SA, NT, ACT, & TAS instead of a promised 150 Australia wide |
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3rd December, 2010 $25 million GP super clinic opens in Adelaide but has no doctors (The Australian Of Labor's 7 fully operational GP clinics, only one is offering after hours services and only two bulk bill all patients |
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19th November, 2010 AMA says the Government's $5.5 billion of extra hospital funding has so far resulted in only 11 more hospital beds (then PM Rudd promised the funding would create 3000 extra beds). The number of extra elective surgery operations was up to 29500 (in spite of Government claims of 41589) up only 8500 above trend growth. AMA says States are simply absorbing extra money to meet their rising costs |
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12th November, 2010 Labor Government delays approval for new drugs on the PBS by up to a year as a revenue saving measure in spite of a promise to speed up the PBS approvals process. Drugs affected by the delay include Vidaza, a treatment for lukemia which was approved by PABC 14 months ago; and Avodart, a treatment for enlarged prostate which has been waiting for approval for 11 months (The Australian) |
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20th October, 2010 Government bought 21 million doses of swine flu vaccine at a cost of $100 million but almost half have been allowed to pass their expiry date (Senate Estimates) |
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7th September, 2010 More than 1000 fewer babies will be born this year using IVF as a result of Government reduced Medicare payments making treatment unaffordable for many. |
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2nd July, 2010 Health Minister Roxon describes Coalition initiative to spend an extra $1.5 billion on new mental health initiatives as 'crazy' |
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30th June, 2010 Public hospital waiting lists for elective surgery are now larger than they were five years ago |
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24th June, 2010 Kevin Rudd deposed as Prime Minister and replaced by Ms Julia Gillard |
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23rd June, 2010 NSW Health tells State hospitals that little will change under Federal Government's health reforms |
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21st June, 2010 Government's chief adviser on mental health Professor John Mendoza resigns, claiming Labor has "no vision or commitment" to mental health and said Labor was claiming credit for the former Coalition Government's mental health reform |
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17th June, 2010 The Labor Government reverses its decision to establish a new national health watch dog leaving the states to continue to manage health expenditure |
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20th May, 2010 First Budget backdown of 2010-11 Budget as Rudd Government defers plan to prevent social workers and occupational therapists from providing mental health treatments under Medicare |
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11th May, 2010 BUDGET The 2010-11 Budget makes $2.5 billion savings to the Government in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme over 5 years Labor's 2010-11 Budget contains $500 million for a new federal heath bureaucracy even though the government backed down on its promised takeover of hospitals from the States Labor's 2010-11 Budget increases the medical expenses tax offset threshold from $1500 to $2000 leaving people with more out-of-pocket health costs |
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29th April, 2010 Professor David Penington turns on the Government's proposed health changes saying they will make little difference to the way hospitals are run |
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22nd April, 2010 Kevin Rudd backs down and agrees to allow the States to keep managing hospitals even though they did not meet his election commitment to fix hospitals by July 2009. The promised referendum will not occur and there will be no local hospital boards making decisions about local health needs. Only 165 of the nation's 764 hospitals will be funded by the activity based model promised by the Prime Minister |
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16th April, 2010 Labor announces new hospital spending in marginal electorates to persuade states to hand over 33% of their GST revenue to fund Rudd's health scheme |
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14th April, 2010 Legal experts confirm that the Federal Government does not need a constitutional referendum to provide extra funds for hospitals or to manage health services (Prof Anne Twomey) |
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13th April, 2010 IT experts slam Government proposal for electronic health records as 'confused' and a potential 'public health disaster' |
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9th April, 2010 78% of $3.2 billion of health and hospital projects has gone to Labor electorates even though Labor holds only 55% of electorates |
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6th April, 2010 83% of spending under Labor's Health and Hospital Fund is in Labor electorates or electorates notionally Labor since electorate redistribution 80% of funding for GP super clinics has been allocated to Labor electorates |
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23rd March, 2010 PM Rudd admits that many country hospitals will close if he does not change his case mix funding model for hospitals |
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23rd March, 2010 Queensland Labor Government admits offering incentives to hospital patients to bill their private health fund for hospital treatment |
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23rd February, 2010 Government approves 6% increase in private health insurance premiums |
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30th January, 2010 The cost of Labor's new Medicare benefit for psychiatric consultations has blown out by more than $1 billion but those considered most in need (including those in rural and regional areas) are not being helped. |
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7th January, 2010 Only one quarter of flu vaccine doses costing $120 million bought by the Rudd Government have been administered |
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10th December, 2009 Labor's promise to deliver 35 General Practice Super Clinics is in tatters with only one delivered after two years in office. Another centre, in Darwin partially operational is in fact being funded by the Norther Territory Government |
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8th December, 2009 Federal Labor Government puts off health reform for another six months despite its election promise to have the hospital system fixed by 30-6-2009 |
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14th October, 2009 AMA report on public hospitals says waiting lists have got worse since the election of the Rudd Labor Government |
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30th September, 2009 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports that State Labor Governments have reduced their health spending in response to higher Federal Government contributions |
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9th July, 2009 1915 Government funded aged care places were not taken up in 2008-09 (813 in Queensland) because funding levels are inadequate |
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1st July, 2009 The Rudd Labor Government reduces the number of new aged care beds to be funded from 7600 to 5748. Only 1603 of 2416 promised for Queensland will be funded. Only 40% of the beds promised for the Wide Bay region have been funded |
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1st July, 2009 Only 288 of the 2000 new aged care places promised by Labor at the last election were operational by 30-06-2009. 2000 places have closed since the election |
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9th June, 2009 It was revealed in Senate Estimates that at the time Health Minister Nicola Roxon was publicly stating that "the Government is firmly committed to retaining the existing private health insurance rebates" the Prime Minister's department was providing advice about the specific proposal to slash private health rebates in the Budget |
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9th June, 2009 The Rudd Labor Government will slug 58,000 users of Government subsidised continence aids the cost of postage delivery to their homes |
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12th May, 2009 BUDGET Labor has broken its promise to leave the private health rebate untouched, with reduced rebates for private health insurance for those earning over $75,000 The 11.1 million Australians with private health insurance will now pay more, with many forced to join already-crowded public hospital waiting rooms Changes to the Medicare Safety Net will hurt Australians trying to access essential services such as obstetrics, reproductive technology and cataract surgery |
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25th November, 2008 Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard's hair dresser partner appointed by Federal Government as a special ambassador on men's health - even though he has no health qualifications |
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30th May, 2008 Medibank Private revealed that it expects to lose up to 290,000 members as a result of Labor’s Medicare Surcharge changes |
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13th May, 2008 BUDGET The Medicare Levy surcharge threshhold is increased driving up to half a million people out of private health insurance funds and onto public hospital queues. |
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22nd April, 2008 Labor promises an end to the Medicare dental benefits scheme which provided up to $2,150 (a year) to more than 20,000 dental patients a month |
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11th March, 2008 Labor threatens the 1.75% Conditional Adjustment Payment to assist aged care providers deliver high quality care |
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6th March, 2008 Labor approves a 5% hike for health insurance premiums |
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4th March, 2008 Labor axes the Coalition's $385 million Medicare Dental scheme |
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27th February, 2008 Labor suspends the $25 million responsible drinking and $37 million drug awareness campaigns |
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25th February, 2008 Labor swipes $8 million from Northern Tasmanian hospitals |
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20th February, 2008 $184 million cut from Labor's teen dental health care election promise |
