Public Health & Hospitals Funding
In the last nine years in government, the Coalition has ripped money out of hospitals and Medicare and has done nothing to address looming health crises like diabetes and heart disease.
As a result, many Australians are forced to pay enormous out-of-pocket costs for doctors, hospital visits, dental care and mental health services.
Private health insurance remains expensive and patchy, yet the government continues to allocate the billions of dollars that should be going directly to hospitals to private health insurance companies, who are making mega-bucks selling us services that don’t cover what we need.
4 big corporations control 70% of the subsidised private health market and are making huge profits at the expense of your health
The Greens plan includes:
- Reinvest the billion paid in private health insurance rebates back into the public system, slashing out of pocket costs
- Ensure everyone can get the care they need when they need it by funding our hospitals and clearing public hospital surgery waiting lists
- Make telehealth a permanent part of our Medicare system, increasing access to essential care for all
- Fund team based healthcare for people with chronic conditions, improving outcomes and quality of care
- Invest an extra $114 billion by legislating equal funding of hospitals between the Commonwealth and states, ensuring faster access and more services
Bring Dental into Medicare
Dental care is too expensive. People are putting off going to the dentist, and we’re seeing preventable dental issues get worse over time, causing lifelong health issues that can become serious illnesses.
Each year two million Australians delay or don’t go to the dentist because they can’t afford it
The Greens plan includes:
- Provide Medicare-funded free dental care to all, accessible through your Medicare card so everyone can visit the dentist when they need to
- Train the next generation of dentists through fee-free university to enable the expansion of dental care for all
Mental Health Care
Thanks to chronic underinvestment, and two years of lockdown, we now have a mental health crisis. Mental health care is expensive, hard to find, and appointments can take months to get because of long wait lists.
Most of the time, the Medicare rebate for mental health care doesn’t cover the full cost of seeing psychologists and psychiatrists.
The Greens plan includes:
- 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 so everyone can get the support they need, when they need it, at every stage of their mental health journey
- 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
- Address the social determinants of health like economic and social security. See our Equality & Justice policies for more.
Safe Drug Use
Millions of us smoke cannabis or take MDMA each year, and we are more at risk from the policing response than the drugs we take. Shifting to a health-based approach meets the reality that many people in our community use drugs and it will help reduce the impact of this use on our community, saving lives and money.
36% of Australians have used cannabis, and it accounts for the greatest proportion of illicit drug arrests across Australia
The Greens plan includes:
- Drug use is treated as a health issue, not a criminal one
- Legalise, tax and regulate cannabis to turn people away from the black market, because prohibition causes more harm than good
- Fund pill testing at festivals and in the community by establishing 14 new pill testing sites and avoid many preventable deaths
- Double Commonwealth Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment funding to $900 million to help ensure more people can get the treatment they need
- Invest $39.4 million to establish safe injecting facilities in each capital city
- Fully funded opioid substitution therapy, so more people can afford this life saving treatment
First Nations Health
50 years ago, First Nations people took the driver’s seat and set up Australia’s first community health centres.Today, First Nations services are some of the
best community services in the country and many mainstream health, legal assistance and childcare services are modelled on First Nations services.
But successive governments have blocked First Nations people from accessing the services and resources they need to be healthy. A lack of infrastructure, transport and culturally safe services have created poor health and wellbeing outcomes
Decisions made by successive governments have resulted in health inequality.
The Greens plan includes:
- Balancing the scales so everyone can enjoy the same level of care, treatment, and respect they need to live a good life
- Provide $371m to self-determined, community-led First Nations health services to increase their capacity to care for community
- Ensure people have early access to preventative programs and provide funding of $1.07b to build First Nations owned healing places
- Grow the First Nations health and wellbeing workforce to provide culturally appropriate care to their communities
Women’s Health
Women face huge barriers to accessing the right healthcare. They should be ensured that they have access to safe, accessible and affordable sexual and reproductive healthcare.
One third of Australian birthing parents experienced trauma during pregnancy and childbirth.
The Greens recognise that trans, gender-diverse and people with variations of sex characteristics experience further discrimination in relation to reproductive healthcare. Our women’s health policies apply equally to gender diverse patients. See also LGBTIQA+ Equality policy
The Greens plan includes:
- Make access to abortion safe, accessible, legal and free across the country
- Fund national data collection regarding experiences of maternity care
- Invest $129 million to support Birthing on Country projects to improve health outcomes for parents and babies
- Invest $68.5 million to provide free pads and tampons in all schools to improve students’ health and wellbeing, reduce period stigma, and ensure that no student has to skip school during their period
- More rights for the many workers who experience serious pain or debilitation associated with periods, endometriosis, menopause, or fertility procedures and are forced to exhaust their sick leave, take leave without pay, or work while in pain
Future Pandemics
Large-scale outbreaks can claim countless lives, disrupt our society and ravage the economy if we are not adequately prepared. We must establish a national framework for dealing with pandemics that ensures we can keep everyone as safe and healthy as possible. The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed the significant gaps in our planning and response to infectious disease outbreaks.
Australia is now the only country in the OECD that does not have a national authority on communicable disease control.
The Greens plan includes:
- Establish a National Centre for Disease Control with $246 million of funding to lead a unified, apolitical health approach across the entire country and ensure we can deal with the threat of new emerging diseases
- Invest $250 million over the next two years into Covid-19 vaccine research
- Ensure we can produce enough of our own vaccines onshore for everyone by building operating a publicly-owned mRNA vaccine production facility
- Use a boosted foreign aid budget to invest in COVAX to support global equitable vaccine access
Priortising Prevention
We’re facing increasing rates of chronic disease, we need better measures to improve the health and wellbeing of all of us. Preventive measures will help people live long and healthy lives regardless of their income or postcode.
About half of all Australians are living with a chronic condition.
The Greens plan includes:
- 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
- Dedicate funding to tackle the impact of climate change on health
Aged Care For All
Big corporations are making millions running aged care for profit. We have an ageing population and there is not enough care for older people in our community and they do not have access to treatment that is good enough. It’s time that older people in our country are given the level of care they need.
On average, aged care residents are only provided with 2 hours and 50 minutes of care per resident per day.
The Greens plan includes:
- 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
- Greater care and more registered nurses in aged care facilities, including a national palliative care workforce plan
Together, we’re powerful.
We have a plan to reduce the cost of living, make housing more affordable, tackle the climate crisis, and make sure everyone is looked after.
We'll take on the big corporations, stop them ripping you off, and and tax them to fund the things that everyone needs. The Greens are fighting for you.