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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-05-21 Daily Xml
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Federal Budget

Mrs VLAHOS (Taylor) (15:43): I do not normally raise negative things when I use my grievances. I prefer, as do some of the members on the other side, to use them for positive things and to talk about my community and to give voice to people in this place that often are not spoken about. But today, after the recent federal budget, I have no alternative but to use the time to raise concerns that I have for my electors in the area of Taylor, who I represent.

The recent federal budget has been a nightmare. In fact, many people have raised their concerns and rung my office, and there are many anxious and frightened people in the northern suburbs, particularly in the area of Taylor. Only last year we had the announcement of the closure of the Holden plant. Many people in my area are affected by that: husbands and wives in the same house, extended families, children. There is already a great deal of uncertainty in the north, yet the federal government in Canberra has announced many changes which will profoundly affect the lives of people I represent, and over the next couple of days I intend to highlight some of these.

It is no wonder that our doctors, nurses and health professionals are deeply concerned about the cuts during these times. The recent federal budget has cut more than $600 million from South Australia's health budget over the next four years if everything goes to plan as the Abbott Liberal government would like. The federal government has reneged on its national health reform agreement and reduced its fair share of funding for South Australia's hospitals. It has walked away from the National Partnership Agreement about our health system and the agreements that we needed to do to pick up our health reform pace.

At the end of the forward estimates in 2017-18, South Australia is expected to be $269 million worse off in that year alone. I believe this is the equivalent of closing nearly 600 hospital beds, or all of the beds at the Lyell McEwen Hospital in the northern suburbs and the Women's and Children's Hospital for a year. It gets worse: with the new $7 co-payment for standard general practitioner consultations and out-of-hospital pathology and diagnostic imaging services, these costs will drive more people to our public hospital emergency departments and this will put enormous strain on EDs and increase waiting times.

One of the things that perhaps did not get highlighted last week that particularly concerns me as a mother of young children is the fact that there will be a huge blow to the vaccination programs in our nation. This is quite baffling in that it makes no sense for young families who want to keep their kids in child care and go out and earn an income. If their children are sick and not vaccinated, that is going to be a huge problem.

Effectively, as the AMA has confirmed, the childhood vaccinations that were previously free under the bulk billing system will now incur a $7 Medicare co-payment, along with all other bulk bill services. In fact, there will be no exemptions for low-income families, and as one of the researchers in this area (Jessica Kaufman, who wrote an article in The Drum) highlights, it is just a huge knock-on effect in the vaccination area.

The current vaccination schedule requires six separate GP visits to receive vaccines for the first 18 months of a child's life. Let's imagine a fairly typical scenario. A family of young children have a bad week: the power bill is due, the car breaks down, one child has an ear infection and the baby is due for vaccination. If there is not enough money to go through all of these expenses, what do you think will be dropped and postponed? A vaccination schedule is designed to make sure children develop long-lasting immunities by delivering vaccines with a specific amount of time between doses. When children are late for a dose, they are considered to be under-vaccinated and they may be susceptible to diseases.

Even for parents who will not struggle with the co-payment, there is a disincentive for the contribution to keep going. New South Wales has also brought in a policy of 'no jab, no play' this year, and in fact it is a very sensible policy. Rather than throwing up hurdles to timely and appropriate vaccination, the government should be encouraging it. Vaccines protect all of us, and they protect herd immunity. Most people in the population are vaccinated; if we are actively making it harder for low-income families or children to maintain our vaccination rates at a national level, we are actually affecting our economy in how parents contribute and how those people react later on in their lives if they are ill.

So, that is one little way that it is affecting us. There are also the proposed cuts to the dental system, as well, which will again be another knock-on to people in my electorate. Health experts are saying that cuts to dental funding in the federal government will mean more people will be languishing on public dental waiting lists. I will continue at another time.

Time expired.

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