Public Health Association of Australia
30 March 2022
The 2022-23 Australian Budget is a major disappointment and represents another missed opportunity to invest in Public Health and prevention in multiple ways that would have improved the lives of everyone in Australia.
There are some initiatives, such as $40.7 m over three years for bowel, breast and cervical cancer screening, money for alcohol and drug services, and other Public Health issues like a study on the effects of junk food advertising on children.
There's $9.7 million over three years to "extend community driven initiatives to improve levels of physical activity." But the Budget cuts fuel excise for six months to encourage people to drive more, which will increase air pollution in our neighbourhoods, and exacerbate the worsening effects of climate change.
We welcome $700,000 over four years to develop a National Nutrition Policy Framework. It could have been complemented by lifting levies on alcohol, tobacco, and sugar-sweetened beverages – all of which make people in Australia sicker, and exacerbate chronic diseases.
Furthermore, after testing the Budget against the National Preventive Health Strategy 2021‑2030 – to which the PHAA contributed and helped launch last December – it's clear Public Health has again been ignored, PHAA CEO, Adjunct Professor Terry Slevin said.
"Last December that Strategy set a target of raising prevention to 5 per cent of health spending, but this Budget's continued focus on treatment, expensive drugs, and tertiary health care must mean that the current rating of 1.7 per cent will actually be even less," he said.
"This is a Budget about treatment of people who have been allowed to develop preventable diseases, and about enormously expensive pharmaceuticals.
"When we put that lens of public and preventive health as outlined in the National Preventive Health Strategy across the 2022 Federal Budget, I'm sorry, but the Budget is an F minus.
"Messages about workforce funding are starting to get through – such as in mental health and primary care and other areas.
"But across the broader public health workforce, there's not a zack for the long-term investment in the people who are essential for their expertise and leadership to tackle the next challenges, be they communicable disease, chronic disease prevention, and others.
"This government failed on public and preventive health. Every year, we are promised 'next year, it'll come next year'. It still hasn't come.
"We've got to do better to protect the long-term health of everyone in Australia. Whoever forms the next government, they need to do better at prevention than we have been doing."
