Page 1602 - Week 05 - Thursday, 15 May 2014
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Among the agencies which will be hardest hit in the next four years are the Australian Taxation Office, the Department of Industry, CSIRO, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Australian Federal Police.
In a severe case of cost shifting, the commonwealth has reneged on funding commitments and COAG reforms without consultation and without agreement from states and territories. Nationally, these cuts equate to some $80 billion over the next decade and in the order of $1.3 billion in the ACT based on our population share.
Health funding growth will change from next financial year. Over the next 10 years the ACT will lose hundreds of millions of dollars in commonwealth funding and well over $100 million in the budget forward years alone. The commonwealth has torn up the agreement made with every state and territory under national health reforms. Funding in future years now ignores activity levels, appears to be provided on a population basis and does not recognise the 25 per cent of health services the ACT provides to the people of New South Wales.
The funding guarantee is gone, which will penalise the ACT because of our smaller scale and higher costs. Indexation on commonwealth funding will also fall and will see jurisdictions having to shoulder a far greater share of health costs into the future. The value of funding received in 2013-14 from agreements expiring on 1 July 2014 is $25.31 million and we estimate a further $10.4 million is at risk over the forward estimates.
The agreements ending this year include: improving public hospital services, $9.9 million; financial assistance for long-stay older patients, $3.2 million; training places—single and teen parents, $250,000; joint group training program, $290,000; youth attainment and transitions, $1.14 million; improving teacher quality, $3.13 million; Indigenous early childhood development, $1.1 million; home and community care for veterans, $140,000; emergency services, $4 million; and certain concessions for pension concession card and seniors card holders, $2 million.
Unfortunately, the commonwealth stripping funding from health will not make the costs go away. People will still arrive at the emergency department. They will still require operations, cancer treatment and renal dialysis. This decision simply shifts the burden to the states and territories. The announced GP co-payment does not reduce the cost of primary health care in our community. It simply concentrates the burden on the sick and the poor.
In school education, the commonwealth will abandon its previous commitments of increasing funding by 4.7 per cent plus enrolments growth each year and bringing all schools up to an equitable, national level of funding. Instead, in the outyears, growth in commonwealth funding for schools will be reduced to CPI plus enrolments growth from 2018 onwards and the differences in funding that exist between different schools will thereby remain.
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