Page 1622 - Week 05 - Thursday, 15 May 2014
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When it comes to health, seniors are the major users of Australia’s healthcare system. The introduction of co-payments for GP visits, emergency departments and medicines will mean basic health care may well be compromised for many seniors. The new GP co-payments will hit low-income seniors hard. Current cost-of-living pressure results in many seniors reducing their spending in some areas and even going without some essential items.
A significant proportion of seniors are currently unable to meet some of their basic living costs and this will put further pressure on them. I hope we do not get to a situation where seniors decide not to go to the GP to have their health issues diagnosed or forgo their prescription medication, because this may result in them getting sicker and ending up in expensive tertiary hospital care with more limited life expectancy.
Seniors with chronic or multiple health conditions stand to be severely penalised by the co-payment across all Medicare-funded health services. For me this is one of the most concerning areas in the budget. As I said in some remarks yesterday, I think all Australians look at America and say, “That’s not the health system we want.” Yet, to my mind, this co-payment is very much a step in that direction and one that I think really undermines a long and proud tradition in Australia of universal free health care.
Changes to eligibility in benefits of the commonwealth seniors health card will also affect 5,200 Canberra residents holding such a card. (Time expired.)
MR WALL (Brindabella) (4.52): As Mr Smyth has already echoed, we regret the job cuts. There is nothing that any Canberran despises more than the loss of jobs that are locally based. But to say that the budget is simply all doom and gloom is, I guess, a little bit inaccurate. Mr Rattenbury wanted to have a go at me for saying that there is an incentive there for hiring people over the age of 50 that have been on a long-term unemployment benefit or disability benefit. It is an incentive to help change that attitude. It seems that the age of 67 was completely acceptable—
Discussion concluded.
Adjournment
Motion by Mr Barr proposed:
That the Assembly do now adjourn.
Alexander Maconochie Centre—throughcare unit
DR BOURKE (Ginninderra) (4.53): The Alexander Maconochie Centre’s role in our community is much more than safely detaining those legally taken off the streets. Returning detainees to the community at the end of their sentence with the best chance of starting a new life, free of crime, is their toughest job. With this in mind, the ACT government established the pilot AMC throughcare unit program in the 2012-13 financial year. The aim was reducing reoffending and encouraging reintegration into the community through coordinating support for offenders for up to 12 months
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