Who should pay for Aboriginal health?
The federal government has been flying many kites before the May 10 budget. There is debate on how much extra funding should go to the neglected area of Aboriginal health, and whether it should come from a rise in the Medicare levy.
Latest reports suggest that the government will opt for a flat rate increase, ie an extra tax, placing an even greater financial burden on the less well-off. In linking the issue of extra funds for Aboriginal health to a rise in the Medicare levy, the government is cynically exploiting a moral issue for its own ends.
Both the Greens (WA) and the Democrats support a boost in funds for Aboriginal health. The Democrats have criticised the Greens for not supporting a flat rate increase in the Medicare levy, accusing them of jeopardising the whole Aboriginal health package. The Greens argue that they have not ruled out supporting a levy rise, but nevertheless see it as an inequitable tax.
Government sources would have us believe that former health minister Graham Richardson suddenly saw the light earlier this year on a trip to the Northern Territory. Shortly before his retirement from politics in March, he announced his "prescription to right a horrible wrong": an increase in the Aboriginal health budget of $800 million over four years, paid for by a rise in the Medicare levy.
Scarcely had Richardson bowed out of the limelight than new health minister Carmen Lawrence announced a change in the parameters of the project. Shortly after discussions with the Expenditure Review Committee, more accurately known as the razor gang, came the announcement that Aboriginal health would be granted only an extra $195 million over five years. (While the figure being bandied about is $470 million over five years, this includes the $285 million already allocated under the five-year National Aboriginal Health Strategy ending in financial year 1994-95).
Both the Australian Medical Association and Aboriginal groups have criticised the government's change. Only 0.14% of Australian health services money currently goes to Aboriginal people, Naomi Mayers, chief executive officer of the Aboriginal Medical Service, told Green Left Weekly. The promised $800 million would have brought that up to only 2.4%, a figure which, in her view, fails to take into account either the historical legacy or current discrimination against Aborigines.
Australia is an advanced country, yet a high percentage of Aboriginal people live in Third World conditions. Only two out of five Aboriginal people can expect to live to the age of 65, compared with four out of five other Australians. The Aboriginal infant mortality rate is four times higher than for non-Aboriginal children.
There can be no question that extra funds must be made available not only for Aboriginal health, but for the infrastructure and support services required. Aboriginal communities must be able to determine how and where these funds are spent. But to link this to a rise in the Medicare levy (which funds only about 25% of the current health budget) is a cynical exercise.
The badly needed injection of massive funding into all areas of Aboriginal health should not come at the expense of those who can least afford it.
The Labor government slashed the corporate tax rate from 49% in 1983 to its present 33%. Last year's tax concessions to companies amounted to some $390 million. Surely the necessary funds for Aboriginal health would best be gathered from increasing the corporate tax rate to its 1983 level.