Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to this debate today. It is a really important issue. People are struggling with the cost of living, they are struggling with everything in their household budgets going up, and sadly we have even heard over the last 48 hours that it is more than likely that many people are going to cop another rate rise on their mortgages, at a time when people are already out their wits end.

A cost-of-living crisis is putting a wrecking ball through family budgets. It costs more to go to the supermarket each week. It costs more to make sure the lunchboxes are full. It costs more to make sure the kids have school uniforms and new jumpers for winter. It costs more to pay for the home insurance. It costs more to pay for private health insurance. It costs more to go to the doctor and it is costing a whole lot more if you need to get dental or mental healthcare.

So, while this bill does help some in the community with the freezing of the indexation of costs, when it comes to medicines, it is already pretty bloody expensive to even get the prescription in the first place. We have got this proud history and a narrative we tell ourselves in Australia about universal health care: 'We are not like America.' But, when you look at each of the financial barriers and the practical barriers to getting good-quality, affordable healthcare in this country, there is another story for many people. If you can even get an appointment with your local GP on the day that you are sick, it is going to cost you anywhere from $40 to $100. That is with Medicare. Fewer and fewer doctors' practices around the country bulk-bill. It is very, very hard to get a bulk-billed spot these days. So, if you don't have the cash flow to pay that upfront fee, the $60, $80, $100—sometimes even more—just to get in to see the doctor, you are not going. So you can't even get in to the doctor to get the prescription and then wonder how you're going to afford the prescription.

You walk into the supermarket these days and you see ads for Afterpay on the supermarket shelves—packet of pasta here, fresh vegetables there—'Put it on Afterpay'. The reason Afterpay is advertising in our supermarkets and on supermarket shelves is because people don't have cash in their bank accounts. They don't have enough money to pay for the essentials, so they're having to make decisions day in, day out about what they pay for. Do they do the full supermarket shop this week, make sure the school lunches are all sorted and make sure everybody's got good tucker for when they come home from school and work? Or do they think that that sniffle that little Freddie has is about to turn into the flu and they actually might need to go to the doctor, so perhaps they won't do the full supermarket shop this week? Perhaps they'll wait and see whether that sniffle runs through the whole family and everyone has to go and get a prescription for antibiotics or other medicine. These are the real-life choices that families are having to make every day and every week. People are struggling. As we know, it is always those who are already on the margins and already struggling, the lowest-paid workers in this country, who every single day are forced to make these decisions.

What happens if you get sick anyway and you work a casual job? You don't get paid for your days off. You don't get paid sick leave. Your income is going to go down anyway, so how on earth are you going to pay for the doctor and that prescription when you are going to have to take time off work either to go the doctor or because you are so sick? So, then, people are making choices about whether they are even going to go to work. It's crazy to me that in 2024 we don't have universal sick leave for every worker in this country.

In my home state of South Australia in the last month we have had code yellows on and off in our public hospital system. Do you know what that means? It means that elective surgery gets pushed back because the hospitals are struggling with the number of emergency patients. The reason there are so many emergency patients is that everybody is sick with the flu and COVID. During the pandemic, during the COVID period, health officials advised governments that one of the best things we could do to stop the spread of COVID was encourage people to stay at home and, in order to encourage people to stay at home, they could access sick pay, pandemic pay. They didn't lose out financially because they had to stay at home to stop the spread of disease. Fast forward a couple of years and we are now in a situation where the lowest paid workers in this country are still having to go to work sick because there is no paid sick leave. So if you took the day off work, or the morning or the afternoon, to go to the doctor, you'll fork out your $80, you'll get your prescription and it'll cost you another $20. You'll maybe get some more Panadol or Nurofen. If the doctor has said to you, 'You're really sick and should not go back to work; I'll give you a sick certificate,' good luck with that if you are casual. This is what is wrong with the system. We pretend that everybody has access to good-quality health care in this country, but they don't. The barriers are too high. The costs are too high. The supports for people to be able to take care of their health and be preventive are simply not there.

We know that preventive health isn't taken seriously in this country because, if it were, you'd be able to pay for your dental health on your Medicare card. One of the single easiest, simplest ways of helping people stay healthy and not fall into chronic disease is ensuring that people's mouths are kept healthy and that their teeth are able to be cared for. It costs an average of $215 to go to the dentist and get a check-up, and none of that can be put on Medicare. Some dentists charge more just for a clean, a check-up and a scale. If we are serious about ensuring Australians are kept healthy and can be encouraged to keep themselves healthy to reduce the burden on the health budget of chronic illness, this government has got to get serious about funding dental care for everyone and allow people to go to the dentist, put it on their Medicare card and ensure they can keep their mouths healthy.

It is ridiculous that, in a wealthy country like Australia, if you break your elbow, you can go to the emergency department and get your elbow looked at, put in plaster and x-rayed, but if you break your tooth, it will cost you hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. If we're serious about looking after the health of Australians, we have to get serious about making doctors accessible, making prescriptions affordable, and ensuring that mental health or dental care can be paid for by the healthcare system or Medicare as well.

We know that the cost of health care is rising. Two-thirds of Australians—67 per cent—avoid going to the dentist because it's too expensive. Everyone in this place might think: 'Why don't people just pay private health insurance and get extras cover? You can get to the dentist, have a clean and look after your teeth.' But, of course, you have to have the money to pay for the huge hikes in private health insurance to do that, and people just don't have that kind of cash in a cost-of-living crisis, particularly our lowest income families and lowest paid workers.

Only last year, in 2023, the Australian Bureau of Statistics found that 19.3 per cent of patients could not afford to see a healthcare professional for their mental health. That's up 16 per cent from the year before. Not only are we not helping people care for their teeth to keep the rest of their bodies healthy; we're forcing people to neglect their mental health. We know that the flow-on effects of that on the broader health system are catastrophic. The number of patients in our public hospitals is crippling our emergency departments because mental health has hit a crisis point. It's crippling the bed numbers in our hospitals.

You're a Labor government. You care about health care. It's in your blood. You have to start funding it properly. You have to start funding it so that people can prevent serious illness. We need to find preventive health so the community can be kept healthy and reduce the burden on the rest of the health budget. You shouldn't have to go to the emergency department at the hospital just to get a prescription because you couldn't get in to see a doctor. You shouldn't have to take your kids to the emergency room just because they have a cold and you're worried about it spreading or because you need a doctor's certificate to prove to your boss that you're sick. And when are we going to start supporting parents in this country to take time off work because their kids are sick, without losing hours? If you want to stop the spread of COVID, the flu and other diseases, people have to be able to afford to stay at home. It worked during the pandemic—we know it did—why on earth haven't we been able to see that follow through to 2024? (Time Expired)