The 2022-23 Federal Budget is a chance to learn from the experiences in recent weeks and months that led to the Omicron variant demonstrating how the economy and public health are interconnected, the Public Health Association of Australia says.
The PHAA’s pre-Budget submission, the Public Health Crisis Budget, outlines recommendations that would both improve the health of all Australians, and at the same time restore public confidence and bolster Commonwealth revenue to help repair the government’s finances.
Among the PHAA’s recommendations are:
· Begin enacting the National Preventive Health Strategy, in particular that 5% in aggregate of all government health expenditure go toward to preventive health investments by 2030 to tackle chronic diseases;
· Urgently address the need for an expanded public health workforce for Australia, taking into account the challenges of education, training, permanent resourcing, and retention;
· Establish an Australian Centre for Disease Control and Prevention;
· Embrace levies relating to alcohol, tobacco, and sugar-sweetened beverages, which would simultaneously achieve public health goals while generating revenue to offset other public health investments.
“We cannot emphasise enough that the state of the national economy, and the Budget, will always be affected by public health policy choices, programme resourcing, and effective delivery of programs such as testing, tracing, isolation and quarantine (TTIQ), clear evidence-based public messaging, and long-term recovery planning,” the PHAA pre-Budget submission says.
“Our key submission is therefore that never again should there be a failure to understand that public health policy IS economic policy.”
The PHAA estimates that its recommended revenue measures could generate an additional $17B+ over the forward estimates, CEO Adjunct Professor Terry Slevin said.
“Our recommendations for new expenditure total less than less than $1.5B. It is important to note that our submission does not aim to project all the existing or even new necessary investments in public health required over the next three years.
“Some of the revenue measures we propose include a levy on sugar-sweetened beverages and other products which harm public health.”
The PHAA supports the Australian Medical Association’s #SicklySweet campaign against sugar-sweetened beverages, which contain no nutritional benefit.
