Health

The Greens believe that everyone has the right to timely, high quality health care. The fairest and most efficient way to achieve this is through a strong and well-resourced public health system.

The Greens will divert funds currently going into the privatisation of health care back to public health.

We will focus on health promotion and illness prevention as the most cost effective way to spend on health.

The Greens will:

• Develop a National Health Care Strategy
• Redirect the $3 billion private health insurance rebate to public health and hospitals
• Protect and extend Medicare
• Ban junk food advertising on children’s television
• Establish 24 hour community mental health services
• Support harm minimisation strategies for drug users
• Protect women’s access to affordable, safe abortion and reproductive health services including genuine pregnancy counselling
• Establish a taskforce to plan for the health impacts of climate change
• Maintain the integrity of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and restrict pharmaceutical advertising

Dental Care

Access to dental care is fundamental to good health and wellbeing. Decades of neglect of the public dental system has left 650,000 people on waiting lists.

The Greens’ goal is for Australians to have universal access to primary dental care, including preventative checkups every two years.

We need a properly resourced, trained and located dental workforce to make this happen.

The Greens will re-introduce a Commonwealth Dental Health Program for low income earners and concession cardholders as a first step towards establishing a Denticare scheme for universal dental cover for all Australians.

We will reinstate a proactive school dental program, with matched funding from Commonwealth and state governments.