I am still worried and receiving calls from farmers about the Federal Governments bio-diversity tax.
Briefly the Albanese Labor Government is slugging our farmers to keep out overseas pests that could be brought in by their competitors. The farmers rightly say this is crazy and they cannot wear another charge. The Minister for Agriculture Senator Murray Watt says that is fair enough. What do you think?
What Senator Watt seems to forget is that farmers do not create this risk. Farmers already pay many levies and charges some of which already go towards biosecurity, so this is a double dip into the agriculture sector by the Federal Labor Government.
In a surprising moment of honesty to Sydney’s 2GB last week Senator Watt admitted that this cost coupled with the Truckies Tax will mean these costs will probably be passed on to the consumer resulting in an even higher cost of living.
It worries me and it should certainly worry you that the Albanese Labor Government is tending to announce first, consult later.
First the government made a change to the Distribution Priority Areas with little consultation with regards to overseas trained doctors which affected rural and regional communities by further limiting their chances of attracting much needed GP’s.
Then, they left more than 15,000 Australians with Type 1 Diabetes stranded when they decided, without consultation with the sector, to schedule the lifesaving and fast-acting insulin Fiasp for removal from the PBS.
They have refused to listen to the concerns of the aged care sector resulting in homes being forced to close, because the Government pushed on with their decision to speed up staffing requirements in the middle of a workforce crisis.
The Federal Labor Government also failed to consult with peak mental health bodies before deciding to rip away critical support from the 240,000 Australians who were relying on the additional 10 Medicare-funded psychology sessions they cut in January.
Now, according to my colleague Senator Anne Ruston, a departmental letter has caught out the Labor Government, once again, in their failure to undertake proper consultation on their policies.
The letter revealed that the impact of the Albanese Labour Government’s change to 60-day dispensing for some medicines was not properly assessed to the standard of ‘good practice’.
The Government’s impact analysis failed to meet the criteria for good practice due to a lack of public consultation, particularly on the potential impacts for small businesses and pharmacies in rural and remote areas.
There was also no detailed evaluation plan outlining how they are going to monitor the impact of this policy on community pharmacies.
Only a Labor Government would announce a significant health policy like this without undertaking proper consultation on the impacts it could have on community pharmacies across Australia.
I have had calls to my office from pharmacies worried about this situation. Once again Regional Australia suffers because this capital city centric Federal Labor Government simply does not care.
