I haven't had a chance to completely read through the website yet, @Ru-bee , so I'll probably come back to this later, but for now:
@Ru-bee wrote:
· Energy bill relief: A one-off rebate of $150 for energy bills for all Australian households will be provided from July 2025.
Sounds like a band-aid solution to me. Supply and demand are immensely more relevant factors then small one-time handouts.
Until the government are able to offer cheap, adequate, continuous energy production, this problem will continue to weigh heavilly upon Australians.
@Ru-bee wrote:
· Access to medicines – The price of PBS-listed medicines will be reduced from $31 to $25 for those without concession cards and frozen at $7.70 for those with cards. A new treatment for major depression has also been listed on the PBS.
Cost reduction is all well and good, but honestly one of the best things the government can do is remove the legal restrictions to accessing medicines!
We've seen considderable improvements in this area over recent years, with online services able to offer instant perscriptions without a doctor appointment; and I think now you can even get a perscription directly from the pharmacist? Effectively making many 'perscription' medicines now over-the-counter ones? (Or maybe this scheme isn't in effect, but is being talked about?)
In any event we need more of these sorts of improvements to access to medicine. Make less medicines perscription-only medicines. Take the red-tape pressure off GPs by not requiring patients to book an appointment with them, just to get the necessary paperwork to be able to buy a medicine they already know they need.
@Ru-bee wrote:
· Mental health support – Additional budget was provided for digital mental health services including QLife, as well as bushfire resilience activities in rural and regional Australia and a specialist support program for First Responders.
I couldn't find this on the website? You'd think it would be under the "Health" heading, wouldn't you? Did I skip over it or something?
@Ru-bee wrote:
· Housing – A new ‘Help to Buy’ scheme will provide assistance to those on low incomes who are looking to purchase housing and $6m has been allocated to Housing and Homelessness organisations to develop new solutions.
Most importantly, the government is apparently showing interest in hiring new construction workers to actually build these homes!
Unfortunately, there's not much detail about where their gonna get these workers from; and, regrettably, it seems like their determined to put all these workers through an "apprentice program", rather then offering any direct routes to becoming a proper construction worker.
One would hope that they would be prioritizing the most long-term unemployed and impoverished Australians to get these jobs; but the website doesn't clarify this.
On that note, there wasn't much information in the sections I've read thus far about increasing employment, overall.
The government is running ads promising a massive increase in manufacturing jobs. We've heard that one before. Proof will be in the pudding.
But even if the government does follow through and actually create all these jobs, whose gonna get them?
