The 2011/12 Federal Budget has been formulated in a political and economic environment where the Government is committed to bringing the Budget back into surplus in 2012/13. The forecasts are that they are on track to achieve this goal. This has meant that considerable fiscal restraint has been brought to bear on this year’s Budget across all portfolios.

Recognising that considerable investment in primary health care in the order of $1.7 billion was made in last year’s Budget coinciding with the announcement of Medicare Local primary health care organisations, AGPN did not expect that this year’s Budget would include a significant health platform, with the exception of mental health.

View the full analysis document here, and you can visit the Budget 2011 website here

RHealth is also preparing a supplementary paper on specific rural and remote initiatives from the budget and this will be available shortly.