Our colleagues at CAHA have prepared their 2024/2025 Commonwealth Budget Analysis and will be hosting a members roundtable on 26 July 2024, online and in Naarm, Melbourne (further details will soon be available at CAHA).
CAHA Analysis Extract
CAHA welcomes the budget announced by the Albanese government on 14 May 2024. However, the pace and scale of action must be drastically increased to drive down climate impacts on health
and protect the wellbeing of current and future generations.
The Climate and Health Alliance (CAHA) developed its Pre-Budget Submission in collaboration with our members and allies, to provide guidance on how the 2024/25
Commonwealth Budget could better support climate and health outcomes. Our submission proposed three key recommendations:
- Decarbonise Australia’s economy
- Fund the implementation of Australia’s first National Health and Climate Strategy.
- Fund civil society leadership and health
CAHA provided evidence around what could be achieved if a “health in all policies” approach was resourced in this budget. It is disappointing that this budget does not have funding to support the
implementation of the National Health and Climate Strategy. Also, while the budget contains measures that will have a positive impact on the Social Determinants of Health (SDoH), including budget support for housing and Medicare, it does not contain measures that directly address the climate impacts on health. Instead, the budget makes provisions for climate, and for health, in entirely separate tranches1 of funding.
View the Full CAHA Budget Analysis (pdf) >>
View Other CAHA News >>
Associate Professor Magdalena Simonis AM is the Immediate Past President of the AFMW (2020-2023), former President of VMWS (2013 & 2017-2020) and current AFMW National Coordinator (2024-2026). She is a full time clinician who also holds positions on several not for profit organisations, driven by her passion for bridging gaps across the health sector. She is a leading women’s health expert, keynote speaker, climate change and gender equity advocate and government advisor. Magda is member of The Australian Health Team contributing monthly articles.
Magdalena was awarded a lifetime membership of the RACGP for her contributions which include past chair of Women in General Practice, longstanding contribution to the RACGP Expert Committee Quality Care, the RACGP eHealth Expert Committee. She is regularly invited to comment on primary care research though mainstream and medical media and contributes articles on various health issues through newsGP and other publications.
Magdalena has represented the RACGP at senate enquiries and has worked on several National Health Framework reviews. She is author of the RACGP Guide on Female Genital Cosmetic Surgery and co-reviewer of the RACGP Red Book Women’s Health Chapter, and reviewer of the RACGP White book
Both an RACGP examiner and University examiner, she undertakes general practice research and is a GP Educator with the Safer Families Centre of Research Excellence, which develops education tools to assist the primary care sector identify, respond to and manage family violence . Roles outside of RACGP include the Strategy and Policy Committee for Breast Cancer Network Australia, Board Director of the Melbourne University Teaching Health Clinics and the elected GP representative to the AMA Federal Council. In 2022. she was award the AMA (Vic) Patrick Pritzwald-Steggman Award 2022, which celebrates a doctor who has made an exceptional contribution to the wellbeing of their colleagues and the community and was listed as Women’s Agenda 2022 finalist for Emerging Leader in Health.
Magdalena has presented at the United Nations as part of the Australian Assembly and was appointed the Australian representative to the World Health Organisation, World Assembly on COVID 19, by the Medical Women’s International Association (MWIA) in 2021. In 2023, A/Professor Simonis was included on the King’s COVID-19 Champion’s list and was also awarded a Member (AM) in the General Division for significant service to medicine through a range of roles and to women’s health.
