Media release
Thursday, 13 May 2004
Yesterday s budget contained a $21 per week tax cut for Peter Costello and all his colleagues. That’s $1095 every year. Total cost for that little bonus $1.9 billion.
Meanwhile parents, whom he claims he wants to support, are faced with the $500 bill to immunise their children for pneumococcal infections. These infections cause meningitis in babies and infants, up to 400 deaths per year, more deaths than meningococcal disease, and can be prevented by vaccination. But Peter Costello and his cabinet colleagues decided that the $75 million per year required to save lives thorough a vaccination program was less important than $1.9 billion per year to make those on incomes over $57,000 like himself more comfortable.
This is a stark example of the contempt the Howard Government has for the people of Australia who have consistently said they want service improvement, even if it means forgoing tax cuts.
Why are mums and dads having to decide themselves whether they can afford the $500 for the vaccination, when the Government’s own advisory committee recommended it be funded by Government?
Kids who die from pneumococcal disease are members of the families that Peter Costello continually claims he is assisting. Something doesn’t ring true here. Worse than that, children will die because of this budget decision.
Dr Tim Woodruff
President
Doctors Reform Society
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