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Where to from here? Kindness, collaboration and accountability

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How can we support people’s experience of justice, good health and wellbeing?

The new federal government may bring different opportunities to work towards this objective, but our health justice priorities remain the same. Here, our founding CEO Dr Tessa Boyd-Caine reflects on the change of government.

Monday’s online coffee catch up with colleagues turned quickly to the weekend’s federal election. I tend to steer clear of talking politics at work (policy always, politics rarely), recognising the importance of inclusivity at work. But there was keen interest to talk about the changing behaviours in how the country has voted and the resultant parliament that will look and feel so different to the last. For one colleague, the language of kindness from newly elected representatives was a key change they had noted already.

I’ve seen a change in language, too. For instance, numerous parliamentarians are talking about working together. This might be a common refrain from newly elected representatives and newly anointed parties anywhere. But the current words from Australia’s new parliamentarians go further, asserting the need to collaborate in response to complexity. Now you’re talking my language! The multiple, intersecting health, legal and social problems faced by many in Australia are complex, as are the service systems that exist to address them. It is collaborative solutions that can make a difference here. Supporting this work among health, legal assistance and other services is the very reason Health Justice Australia exists. If parliamentarians, both within and beyond the parties, use these words to shape new directions in legislation and policy, imagine what we might be able to achieve.

Critical areas of commitment

The signalling on First Nations’ rights and justice is an important start, from the Prime Minister’s commitment to the Uluru Statement from the Heart as he accepted victory on Saturday night, to Monday’s addition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags to the backdrop of his press conferences. The continuing impacts of colonisation and dispossession in Australia are unfinished business for us all. Health outcomes or equal justice will not be achieved if our government is not committed to self-determination for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people; if it won’t back in the hard work towards achieving it that has already been led by communities right around the country.

Climate action is another critical area. This is a parliament that knows the health, social, economic and environmental costs of not taking action on climate change. We don’t have a parliamentary consensus on climate change; even without knowing its final makeup, that much is clear. But the range of views dominating the agenda now is about how quickly we act and what are the most effective actions.

Finally, I am loving the commitment to accountability. Integrity was a central theme for many candidates, particularly in relation to a federal ICAC. But whatever body is established to that end, accountability needs more than an agency. Accountability requires culture and leadership too: an understanding of power from those who wield it; and a commitment to sharing power, ideally, or to exercising it for public benefit at least. At Health Justice Australia, we work to ensure Australia’s health and human service systems are accountable by supporting practitioners and services to best meet the needs of the communities they serve. Systemic accountability underpins the change we are driving and the difference we want to see. We look forward to supporting the government and the parliament towards greater accountability from our national institutions; and towards policies and reforms that keep public benefit at their heart.

What we’ll be paying attention to

Here are the policy areas I will be watching most closely to advance #HealthJustice with the new government:

  • National Preventive Health Strategy: as we take up our federal government funding under this new strategy we will be working with the government and a range of other organisations in the pursuit of national policies to improve health equity.
  • National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children: we will support the development of tangible policies and effective strategies to help services identify and respond holistically to the structures and circumstances that leave women and children unsafe.
  • National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children: we remain committed to the promise of this plan, which provides the opportunity for government and non-government actors to work collaboratively around the pathways that drive children and families into the child protection system and the systemic failures that leave them there.
  • Integrated mental health care: much hard work has gone into reshaping the architecture of our mental health system to meet the needs of the many people, particularly those experiencing persistent and chronic mental ill-health, who currently miss out on the care they need in the places and at the times they need it. We look forward to supporting the new government to deliver on much-needed reforms and to ensuring investment enables an integrated service system that is fit for purpose.

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An aerial photograph of a Canberra landscape with green spaces and buildings divided by concentric rings of roads.

Our budget proposals are designed to improve health, justice and wellbeing outcomes of individuals and families facing complex health, social and legal need.

Find out what’s in HJA’s 2023-24 pre-Budget submission.

Submission