Labor Caught Out On Eyes Pledge
THE SUNDAY AGE
Saturday August 28, 1993
THE Federal Government has suffered further embarrassment over its unpopular Budget with the revelation that its election documents specifically re-stated Labor's Medicare pledge to cover all Australians for optometrists' services.
Labor backbenchers have been alerted to the election pledge by the Australian Optometrical Association which is leading an industry-wide charge against the Budget plan to remove optometrist visits from Medicare, saving the Government up to $300 million over four years.
ACTU leaders and the Australian Democrats are furious about the Budget Medicare plan which they believe weakens the universal health service.
This issue is expected to be raised at the ACTU Congress in Sydney this week. The Democrats are determined to try to stop the Government going ahead with the move.
An all-day meeting of Democrat leaders and researchers will be held in Melbourne today to decide what concessions the party (which, with the two Green independents, holds the balance of power in the Senate) will demand from the Treasurer, Mr John Dawkins, at a meeting in Canberra tomorrow.
The Democrats' leader, Senator Cheryl Kernot, said yesterday that the Medicare issue was central to the party's concerns about the Budget.
She is looking at whether the promised tax cuts, which are due to take effect from November for middle-income earners, can be capped at salaries of around $36,000 a year. If people earning above that sum do not receive big tax cuts the savings could be used to offset other measures such as the Medicare cut or the 10 cents a litre impost on leaded fuel or to double the $100 a year tax rebate for low-income earners.
The executive director of the Australian Optometrical Association, Mr Joseph Chakman, has written to all ALP backbenchers alerting them to the Medicare eye test commitment which was contained in the 13 March election documents.
The letter says: ``The Federal Government's proposed Budget cuts will remove Medicare benefits for all optometric consultations for all optometric eye examinations from 1 November 1993 except for pensioners and health card holders.
``This proposal is a clear breach of the platform on which the Australian Labor Party ran in the 1993 election." The letter goes on to quote from page one of the Australian Labor Party Policy Document released during the election. It says: ``Medicare was established in 1984 to guarantee access for all Australians to public hospital services, to medical services provided by general practitioners and specialists for optometrists' services.
Mr Dawkins's concessions to the Democrats are expected to be finalised tomorrow and could possibly be announced to the trade union congress on Tuesday by the Prime Minister, Mr Keating.
© 1993 THE SUNDAY AGE
