Chronic disease and prevention omission will increase burden: The George Institute responds to 2025-26 Budget

Strong support in important health areas welcome - but prevention and chronic disease ignored at our peril

The George Institute for Global Health is pleased to see significant investment in important health initiatives included in tonight’s Federal budget, including:

• A record commitment of $7.9 billion over the forward estimates into Medicare to support greater access to bulk billing
• $1.8 billion for new and amended listings and $785 million to lower the cost of medicines on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS)
• $793 million for women’s health (primarily contraception, and menopause and endometriosis care)
• $157 million for tobacco and e-cigarettes (vapes) control.

Importantly, the Medicare and PBS investments will give everyone in the community the ability to access critical healthcare when they need it. We also welcome the support for Australia’s strong laws on tobacco and vaping and for filling important gaps in women’s reproductive healthcare.

However, the lack of funding for prevention in this year’s budget means the social and economic burden of preventable disease on our community and our health systems will continue to grow.

In 2022, chronic conditions were recorded as an underlying or associated cause of death for 90% of all deaths in Australia.¹ One condition alone, diabetes, has increased 220% in the last two decades in Australia, and is the third leading contributor to the gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.^2,3 Overweight and obesity is now the leading risk factor for death in Australia, surpassing tobacco in 2024 for the first time – yet there is little in the budget to prevent diet-related disease.

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With a major UN summit on non-communicable disease coming up in September 2025 – the first in seven years – the Australian Government should show leadership in this area.

Whoever secures power in the upcoming election, now is the time to recalibrate and bring greater focus and resources to preventing and controlling chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, respiratory disease, diabetes, and kidney disease, which are some of our biggest killers.

By:

Veronica Le Nevez

Head of Impact and Engagement, Australia, The George Institute

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This is a good budget for health but there continues to be an overemphasis on treatment instead of addressing underlying issues with stronger policies that protect Australians from getting sick needlessly.

We need to invest much more in prevention to arrest the increase in diet-related disease, and get back on track to a healthy population. The more we invest now, the more benefit we reap and costs we save down the track. We should be focused not only on living long, but on living well.

By:

Professor Simone Pettigrew

Program Head of Health Promotion at The George Institute and Conjoint Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, UNSW Sydney

In response to the budget, The George Institute is calling on all parties to:

• Increase funding for the Australian Centre for Disease Control to accelerate the inclusion of prevention in its scope
• Fully fund the National Preventive Health Strategy, including implementing a 20% levy on sugar-sweetened beverages
• Make the Health Star Rating mandatory on all eligible products to provide consumers with transparent information on the healthiness of packaged foods

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It’s great to see women’s health finally receiving more attention, however the focus unfortunately remains primarily on reproductive (what we call ‘bikini’) medicine, which fails to capture the full spectrum of health needs across the course of a women’s life and not just when they’re having a baby or going through menopause. The biggest killers of women are chronic diseases like heart disease, but risk factors and management of these diseases are really under-studied in women compared to in men.

Women who experience high blood pressure or diabetes in pregnancy, for example, have significantly increased risks of developing heart disease, stroke, diabetes, or kidney disease. Yet save for one six-week post-birth check-up, there is no system in place or Medicare funding for ongoing monitoring. And this is just one area that is chronically under-resourced.

By:

Professor Amanda Henry

Program Head of Women’s Health at The George Institute and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in the Faculty of Medicine at UNSW Sydney

The George Institute is calling on all parties to:

• Increase funding for women’s health research, particularly on under-studied conditions
• Introduce a requirement and provide funding for all applicants of NHMRC/MRFF funding to increase representation of women and LGBTQIA+ populations in clinical trials, to build the evidence base on how diseases affect underserved and marginalised populations

Read the full 2025-26 Pre-Budget Submission from The George Institute.

1. AIHW Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2024) Chronic conditions, AIHW, Australian Government, accessed 25 March 2025
2. Diabetes Australia. Change the Future (2022) Report. Accessed 25 March 2025
3. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2023) Measure 1.09 Diabetes - Data findings, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Performance Framework website, AIHW, Australian Government, accessed 25 March 2025