{"id":741356,"date":"2026-06-17T01:45:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T01:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/741356\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T01:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T01:45:09","slug":"one-nations-health-policies-based-on-misconceptions-and-may-cost-the-taxpayer-experts-warn-one-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/741356\/","title":{"rendered":"One Nation\u2019s health policies based on misconceptions and may cost the taxpayer, experts warn | One Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Medical experts have blasted One Nation\u2019s health policies, saying they do not make sense, are based on misconceptions and could cost taxpayers more money while leaving vulnerable Australians without access to care.<\/p>\n

The party has promised to withdraw Australia from the World Health Organization<\/a> and to scrap regulator the Therapeutic Goods Administration, rolling its \u201cessential functions\u201d into the health department. It has also proposed adding photo ID to Medicare cards.<\/p>\n

The Grattan Institute health program director, Peter Breadon, said some of the policies looked like mistakes.<\/p>\n

Breadon pointed out that the TGA was already part of the health department.<\/p>\n

\u201cTargeting an agency that is majority funded through cost recovery [fees and charges to pharmaceuticals], not through taxpayer funding, also doesn\u2019t make a lot of sense,\u201d he said. \u201cSo that really doesn\u2019t stand up to even a very small amount of scrutiny.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just looks to me like an error.\u201d<\/p>\n

One Nation\u2019s website claims up to $3bn is lost annually due to \u201cfraudulent claims and misuse of Medicare, money that should be used to improve healthcare affordability\u201d.<\/p>\n

But Breadon said the data the party cites \u2013 from the 2023 Independent Review of Medicare Integrity and Compliance \u2013 shows the $3bn rort was in relation to provider non-compliance<\/a>, not fraud by the public.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThey\u2019re talking about an estimate of savings that has nothing to do with their proposal, and there\u2019s not much evidence that consumer fraud for Medicare cards is a meaningful cost to government,\u201d Breadon said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd if we did implement this policy of putting photo IDs on that, that does impose a lot of costs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pauline Hanson has previously attempted to add photo ID to Medicare cards, and introduced a private member\u2019s bill in the Senate in 2019. The bill ultimately lapsed at the end of the parliamentary term in 2022.<\/p>\n

The party has also pledged a royal commission to examine the management of the Covid-19 pandemic, opposes vaccine mandates, and wants to \u201creview\u201d $3bn in medications approved for the pharmaceutical benefits scheme during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Hanson has long been an objector to the Covid-19 vaccine, refused to get it during the pandemic and twice tried to introduce legislation to stop the \u201cdiscrimination\u201d against Australians who also refused to get the jab.<\/p>\n

One Nation has also proposed withdrawing from the UN, the WHO and the Paris climate agreement, which it claims would save up to $1bn a year.<\/p>\n

The Australian Medical Association president, Dr Danielle McMullen, condemned the suggestion, and said Australia received vital data from the global health body.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe World Health<\/a> Organization plays an incredibly important role in global health and it is in Australia\u2019s interests to continue to contribute to its work,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are part of a global community and health threats do not stop at national borders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Breadon and McMullen also both stressed the importance of the TGA\u2019s independence.<\/p>\n

\u201cAustralian\u2019s want to know their medicines are safe and clinically effective and the independent Therapeutic Goods Administration ensures this is the case,\u201d McMullen said. \u201cIts independence means that the safety of the community is put first.\u201d<\/p>\n

Breadon added that if Australia withdrew from the WHO, it would face similar issues to the US after the Trump administration took the same action.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the US withdrew from the WHO, the Trump administration then proposed spending many times over what they would have saved to replace some of the functions that were lost.\u201d<\/p>\n

The former Howard health policy adviser Terry Barnes said One Nation\u2019s policies had many similarities to the Trump agenda, and called them \u201cdisconnected thought bubbles without a clear understanding of how the healthcare system works\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there is imitation of Donald Trump\u2019s health policy particularly in relation to the \u2018make America healthy again\u2019 agenda,\u201d he said. \u201cBut certainly the Trump administration\u2019s hostility to international health agencies is reflected in One Nation\u2019s policy statement.\u201d<\/p>\n

The federal health minister, Mark Butler, said One Nation was a \u201crisk to Medicare and cheaper medicines\u201d.<\/p>\n

The populist rightwing party has soared in the polls, with Hanson polling ahead of Anthony Albanese as preferred prime minister in the latest Resolve Political Monitor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Medical experts have blasted One Nation\u2019s health policies, saying they do not make sense, are based on misconceptions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":741357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-741356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=741356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/741357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}