Health leads the Way in Scrap the Cap Campaign

When the Federal Government announced plans to introduce a $2000 cap on self-education, the health profession was quick to react. Within days, a campaign was building, and shortly after the business and professional community joined the throng. The Scrap the Cap Alliance now has more than 70 organisations and 24,000 individuals calling for action and has had early success with the Government deferring its implementation for 12 months. While this is positive, there is still work to be done.
The Scrap the Cap campaign was initiated by General Practice Registrars Australia (GPRA), which works with United General Practice Australia (UGPA), a group of six medical organisations, to address issues general practitioners believe need urgent attention. GPRA CEO Amit Vohra, said the preliminary idea was to create a movement for its 18,000 members, including students, junior doctors, GP registrars in training, and GPs.
“All our members are aspiring young doctors going through the system and I think, particularly for anyone going through any training, the impact of this cap is going to be strong,” Mr Vohra says. “At a meeting with UGPA we decided to do a group communiqué to oppose this tax and that is where the campaign really began. “While GPRS put together the campaign and manages it, it was the strong support from the entire group that got the ball rolling.”
UGPA believe the tax on learning is a contradiction. The government is seeking to have a well-trained medical workforce, but at the same time is discouraging practitioners from enhancing and maintaining their skills to provide that service.
A recent survey conducted by the Australian Medical Association, a UGPA member organisation, showed that 79 per cent of the nearly 600 doctors surveyed, paid over $5,000 in self-education expenses per annum. In a document directed at the Government, UGPA reiterated the capped funding would not only affect training and CPD activity costs, but the ability to attend conferences to learn about the latest developments in patient care, examination expenses and medical College memberships. If GPs are unable to attend these CPD activities, many may forgo important skills that would potentially limit the range of services that they are able to provide to the community.
Mr Vohra says while all the UGPA bodies were engaging with their members and independently lobbying government, it was the joint movement which created a ground swell. The Scrap the Cap web page, which was quickly established, became a clearing house for people to post comment, news items and sign a petition which targets primary government leaders including the Prime Minister, Treasurer Health portfolio members and their shadow counterparts.
“Whenever someone signs the petition all those individuals get an email about it and so they are getting thousands of emails a day.” Mr Vohra said. In mid-July, less than one month since the campaign was merely an idea, there were more than 11,000 signatures on the petition. At the end of July, the figure was double.
The second element of the campaign was the opportunity to place case studies and personal stories on the site.
“The themes are quite common,” Mr Vohra says. “They are about people needing to do a lot of study, which is quite often mandated for them to be able to practice. “For some of our members, especially young doctors who are not earning that much, they can be spending as much as 10 per cent of their income in a single year. “That’s a significant cost. “When people write their stories there is a checkbox which everyone is checking, which emails directly to the Tax Reform Review Commission. “They are hearing these stories, too.”
The next element of the campaign is a clearing house for news related to the issue. This includes information from the campaign itself, as well as group member releases.
“Once we got the initial groundswell going we quickly realised that this is far bigger than just our doctors and we immediately brought in the broader health arena; the nurses, the midwives, etc,” Mr Vohra explains. “In some ways, I think it actually has a bigger impact on some of the allied health workers. “The reality is, nurses don’t earn a lot of money and a lot of them are struggling to make ends meet, but their professional development requirements are really quite stringent. “My view is, anyone in the $60,000 to $100,000 income bracket is significantly impacted by this. “Not to say the others aren’t but I think this particular group will feel the financial pain the most.”
The effect of the Scrap the Cap campaign was quick. On 8 July, Universities Australia called a summit in Canberra where industrial associations and peak bodies representing varying professions, including doctors, lawyers and engineers, put out a joint media release. It was there they decided to campaign with a unified voice and the Scrap the Cap campaign became an alliance.
By the end of July, more than 70 professional and industry bodies were on the alliance. All were fighting their own cause, yet all were banding together. “We did some early numbers with organisations listed on the alliance and we represent more than 1.5million professionals – much beyond our initial 18,000 base,” Mr Vohra said. “That number has since grown significantly. ““It started out as health, but it’s definitely well and truly beyond just health, impacting just about person,” Mr Vohra says.
As one of the key coordinators of the campaign, Mr Vohra believes Scrap the Cap has run itself. “I think that’s because there is uniform and across-the-board support,” he adds. “This is a tax on learning; this is a tax on productivity; this is a tax on single-income earners; this is a tax on female professionals, especially if they are more likely to be part time – their professional CPD requirements are no different because they don’t work full time. “We can understand if the government wants to cut the rort in the system around people going overseas on fancy holidays and calling it a tax deduction, but there are ways to stop that without killing the other 90 per cent of the sector who actually use it in a very genuine way.
“The cap is said to save $514 million in forward estimates, however we have done some modeling to suggest that the negative flow-on effect to the economy will be far greater.
“Imagine hundreds of people not doing a Master’s degree which costs around $30,000. “The impact on the work sector, the higher education sector and then, 10 years down the track, we will have gradually deskilled an emerging workforce rather than giving them the tools we need to help build the economy in the future.”
“This particular piece of policy goes against everything both the coalition and the government is trying to do. “When it comes to supporting single income earners, when it comes to supporting part-time staff, when it comes to supporting regional and rural Australia – both sides have policies that would build those areas and this single-handedly goes against all of them. “These are the people who would be worst off because of this policy.”
[caption id="attachment_4332" align="alignright" width="147"] Amit Vohra
GPRA CEO[/caption]
Once the government called a federal election it made an announcement to defer the start date of the cap to 1 July 2015. The Scrap the Cap Alliance sees this as opportunity to continue its lobbying and call for further consultation on the proposed measure. The best outcome will be an incoming government that scraps the cap altogether.
“My view is, anyone in the $60,000 to $100,000 income bracket is significantly impacted by this. “Not to say the others aren’t but I think this particular group will feel the financial pain the most.”
Amit Vohra