CANBERRA. In last night’s Budget Speech, the Treasurer spoke of resilience, of a Future Made in Australia, and of choosing the hard road of reform. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities understand that road better than most. NACCHO’s response to the 2026-27 Budget is grounded in that same spirit, welcoming what this Budget delivers for community, while calling on government to go further on the structural reform that will make the difference for generations to come.
There is genuine investment in this Budget that reaches community, and NACCHO welcomes it. Infrastructure funding for Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations, the extension of Birthing on Country, continued renal dialysis services, support for 13YARN and community-controlled family safety services, these investments reflect a government that understands where trusted service delivery comes from. Also welcome is $4.5 million in 2026-27 to support the Coalition of Peaks secretariat and its ongoing work on the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, and $2.7 million over three years for an additional cohort of First Nations Health Worker Traineeship students commencing from 1 January 2026. These are practical investments in the people and structures that community control depends on.
NACCHO Chair Donnella Mills said the Budget’s community-controlled investments demonstrated what the sector was capable of when government backed it.
“Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have been building this country, and caring for its people, long before the word resilience entered a Budget Speech. When the Treasurer speaks of a Future Made in Australia, I want that future to include us, not as a line item, but as architects and leaders of the solutions our communities need. This Budget takes important steps, and we are genuinely grateful. But the next step is the one that matters most: the needs-based funding model we have built together over nine years. That is the reform that lets ACCHOs deliver at the scale our communities deserve. We have done the work. We are ready to walk this road together,” Ms Mills said.
The Treasurer described last night’s Budget as one of resilience and reform, about dealing with pressures today while building for tomorrow. NACCHO shares that ambition. The needs-based ACCHO funding model, developed over nine years in close partnership with the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, is exactly that kind of reform, structural, evidence-based, and designed to shift outcomes across a generation. It did not receive dedicated funding in this Budget. Nor did the IAHP uplift needed to begin addressing the health funding gap, the full infrastructure investment the sector has identified, or the transition pool to grow community control in communities that want it. These remain NACCHO’s central asks, and they remain on the table.
NACCHO Chief Executive Officer Dawn Casey said this Budget funds some of the symptoms. It does not fund the cure. The Government’s commitment to resilience and reform pointed directly towards what the sector needed next.
“The Treasurer said last night that global uncertainty is not a reason to delay reform; it is why we must move with urgency and ambition. NACCHO could not agree more, and that is exactly the case we have been making for community control. The needs-based funding model is not a new idea; it is nine years of genuine partnership between our sector and government, ready to be implemented. We welcome what this Budget has delivered. And we will keep making the case, respectfully and persistently, for the reform that takes us the rest of the way,” Dr Casey said.
