The Abbott Government cannot confirm whether there is funding for trachoma services in its own Budget in an embarrassing and extremely concerning revelation during Senate Estimates today.
The 2014-15 Budget provided $4.2 million annually to improve trachoma control services until 2017-18.
The funding for 2017-18 has disappeared from the 2015-16 Budget Papers.
But officials from the Department of Health in Indigenous Estimates were today unable to confirm whether this was a funding cut or a gross error in their Budget Papers.
Australia is the only developed country to still have trachoma, a debilitating eye disease which causes blindness.
The Australian Government has committed to the elimination of trachoma by 2020.
Labor calls on the Abbott Government to confirm exactly what future funding arrangements are in place to support trachoma services as a matter of urgency.