I've only just ran across this information, though apparently it was announced back in June.
It appears we are going to get the same sort of treatment that the British have been receiving
From July 1, 2016 Type 2's not taking insulin will receive restricted access to test strips, though the extent of the restrictions has not been announced. Also the price of some diabetes drugs will be increased.
The article from Diabetes Australia can be found here:
https://www.diabetesaustralia.com.au/news/14750?type=articles
The article contains a link if you want to write an email to the Health Minister protesting the changes.
This is such a huge issue for we diabetics using food/and activity as treatment, with the all-important BG meter indeed. I am thinking, if we ever want evidence that the pharmaceutical industry has a hand in this - this does? Especially with a diabetes drug hike at the same time? (I guess the companies producing insulin and metformin top the meter-and-test-strip manufacturers? At least in terms of lobbyists? There can be no healthcare justification for this - surely. The numbers don't add up. The health outcomes for tight control are too positive! And we must save HEAPS longterm! I mean exactly how expensive is a seeing eye dog or an amputation? A wheel chair?) It's all so disgusting when it's not about supporting diabetics, but the companies. Well at least it seems from our perspective. Or, it is that old problem humans have balancing short-term with long-term goals? Or a mix of the two? Those test strips cost a bomb indeed, and when on a tight budget - keeping tight BG control is really stressful when you are sitting there counting up the strips carefully to see how long they can last or could take a/fasting/food experiment - I've been there for sure. And will be back again shortly.
I'm always sensitive to this issue, but particularly now as I am leaving Sweden where I get a plentiful supply of test strips, no questions asked, lots of support from a diabetes nurse, and with a more advanced BG meter (less painful to use, quite simply). So next week, back in NZ, I will be going to great lengths to be a 'selected individual' in order to get low-cost prescriptions 50 at a time. Groan! (And it is thanks to CatLadyNZ who directed me to NZ's primary care manual and to a wee sentence that allows me to tell my GP on what criteria she can continue to prescribe them to me. I'm usually not good at being bossed - but that time I was suitably grateful!)
That Australia is test-strip-on-prescription/subsidised caving too, right when diabetes numbers are ballooning - this is very very relevant to all of us for sure.
I am very fired up after watching the 'Low Carb Down Under' site you introduced, and most delighted to see Zinn and Schofield doing the LCHF revolutionary thing in your neighbouring-NZ, and have myself lined up to go to a LCHF 'state of the nation' session as soon as I get back on home-country soil, basically. (Thinking about the relationship between nutrition and diabetes that I know I don't need to make clear to you I know Indy!)
But I was most impressed with Tim Noakes talking about how many pharma companies would go under if diabetics took to low-carb diabetes treatment in droves. Really drove the point home to me! (Maths is not my thing - but six companies! He particularly mentioned Nova Nordisk I think - a company I had heard of thanks to my little BG notation book sponsored by that company and handed to me by my DN - with all its redundant to me pages on insulin dispensing. Hmmm.)
Let's hope we fired up diabetics can make inroads into such policies that directly affect our health via our pocketbooks in our respective subsidised-test-strip-backpeddaling countries!