You need to read this piece of paper that comes with your tax return
Tax returns make headlines for weeks but many Aussies don’t even look at this piece of paper – and it’s about time you did.
Tax return time is a key date in the diaries of most Aussies every year – but while refunds and debts make headlines for days, not everyone looks at another piece of paper.
Alongside a notice of assessment, taxpayers are sent a tax receipt, that shows how their taxes are being spent by the government.
And every year, there’s an amount that many Australians question – money spent on foreign affairs and economic aid.
Australia has enough of its own problems why should we give money in aid to other countries? people ask.
Trump’s decision to pause billions in foreign aid hours after he came into office in January only made these complaints louder.
But the events of 2025 have made it fairly evident that international issues, especially the current Palestine Israel conflict, resonate with a lot of Australians; our news cycle is dominated by anti-Semitism and protests, the latter of which hundreds of thousands of Australians have attended over the past two years.
The question, then, shouldn’t be whether Australians care about this topic, and whether it therefore should be reflected in our spending, but instead how to make sure the right resources are going to the right places.
One of the places Australian aid goes is Rozana, an NGO operating in Israel and Palestine which uses what it calls “healthcare diplomacy” to improve Israeli Palestinian relations while strengthening each respective country’s healthcare.
It was founded by Melbourne Jewish man Ron Finkel, and Rozana’s executive team and board includes Israelis, Palestinians, Jewish and Muslim Australians.
A $4 million grant from the Australian Government has just been confirmed for the project with $2.4 million of that allocated for medical equipment at the soon to be completed Al Rahma Rehabilitation Hospital in Hebron, the largest city in the Palestinian West Bank.
The bulk of the remaining $1.6 million will be used to sponsor several delegations of healthcare professionals to travel to Australia and develop their professional skills and discuss ways to improve co-operation between Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israeli health institutions.
Despite Hebron’s almost million-strong population it is currently without a rehabilitation hospital.
When it opens, the Al Rahma hospital will be the closest of its kind to the Gaza Strip and if the ceasefire holds and borders reopen, it is hopeful Gazan amputee children will be able to receive proper prosthetics and rehabilitation care at the facility.
Dr Akram Amro is overseeing the development of the hospital and said the lack of resources means that currently many with preventable illnesses were not receiving the help they needed.
“It’s a huge demand,” he said.
“We have two big centres, one in Ramallah and one in Bethlehem, and they can’t cope with the need for rehabilitation, neither of the cities. People work for three months until they have a bed that they’re supposed to have from day two.
“This early period is vital for rehabilitation and they lose this gold period because they don’t have the facilities available, and even when they get it, they get it for a very short period of time because the waiting list is so long so that at maximum they get maybe six weeks, eight weeks, and then they have to be discharged, even though they know that they need more, but because of the scarcity of beds and the pressure on accepting more and more people it’s hard to keep people for the period that they deserve and need for rehabilitation.”
Dr Akram said the ongoing conflict has only aggravated the strain on healthcare.
“In some cases, people can’t find services because they have no financial ability to pay for rehabilitation. It means that the chance of regaining independence and walking is lost, not because of say the stroke they suffered, but because of the lack of services and lack of well equipped facilities not just technologically, but also the human element to make sure that we give the best state of the art, evidence based services that patients deserve.
“We hope that this hospital will help to fill the gap and provide the services that people can’t have because of the shortage of rehabilitation services.”
The hospital is only part of Rozana’s work in the region and Rozana Global CEO Ran Goldstein believes that the only path towards a brighter future is by building bridges rather than knocking them down.
“Despite the tension and despite the political gaps between sides, we believe the language of health can bridge these gaps,” he said.
“We work with medical teams from both sides of the border, with Israelis and Palestinians. And we believe that when people work on a professional level, when people co-operate because of professional needs then from this co-operation, there are also better relations and better support for the idea of peace. It supports the ability to build better societies in both places.”
Mr Goldstein said the temptation might be to say the Israeli side was providing all the healthcare expertise but that that wasn’t the case.
“It’s not true. There is a lot of knowledge, a lot of experienced ability to work with much less resources on the Palestinian side, and I think it’s a very unique situation where the Palestinian healthcare professionals can also support Israeli training.
“And also, I believe that in both societies, but in the Israeli side in particular, I can tell you the peace component is very absent. Until a (month ago), when President Trump came and talked about peace, nobody in Israel mentioned this word. No one except for those who are working in these peace organisations.”
Mr Goldstein recently returned to the West Bank and was struck by the difference in conditions.
“I was not here for a year and a bit more. I was not in the West Bank and I just came back like two weeks ago, I went to see some areas in the West Bank and it’s a totally different place; much more checkpoints, much more violence.
“So there is a unique need. The resources of the Palestinian Ministry of Health are limited. And we try to work with them very closely to find resources and to build capacities in different areas.
“I know from my background, from many, many years, what happens when knowledge is absent, and what terrible, terrible decisions medical teams can take when they don’t have the right knowledge.”
Two other programs under Rozana Health Diplomacy are the ‘Women4women’ and ‘Wheels of Hope’.
Women4women is a multidisciplinary team of female healthcare professionals including a psychologist, a physical therapist, a nutritionist, a midwife, a doctor and a gynaecologist which travel around rural communities and provide specialised care for women and their children.
Director of Programming at Rozana Diana Shehade-Nama said social and cultural constraints and lack of awareness often prevented women from seeking continued care and that for many women, Women4Women was their only doorway to healthcare.
“In many traditional communities, seeing a male physician is simply not acceptable, which means that without Women4Women, many women would go entirely untreated,” Ms Shehade-Nama said.
“The feedback has been incredibly moving. Through the Women4Women, many women share that it is the first time they have ever spoken openly about their health concerns, especially mental health issues, or felt truly listened to by a medical team.
“I think it is of great value that the whole team is made up of female health professionals. They express gratitude not only for the holistic medical services, but also for the care, respect, and privacy the team provides.
Ms Shehade-Nama said among the proudest achievements of the program was the “shift in mindset” among women regarding the importance of prioritising their own health.
“At the beginning of the program, engagement was very low, and women were often reluctant to discuss personal or sensitive issues. Over time, however, trust has grown significantly, and many now openly seek support, even for difficult topics such as gender-based violence, unwanted pregnancies, and other culturally sensitive issues.”
Wheels of Hope program is a transport service that taxis pediatric (mostly cancer and kidney failure patients) from the West Bank to East Jerusalem and Israel to access lifesaving treatments.
Most of the patients require up to four treatments a week and with buses running on the Israeli side but not on the Palestinian side the only option prior to Rozana were taxis costing around 400 NIS per trip ($190 AUD).
“(It) takes enormous co-ordination between our two partnering volunteer organisations,” Ms Shehade-Nama said.
“One Israeli (Humans Without Borders) and the other Palestinian (Greenland Society) who team up to get patients from their homes to a checkpoint and then from the checkpoint to the hospital (and then do the same journey back).
Ms Shehade-Nama said some of the children being transported are as young as one year old and that they and their parents endured “exhausting, early-morning journeys, facing checkpoints, long waits, and the uncertainty of closures”.
“We love seeing the bond that forms between volunteer drivers, and patients and their caretakers. Especially between Israeli volunteers and Palestinian families. For most, this would have been the first encounter with the other.”
Ms Shehade-Nama added that international funding was “absolutely vital” to the program.
More Coverage
“With limited domestic support, programs like Women4Women and Wheels of Hope simply couldn’t exist without the generosity and commitment of international partners, including our friends and supporters in Australia.”
A Department of Home Affairs spokesperson said “investing in these initiatives demonstrates the Government’s continued commitment to improving social cohesion by engaging in activities that support communities with links to both Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israeli communities.
“It is through initiatives such as these that we can foster greater understanding and support all communities that contribute to our vibrant and resilient multicultural society.”
