Right Pulse

Sit back and watch the PM and his ALP state colleagues beat each other up over health reform and then oppose most of what ever comes out of the mess.

KRISTINA Keneally has hinted that NSW will not support Kevin Rudd’s $50 billion health overhaul at next month’s COAG meeting unless he reveals all five key parts to his ambitious reform package.

Funny that because only a day ago she was a keen supporter.

The Premier, Kristina Keneally, said NSW cannot afford to reject Kevin Rudd’s health changes…

This too and throw will go on for weeks, if not months. It will make Rudd look inept.

The Australian’s headline to Rudd’s new hospital plan says it all:

Rudd’s magic cure: more process

I’m not in favour of a government take over of anything, state, federal, local….whatever. The problems will still be the same. Rudd’s hospital proposal is like a mutant cross between Abbott’s local control concept and Rudd’s desire to control everything. The proposal is destined to fail. And basically stealing state GST revenue to pay for it all is consistent with Rudd’s desire to reward failure.

WESTERN Australia’s Liberal government yesterday warned Kevin Rudd it would not surrender 30 per cent of its GST takings and allow health decisions to be made in Canberra.

Currently WA subsides east coast ALP government incompetence via GST re-distribution arrangements, whereby WA has to give up 30 cents in every GST dollar to NSW. So Barnett knows what Rudd’s plan is designed to do to the Coalition’s re-election prospects in WA. Deny the WA government valuable GST revenue in order to squeeze their budget.

Premier Colin Barnett said the commonwealth’s proposal to increase its contribution to health by taking money from the states was a “sleight of hand”, “very unsatisfactory” and unachievable without the co-operation of the states…”We will not tolerate a situation where, from Canberra, all the decisions relating to our hospitals and most of the healthcare decisions are made,” he said.

If Colin Barnett wants to really torpedo Rudd’s plan and secure WA independence then he should privatise WA hospitals. Use the proceeds from the sale to establish a health fund to help pay private insurance premiums for those without, while offering tax relief from saved annual health spending for those with. Nearly half of all Australians currently have private hospital cover as it is. Tax relief could come in the form of reimbursment of Federal income tax, GST and/or land tax.

A massive injection of private investment is the only way to remedy the current state of public hospitals. More government never solved anything.

UPDATE I

Scary stuff from Rudd:

States have until a Council of Australian Governments meeting on April 11 to give their answer. Mr Rudd said if they do not ‘’sign up to fundamental reform” he will hold a referendum either before or at this year’s federal election ”to give the Australian government all the power it needs to reform the health system”.

The hospitals issues is symbolic of Rudd and his desire for ‘all the power’ across a range of other issues as well. Colin Barnett should head Rudd’s bushranger gang off at the pass by selling WA’s public hospitals to private investors or local communities. The alternative is having Rudd trying to run hospitals, a venture infinitely more complicated than any other project failing he has so far embarked on – ceiling insulation, school lap tops, school building investment, etc…all abject failures. How well do you think he will do on health? At least with a sell off, Barnett could continue to exercise some meaningful control over health in the state, independent of a socialist meddling PM in Canberra.

UPDATE II

Here are some quick calculations to make people think.

Total public health care spending in WA is forecasted to be $4.6 billion in FY 09/10. Let’s assume in getting out of the health care game the government keeps $200 million for random health services, etc… making $4.4 billion – not including mental health, etc…. The population of WA is 2.2 million - guessing around 30 per cent having private health insurance not just to avoid tax. The national average is nearly 50 per cent so I am being generous. That works out on a per capita basis of around $2850 on public health care spending. Now there is around 120 public hospital/service facilities across the state. Let’s assume that the average sale price for all the facilities is $40 million giving a total sale price of $4.8 billion. Which is significantly less than the total assets reported by the Department of Health. Now $4.8 billion at 5 per cent – with 2.5 per cent retained for inflation - averaged over 10 years equals $120 million per annum. Making total annual cash available for tax cuts and/or private health premium subsidies of $4.52 billion or nearly $3000per non-private hospital person in WA. To put this in perspective, the top of the line no deductible ‘blue ribbon’ Medibank Private hospital premium for a single person is between $1200 – $2000 per year not including the 30 per cent Federal government rebate and any potential discounts from bulk ordering such as families, businesses, etc…. I know which option I would rather have – take my $3000 and get my own insurance policy and get the government out of my life.

UPDATE III

Almost on queue a story has appeared which illustrates my main point:

THIS is the list of 117 NSW hospitals senior health clinicians claim will struggle to survive under Kevin Rudd’s health reforms.  They include services in remote areas of NSW, regional centres, as well as inner-city hospitals in Balmain, Rozelle and Auburn. All are currently block-funded and considered financially unviable under the Federal Government’s plans for a pay-for-service model. They don’t perform enough medical procedures to fund their own existence.

Here’s a revolutionary idea. Instead of closing the hospitals down, because the government can’t run them, why not try and find a private buyer for all or at least some of the facilities?

UPDATE IV

Gee, is this an admission of government failure:

The Rudd government doesn’t need to wait for state approval of its hospital plan to move public patients on waiting lists into private hospital beds, a leading health group says….

It says an investment of $450 million would move the estimated 89,000 patients on public surgery waiting lists into private beds.

“There is the option today of using private hospital beds to treat a large number of those people, you don’t have to wait,” CEO Martin Laverty told ABC Radio.

So Rudd seeks to solve public health sector incompetance with private sector help?

South Australian Premier Mike Rann recently made a desperate attempt to shut down non-state controlled media during the upcoming South Australian election. The Liberal Party dutifully supported the legislation which would have required bloggers and citizens that post on news websites and other online outlets to identify their true identify, including their postcode.  Given that the same argument used to support the legislation could also be used to support the abolition of the secret ballot, seems to have been lost on the politicians but on concerned citizens.

Anyway, the SA government has dumped the idea after a massive out cry on online websites. Adelaide Now recorded nearly a thousand comments about the move on their story on the issue. Suspicion abounds that it was an attempt by Mike Rann to gag discussion on his alleged relationship with one Michelle Chantelois.

Ms Chantelois says she took the lie detector test over her claim the pair had a sexual relationship, and gave the results and a personal letter to Mr Rann’s Adelaide office.

But she is not revealing whether she passed the test, or who paid for it….

Mr Rann is suing Channel 7 and New Idea magazine for publishing the claims.

So someone is  not happy, especially after Michelle Chantelois estranged husband punched Mike Rann in the head. Charming. If anything it shows the power of non-traditional media forms and the inability of left-ward politicians to control the medium like they control the ABC. Tony Abbott should take note.

Risk the lives of your own children and navy personnel by burning your own vessel for emotional blackmail purposes – which results in 5 dead – and according to Rudd you apparently are entitled to entry visas into the country. I have not heard much from MT about the issue, apart from this:

Malcolm Turnbull said there was no question Mr Rudd had softened the policies of the previous government, a development that people-smugglers had noticed and which they were using as a marketing tool. “We’ve seen in the media numerous examples of that being confirmed,” he said. “The people-smugglers are selling the message Australia is a soft target. That is being believed by their would-be customers.”

WA Premier Colin Barnett is calling for their visas to be revoked.

Mr Barnett slammed the Rudd government for granting the 42 men asylum ahead of the coronial inquiry set up to investigate the fatal fire near Ashmore Reef in April, which police say was deliberately lit. “I think a full inquiry should be completed, and certainly anyone who was implicated in that should not be given the right to stay in Australia“, Mr Barnett told Fairfax Radio…

Mr Barnett said yesterday the police investigation had vindicated his remarks. He accused the federal government of sanitising the truth, saying it was in possession of the same information as he was when he made his original remarks.

Philip Ruddock is also predicting thousands of new illegal arrivals.

UPDATE

The ABC is once again engaged in advocacy journalism for Rudd, running a headline piece on their website that Rudd really has been trying to stop illegal immigrants arriving in Australia. Apparently, according to Rudd’s media office and therefore the ABC, a phone call to Indonesia from the PM is all that it takes to stop people coming illegally to Australia. See, simple stuff, no need to worry. Well if a phone call is all that it takes, then where was Rudd before and after the deaths of 40 people; deaths that were a direct result of his softened immigration policy?

Rudd is now saying that he makes no apologies for his tough stance on illegal immigration after his phone call to Indonesia. Does he take us as fools? Only the ABC, which is dutifully reporting Rudd’s latest spin and double talk, would believe that Rudd is tough on illegal immigration, when ah em errr ahhh, he really isn’t. Well on some days and not on others, or is it the other way round?!?!?!?

Further evidence that Rudd is the most unintelligent ill-prepared PM in living memory. Parents at an inner-city Sydney school want to hand back Rudd’s education ‘revolution’ money because they don’t think spending $2.5m in tearing down 4 perfectly good classrooms and rebuilding them – as demanded by the NSW government –  is value for money:

The school’s initial application was to build two covered outdoor learning areas, returf the oval to remove asbestos and refurbish an existing block of four classrooms.

The NSW Education Department knocked back the request, saying the BER timetable was too rigid to make changes. The school was told it had to demolish the building of four classrooms and would have enough money only to build another block of four.

…the department’s solution for rising student enrolments was to take over the music room or the Italian room, which would be unpopular in an area with a large Italian community.

Like something out of Little Britain – ‘Computer says no’. Parents are learning what Rudd’s education revolution is all about: window dressing problems with lots of money and telling local people – via Big Government – to shut up. Tony Abbott’s idea of having local boards run local schools and hospitals makes more and more sense. Rudd sees government as the solution to problems not the problem in and of itself.

How did this article make it past the ABC editorial censorship board? Although one has to go looking for it. John Della Bosca and his acts of adultery are just symbolic of a political party and a government devoid of all integrity. From Quentin Dempster:

While everyone seemed to say they were not making moral judgements about the minister’s infidelity, the hubris, audacity and deceit involved in the affair added to an already formed public perception that personalities within the Cabinet and Government cared more for their puffed-up status, privileges and power-plays than they did for the welfare of the taxpaying public.

That, coupled with a campaign of white-anting of Mr Rees’ leadership by enemies within the 72-member parliamentary Labor Party, has effectively discredited Labor in government.

…and its against international law established after the horrors of Nazism and their use of abortion to control societal makeup:

New Queensland Health figures show 19 babies were aborted at 20 weeks or more in 2007, but rather than dying at birth as intended, the newborns were able to breathe unaided.

The babies, some as advanced as 26 weeks, were aborted using drugs to induce labour. Once born, no medical help was offered and they died soon afterwards.

The rest of the country, especially ACT and Victoria have virtually no restrictions on abortion services. What type of doctor goes to medical school to make a living carrying out these procedures?

From Miranda Devine:

Rees’s only qualification for the job, according to one of many detractors in his party, is that he was a “westie” and not a “wog”, apparently an asset when appealing to voter parochialism. The way he was plucked from obscurity to take the state’s top job is a glimpse into the empty heart of NSW Labor today….

What has been Rees’s solution to the state’s problems in almost 12 months as Premier?

…closing down the Harbour Bridge for a day, covering it with astro turf and inviting Sydneysiders to have breakfast on it…an inquiry into the “giant black panther” supposedly stalking Sydney’s west, and he banned bottled water from government departments…force out Housing Commission residents in the inner west to make room for a new development for homeless people…Rees likened climate sceptics to Nazi appeasers…Premier’s goodwill message for National Flag Day next month he laid an egg by urging the flag be changed…mount a guerilla campaign against the Director of Public Prosecutions, Nicholas Cowdery, whose only crime is to have run his office independently of the Government….latest pointless exercise of merging government agencies into “super-departments”….

Rees recently responded to plummeting opinion poll ratings by appearing on television in black tie agreeing with the critics.

“Well, to be honest with you I’ve been disappointed with my performance on a number of fronts.”

Inspiring.

Upon listening to an interview with WA Premier Colin Barnett, the thought came to me: what exactly is Kevin Rudd doing to alleviate the suffering caused by his lax illegal immigration policy, other than trying to appear outraged and shocked and sending his Deputy PM out to answer to the media? Premier Barnett began coordinating medical treatment for the victims of Rudd’s policy, while Rudd went into hiding. At one stage the government even appeared to be denial that the boat carrying the illegal immigrants had actually caught fire, under the guise that they did not want to speculate on matters. Publicly admitting what had occurred, as Barnett did, allowed emergency and medical staff time to coordinate treatment. As Barnett said in the media interview, he never speculated on who was to blame.

This episode has once and for all exposed Rudd’s inability to lead in a crisis. It also shows him to be as cynical as conservatives know he is. Despite warnings from the media and the public service, Rudd went ahead with his lax immigration policy knowing full well that it would likely result in an increase in arrivals and increase the risk that people might die in the crossing. So why push the new policy? To satisfy the chattering classes. From Piers Akerman:

The refugee lobby has shown itself to be far more interested in using the lives of truly desperate human beings as political weapons than it has in applying solutions that might have some effect “upstream” of the problem, where it should really be addressed, rather than “downstream” at Ashmore Reef and in remote parts of the Indian Ocean….

It’s miserable of the Government to now claim the deaths last week were the result of a global refugee “push” when it’s obvious they were due to Labor’s own refugee-policy “pull”.