Mitt Romney is the early favorite for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination among the party’s voters in Colorado and Florida. Romney also led recent polls in New Mexico and Texas, and was second behind Mike Huckabee in both Georgia and North Carolina. Sarah Palin has not had the lead in any of the six states we’ve polled over the last month.

Sarah Palin is Obama for Republicans.

Senior Chinese government figures have described the view that climate change is not man-made as an “extreme” stance which is out of step with mainstream thought.

The comments were made during China’s annual sitting of the National People’s Congress.

So a bunch of communist styled authoritative political figures say that denying climate change is a form of extremism. You better toe the line then or off to the gulag for you – extremist!!!

This article is probably an hysterical reaction and ironically, evidence to support an address given by ABC chairman, who this week claimed that the ABC is beset with group think on reporting climate change issues. Thanks ABC.

I’ve outlined on a number of occasions why Barnaby is right on the mark. Virtually every month more evidence comes out supporting Barnaby’s position. Here are two such examples I highlighted in January and February. Here is another example supporting Barnaby this month.

Investors should avoid government securities, including U.S. Treasuries and the debt of other nations, because of the risks associated with excessive borrowing, a leading U.S. fund manager said on Tuesday.

“The most dangerous market there is national government debt because the borrowing doesn’t seem to be ending soon — and it’s not just a U.S. phenomenon,” Dan Fuss, vice chairman of investment manager Loomis Sayles, told Reuters.

The important point here is perception and confidence.

….two biggest beneficiaries of the Defence budget were the US government’s foreign military sales program and Australian Aerospace, a subsidiary of the European Aeronautic, Defence and Space Company.

Insight. Most of our equipment is of US origin, making Boeing Australia the biggest Boeing subsidiary outside the USA by employment numbers, and Australian Aerospace assembles helicopters in Brisbane. Then there are these lies:

…raising questions about the accounting rigour within the $26-billion-a-year agency

It’s not an agency but a Department – very different funding arrangements entail.

This is despite review after review warning that the department’s spending was out of control.

Government exercises control over Defence’s budget. The Department continually under achieves its budget.

…the Herald’s examination raises new questions about the accountability of a department that has become the single biggest spender of taxpayer dollars.

Not really true. The biggest spender of tax-payer dollars remains by far and away welfare, or whatever the government is calling it these days – a government-dependency class and guilt industry complex.

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.

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?

UPDATE I

Brown has rejected Clinton’s offer – there must be an election around the corner:

MPs also pointed out that the White House’s refusal to back Britain over the Falklands was in stark contrast to Tony Blair standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the U.S. over the Iraq invasion in 2003.

So much for loyalty.

I think Abbott would be a little disappointed that the Coalition are not closer on 2PP even though this month is an improvement over last month. There is definitely a clear trend towards the Coalition, though the dependency class is probably hanging tough with Rudd for now until they see what fiscal treats will be doled out to them post-election. The key may be the ‘other’ and ‘uncommitted’ vote, which currently stands at 15 points. Tapping into that little mystery by finding out who these people are may avert the need to sell the Coalition’s soul to the Green devil.

UPDATE

Brilliant observations in comments.

An exclusive Sun-Herald/Taverner poll shows Labor is now level-pegging with the Coalition.

On a two-party preferred basis, both sides have 50 per cent of the vote – a drop of almost 3 percentage points on Labor’s election-winning 52.7 per cent in 2007.

I might get carried away if Newspoll comes back with a similar result. Rudd is still ahead of Abbott by 13 points on preferred PM, so there is still some work to do. Imagine if the ALP loses with Rudd’s popularity. I can’t see anyone within the ALP at this point with the power to emulate Rudd’s appeal. So Rudd will be safe for a while, probably even if the ALP loses the next election.

Argentina’s ambassador to Australia says mining group BHP Billiton will face business sanctions if it pushes ahead with oil exploration in Falklands waters.

BHP has a licence to explore off the Falkland Islands and is scheduled to start doing so in the next four months.

But Ambassador Pedro Villagra says if the company proceeds, their business in Argentina will suffer.

“If they conduct activities they will not be allowed to carry out some activities in the Argentine territory in the mainland,” he said….

BHP does not currently have any operations in Argentina but has in the past held stakes in gold and copper mining projects.

BHP will probably just thumb its nose at Argentina and start drilling. It is fairly suspect that the USA is refusing to recognise Britain’s sovereign right over the Falklands. Are they hoping to gain a commercial advantage in the region? It looks like it. Clinton will probably do a deal when she meets the Argentine President.