LP has often been critical of the standard of mainstream political commentary in Australia, arguing that it concentrates too much on day by day horse race piffle framed by a narrow range of possible narrative scripts. We’re pleased to be able to bring you what we think is the best of the independent media coverage of the 2008 budget, a piece by Possum originally published in Crikey and reproduced at his blog - Possum looks beyond the headlines and delves deeper into Rudd’s governing style, and its implications.
Hands up who’s thoroughly sick and tired of reading about how Kevin Rudd is John Howard lite, a bloke that substitutes spin for government activity in those times when he’s not actually doing the big “Me-Too”?
Finally, hopefully, we can all now put that piffle to bed.
The real Kevin Rudd has always been the Goss technocrat, the strategic policy wonk, the careful, cautious planner ad-infinitum that draws policy threads together in a coherent broader tapestry, who melds electoral politics around concrete policy goals rather than wrapping convenient policy goals around base electoral politics. Last night the real Kevin Rudd became so obvious that even the laziest journalist should be able to see it.
The future direction of health policy is a classic case in point. By doubling the threshold for the Medicare levy surcharge, not only will it start to dismantle the private health insurance gravy train as fewer people get penalised for not taking out private health insurance (becoming an effective tax break for those middle income working families to boot - the electoral politics), but it will to some extent increase the demand on public health resources in the future as a result, particularly the resources of the public hospital system. Yet Rudd has been banging on about reforming Commonwealth-State relations over health since he first achieved the Labor leadership. There’s the explicit threat for constitutional change to allow the Feds to take over hospitals if the States aren’t up to the job to implement reform, there’s the COAG health reform agenda and a bucket of upfront money being made available before the budget and now there’s a $10 billion health fund.
It’s not rocket science to see how it’s playing out - for those that say the budget lacked reform, open your eyes and stop looking at the world through a Howardian prism.
Rudd knows the demand shift consequences of moving the Medicare levy surcharge up the income ladder, he’s banking on at least the first tranches of reform - be it the increase in aged care beds to free up hospital beds, the construction of GP clinics to take weight off hospital emergency departments and the dozens of smaller front line reforms scattered through a dozen documents - to provide the hospital system with the increased capacity to absorb the consequences of this initial reshaping of how private health insurance works in practice. As time moves on, private health insurance will be further reformed with the broader health system as a whole - the scene has been set and the trajectory pretty much laid out.
Too often we all seem to expect reform to come in some big-bang document titled ‘Reforming Policy X” where we can all follow the flow chart. A sort of idiots guide to policy change where winners are easily determined and losers are identified in bright red circles.
Undoubtedly there will be some of those in the future - the not quite so root and branch tax review springs to mind, but there’s a whole lot more going on in this budget below the headlines and the PR management. We might all need to start thinking in more complex ways on how government initiatives interact with one another if we are to get to the bottom of the broader sweep of government policy direction - because Kevin Rudd and his government certainly are.
UPDATE:
And another thing that’s been shitting me to tears this morning goes like this:
Random commentator: “history tells us that the first budget is always the toughest”
[Like history, or fabricated notions of political orthodoxy are a good guide to judge anything about Rudd Labor – one would have thought that people would have learned that lesson by now]
Random commentator continues: “… but because this budget wasn’t as tough as I wanted it to be, the chances of there being good budgets in the future is seriously diminished”.
Follow this piffle if you can – because the budget didn’t follow the political orthodoxy i.e. “some rule that some knob decided to invent at some point in the past to explain something”, therefore by those same rules of orthodoxy (Those rules that haven’t actually explained anything yet about the budget), future budgets will be miserable.
Good grief – these people are going to be confused for a long time.
I am triply gruntled by the Budget’s rollback of Howardistan:
a) Establishes political legitimacy to curb middle-class welfare.
b) Restores NALSAS funding (National Asian Languages & Studies in Australian Schools)
c) Eliminates TPVs
All are issues I campaigned on for a few years - kind of restores one’s faith that people can make a difference after all.
On complexity, you have to wonder if journalists ever question the meaning of their questions. Last night Tony Jones pounded Tanner about whether the Rudd government would now be responsible for inflation - a question he repeated about 50 times when interviewing Gillard tonight. Some of the economic commentary I’ve read today suggests that any contraction in fiscal policy (and the increase in government spending has been pulled back from 5% to 1.1% and real gov’t share of GDP will be at a 25 year low) takes at least six months, if not a year to wend its way through the system. But does Jones understand this? Or are we still stuck with Howard era nonsense where the government, having claimed credit for everything, can also magic away inflation with a speech?
Similarly, as Julia said tonight, a 485000 transfer of people from private insurance to no private insurance doesn’t mean half a million people banging on public hospital doors. (That’s even if the Treasury modelling is right - which is questionable - not because of the quality, but because of the nature of the modelling beast). As she pointed out, everyone with private insurance uses parts of the public system and then there’s the fact that many of those who are likely to drop out are young and healthy folks. So everyone has an interest in a high quality public system, which as Possum points out, is a major objective of this government in all sorts of ways.
Is this too hard for journos to understand?
Absolutely Mercurius. I has a lot to do with the TPV issue a few years back, and I’m amazed …its just… gone. No major fanfare, just abolished. Holus bolus.
It was a nasty little shit of a policy - and it has really to be said, it didnt even have the alleged ‘popular/ mainstream’ merit of being a ‘deterrent’. It wasn’t. It made people come in boats who would otherwise have flown in on a family reunion visa. We never got more asylum seekers - ever- than in the 3 years after it was introduced.
It was no deterrent, it was just punishment - pure and simple - and for what?
For being persecuted by Saddam Hussein or the Taliban.
That’s how friggin low we sank under what his name, the ex-PM. You know, the halitoxic annoying litte bald loser one, you know, with the shoulder tick, erm… help me out here….
And great post, Possum. I coudn’t agree more.
One day, maybe soon, someone in the press gallery will wake up, startled, and realise “…when did we become such retards??”
The real danger they face, and why there’s so much angst about Rudd’s “media management” in some quarters imho, is being rendered irrelevant. Their opinionating is no longer taken as gospel by the gubbermint, and their capacity to influence publics is attacked on one hand by the fracturing of the mediascape (both in terms of the decline of mass publics and because of the lower barriers to entry) and on the other by a deliberate policy of talking over and around them from the government. So they end up talking amongst and to themselves. Yawn!
Yep - the “insiders” problem; this time without the cover.
I was struck by a vox pop on some commercial channel I accidentally flicekd across - Im sorry to tell you this, meeja, but whatever his faults: Mr and Mrs Punter actually understood everything Wayne said.
I sense a paradigm shift.
Thinking more about this, its not just the meeja, Mark - its the opposition too. They seem truly flummoxed as the patented three trusty cliches miss the mark, and the point. The rules are being rewritten; they’re still catching up.
Clearly, 9 of 100 and Turnbull don’t talk either - but that’s another issue.
I like possums comments on the surcharge - and the more I think on it, the more brilliant it seems. It bascially says: hey, why dont we make private health insurance private ? You got a problem with that?
They’ve quietly exposed what a complete crock the system and debate was, and focusses back the health system as a whole. Without creating a ruckus, as they would have by ditching the rebate. All carrot, no stick - where can the Libs go with that? Nowhere! It’s over.
When you boil it down, the Howard policy was essentially this: let’s divert public health resources and create another health bureacracy, to inefficiently soak up funds, and compete with the existing one.
Spot on, Lefty E!
Like I was saying Lefty E, Swan and Rudd have torn up the rules. The budget’s addressed to the folks (and secondarily to the financial markets - but they get their briefings and signals in a sense separately). Doesn’t matter a toss what the commentariat think. They’re just talking to each other. How many readers of the Australian read the political guff? How many people buy it for the sport and biz news (and that’s where they’ve put a lot of their journalistic resources)? And how many of those who do read the political guff are lefties who love to hate teh Murdoch?
The tabloids and the teev report what their readers are interested in. And that’s most people. And they want to know - what’s my tax cut, what’s happening with child care, what’s happening with health and education? Not the shite that the commentators focus on.
No one should underestimate the kudos they’ll get for keeping all their promises either. They’re the antidote to Howard, not Howard lite.
And Possum’s spot on with the policy stuff. Doing good by stealth. And doing it in such a way as to reframe the debates and leave the opposition with nothing to clutch onto, and no leverage to get back in the tent.
In about 10-15 years time, they’ll realise this, and become Ruddites too. Took the British Tories about that long to get it, just as it took New Labour about the same amount of time to get Thatcherism. But the New Labour settlement was much much cleverer because much much more subtle.
Ps - Possum’s spot on too about the electoral politics of the surcharge. I know a number of people who’ve only been in the 50k+ league for a couple of years - lower middle income full timers who’ve got no intention whatsoever of taking out private health. They’ll enjoy the extra tax cut, because that’s what it is - for precisely the people who - hello journos! wake up Malcolm! - make up the majority of the working population.
Most people aren’t struggling Abbotts on 120k a year or tv talking heads on 250k or op/ed writers on whatever the feck they get. Hence “working families”. They know who they are. And remember the golden rule of political communication - people tune in, tune out most of the time to political messages. So there’s always someone hearing what you’re saying for the first time.
The GP superclinics (whatever they are - no one really knows) won’t take the real weight off ED in public hospitals. They will, (if they can be staffed) perhaps relieve some of the lower level afer hours demand in EDs. The stuff that could have waited till tomorrow anyway. This part of ED demand is the big numbers but all that really happens is that they wait longer anyway - these punters have no effect on bed numbers or admissions as they aren’t admitted and are bumped down the line as more urgent and life threatening people roll in from ambulances.
The reduction in the Private Health Insurance rebate won’t have much effect on public hospital demand. I predict that a big % the people who opt out of PI because of drop in rebate will self insure anyway and the majority of dropouts will be the young and healthy who don’t use hospital services much. People who are hospital users with existing conditions who are already in insurance will stay in.
“Most people aren’t struggling Abbotts”
Mark, I think “struggling Abbots” is a brilliant term for those with an inflated sense of their own experience of hardship. Let’s keep it.
“The real Kevin Rudd has always been the Goss technocrat, the strategic policy wonk, the careful, cautious planner ad-infinitum that draws policy threads together in a coherent broader tapestry, who melds electoral politics around concrete policy goals rather than wrapping convenient policy goals around base electoral politics.”
That’s Rudd to a tee. A great piece.
I was trying to explain to a friend why critics were saying the budget might lead to unemployment - that whole ‘international uncertainty’ thing. But weren’t these same people saying the budget could be inflationary? Ah, yep, because of strong domestic demand and the mining boom. But aren’t they opposite outcomes?
The fact is, no one knows what’s going to happen to the economy next. That’s what makes the Tony Jones catchphrase questioning so odious right now.
Yep, the opposition’s losing it - they’re taking a stand on the alcopops tax.
I mean - seriously, that’s their reponse.
You know, Im not the most “mainstream” dude around, Brendan, but let me give you a headsup on what ordinary folk will think. Cos clearly you need it. Try to tune in to greater suburbia here. they’re thinking
“This is the tax that:
- just made it more expensive for some no-hoper to grope my teen daughter
- just made it more expensive for my teen son to wipe himself out in a car smash
And that funny haired weirdo, the one who isnt PM, wants to stop it.
Are you trying to go below 9 Brendan? Cos this is the way to do it.
There is another possum update attached at his blog:
—
UPDATE 2:
But the award for the most outstanding contribution to to silly budget commentary definitely goes to Ms Fiona Connolly over at News with her rant “Yet again, Generation X gets screwed“
The mind boggles
—
Good post possum.
I agree that a lot of the shallow media commentary is completely oblivious apparently to the larger structural changes Rudd has put in motion with this budget, and overall it spells a brighter future for health in particular, and possibly education. It’s lovely to see some of the more egregious handouts to the wealthy being rolled back, although not comprehensively or fast enough for my taste.
But if we are going to credit Rudd et al. with putting in place positive structural economic changes to deal with the health crisis, we must also use the same lens to criticise where this budget comprehensively fails to do the same for another much bigger crisis, and that of course is climate change. More money for clean coal than renewables. renewables money limited to projects at demonstration level only, and held over by a year, but clean coal starts now. Ultimately trivial amounts of money towards commercial energy efficiency measures and household ones, and tokenistic amounts for domestic and industrial installation of renewable energy. Continuation of the massive unwarranted subsidisation of the fossil fuel industry, of which my favourite pecadillo would have to be that the Australian tax payer foots the bill for the coal industry’s long service leave commitments - to which I can only say “what the fuck?!”.
So big tick for starting to reform health and make cautious steps in education, looking forward to a more equitable and less rortable tax strucuture (although won’t hold my breath). Shame about the massive failure to address climate change.
and let’s try that link again
sorry!
[Moderator: I fixed the formatting on that link in the previous comment - no worries! ~tigtog]
I fund the opposition stance to this budget humerous and unbelievable. Do they really thnk that not passing ther budget in the Senate good politics. I am having problems understanding what the opposition is saying, as it seems to change as the day goes on. The message I am getting is they that Rudd should not do anything they proposed and Howarth’s spending is sety in stone and should not be altered or done away with.
Nelson and his treasurer appear to be the only people who are outraged by this budget. I am concerned that the business community seem to like this budget. It is not a perfect budget and does not please everyone. That is impossible.
Maybe they are following Howard’s recent advice to maintain the rage, whatever that means.
myriad: WRT climate change, the big-ticket item is their emissions trading policy. Just about everything else is irrelevant.
Yeah! great post, Possum! I agree re “paradigm shift” in government.
At a surface level, it can be seen in the conservative dress - men’s suits & ties, women’s clothes - the conservative approach to question time, leaving the riposte to Gillard & Tanner (OMG, wasn’t yesterday’s Tanner “clone” joke in Question time a winner - broke up even its target - at least MalT is human enough to appreciate good joke). Hardly a smirk, hardly a gloat, hardly an abusive, demeaning rant about their Opposition. We are professionals is the message. You gave us charge of your national government, your hard-earned taxes. You told us what you wanted them to be spent on. We heard you. We promised you we’d do it if you elected us. You gave us your trust. We will not let you down. Now we’re delivering on the first stages of that promise.
Below the surface, the Budget approach reflects Strategic/ TQ Management/ World’s Best Practice approaches of far more than Rudd & Tanner. This is a careful, co-ordinated & well-prepared government. It “does its homework”, consults widely - including from its chief “stakeholder” (the Australian people), establishes “arm’s length” independent bodies to oversee spending in key develomental areas: transport. health education. It builds-in everything one expects of a Best-practice organisation - from strategic management to evaluation of target specifics AND fall-back positions required for turbulent environments
… Geez, I kept thinking as I listened to Swann on Budget Night & at the Press Club yesterday, this is textbook stuff! They’re out after a World’s Best Practice in Government Award! My aged mind ticked off the criteria as if it were the first semester of a 2 semester major assignment (the second, the evaluation - next May; but, I suspect, with interim ones along the way!) And this is the government of Qld’s Dr Death - do it properly & on time, or the broomcloset/ gulag is that away! And Lordy Lord, Swanny was almost “Amsterdam-cut & polished” at yesterday’s Press Club. No more Mr SunshineCoast-Surfie Rough Diamond!
And yes, not only does he plan to do what every 2007 opinion poll showed Jen & Joe Public really wanted from their Federal government - health, education. transport infrastructure, world-class broadband - he’s done it so cleverly. Mike Steketee writes:
But the budget is important particularly for where it points in the future and for revealing the sheer scope, economically and politically, it opens up for the Government.
Socking away $40 billion in wealth funds means big decisions down the line on renovating Australia’s capital base.
giving Rudd’s government a $40bn piggy bank to raid [link]
As one commentator (??) said, this was a three-term budget. We’ll all be able to write the ALP’s Election10/11 platform well before the election is called. Rudd & his ministers have gone beyond “wedge politics” to cut the ground from under the Opposition; drawing the line under the era which began (but in little more than rhetoric) with MalFraser’s Razor Gang, peaked with the GST (originally a Keating policy) and WorkChoices (which Howard wanted to implement over 2 decades earlier).
I also loved Annabel Crabb’s assessment of the Oppo’s pre/post-budget antics. Mr Somersault’s agile, but that thin ice could crack [link]
Great post Poss.
Spent yesterday at a meeting spending quality time with people whose base pay is around $45k pa. They get it. They really do, and actually the people I was talking with thought the government should ban alcopops altogether. The punditocracy needs to do some elementary research. You know, like how many people earn what they earn, live where they live, and think like they think. I know they fancy themsleves as the indispensible fourth estate upon which our beloved ‘democracy’ depends for its vigour and health, but the ponderously oracular style employed by the likes of Paul Kelly is so ‘yesterday’ it is laughable. His problem and the problem of the rest of this tiresome band, is that this federal ‘gummint’ has absorbed the lessons of the Keating era thoroughly.
The mistakes in style and presentation of that era, together with the cosy ‘insider’ mentality’ that characterised Keating’s method of dealing with communication via puffed up journalists won’t be repeated, but that doesn’t mean chucking out decent policy that tilts just a little more towards those who earn less than journalists earn, meaning the majority of the electorate.
It means that the federal ‘gummint’ understands that you need to treat the people who support you with respect for their intelligence and understanding, and not forget who brung ya to the dance, if you want them to keep on voting for you. You know, knowing how to keep the numbers to keep being in government is the basic task of any one who intends to do anything.
The MSM can just ’suck it up’.
The removal of TPVs is great - however they also seem to be setting a precedence of denying nearly all the appeals to the minister so instead of getting TPVs, they’ll just end up getting deported
I think its being incredibly optimistic to think the majority who dropout who will be young and healthy will decide to self-insure. All that extra money is going to go into houses and stuff to put into houses. There is something to be said for making sure that everyone really cares about a good hospital system - but we’re not going to feel the real impact for quite a few years when the young and healthy now reach the age where they do need a lot of attention and have neither private insurance or savings.
The main losers of this change will be those that have been in private insurance for many years and funded other people’s medical care while they themselves have been healthy.
Whilst I’ll happily support increases in sin taxes - an across the board large increase in cigarette and alcohol taxes would be good I think, I don’t think it will do much to reduce binge drinking. I’d much rather people drank premix drinks than mixed it themselves (which is what people used to do) - you really have no idea how much alcohol you’re getting when you or a friend decides what the mix ratio is - especially later into the night.
Thanks for putting Possum’s commentary here. I enjoyed reading a more nuanced view of the budget than the hand wringing that seems to be going on everywhere else. And a big YAY that the govt is signaling a commitment to fixing the health system. The last few years have certainly proved that forcing people to take out Private health insurance certainly hasn’t lighted the load on the public system.
I think the opposition are dizzy from how fast the Rudd govt have been keeping their promises. Kyoto and the Apology and now all these election promises included in the budget. I suspect they are doing their best to create a lot of incomprehensible noise in the hope that the electorate notice ‘wow we have a PM who keeps his promises (even the non core ones) and doesn’t lie (WMD’s anyone?)’ Or maybe they are just in shock
I agree with Poss and Mark that the budget is a much more radical shift in OZ pol culture than the media is getting. I don’t want to overstate that (and agree with Myriad that the climate change measures where whelming at best) - but its clear to me that both the coalition and media bought their own lines about a permanent Howardite shift, and are reeling and confused to discover the obvious: the new government writes its own rules, plays its own game, and can place goalposts - to some degree - where it likes.
I think the coalition will be starting to wake up to Howard in the wake of this budget, right about now - look at the mess he left them in The ALP has only to trim the budget and they’re less profiligate than the former government.
The coalition cant take the “big govt” angle without being total hypocrites, and they’re stymied on middle-class welfare too - as they’re supposed to be against it, but weren’t in practice.
Squandering the entire surplus on profligate reelection bids now reappears as “giving it back” - but no-one wants anyhting but value for money for their govt services, and now big surpluses are actually going to nation-building in a demonstrable way.
And yes, as mark says, Rudd is doing what he promised to do. That in itself is a radical departure from Howardism. Even the IPA dude on Radio National was impressed with that.
Moreover - lets examine the politcs of their response to the surcharge changes. “Hi, Im Brendan Nelson, and I promise to re-institute a punitive tax on middle income earners, to wedge you into a scheme wouldn’t actually want unless we also ran down its competitor. So we’ll do that too. I will do all this in order to ‘prevent’ the premium rises - which will happen either way. Vote me etc!”
What a winning platform.
Howard’s left them nothing to work with.
Nice post.
I particularly like the add-on at the end (update). Too right. Those commentators are knobs and do make it up.
Who knows - maybe we’re heading back to an era were journalists are promoted on merit instead of their ability to look good on a camera?
I doubt it.
I know it’d drive someone insane, but I think you’ll find that if you compared the MSM polls with Morgan or Newspoll that you’d the majority of the MSM is actually moving away from the mainstream political thinking. There’s also a clear divide between top CEO’s and MSM reporting too.
It’ll be interesting to watch and see how long it takes for there to be an impact in readership numbers and advertising dollars.
On TPVs, Chris: as I said here last week, as unfortunate as those s417 stats are, they will be absolutely no predictor or measure of the government’s asylum policy. I don’t want to piss in my own pocket, Strocchi-style - but I think thats been demonstrably borne out now.
They only measure the individual Minister’s discretion - not the government approach. Most cant actually be deported anyway - so there’s another problem to solve.
“Gruntled” and “whelming” so far on this thread - nice work on the redundant positives, Mercurius and LE.
I find it very tressing.
Chris (a different one) wrote:
Um, that’s how insurance works Chris - you need a lot of people who never use it to make it work. I think the reform is a good idea, the original stupidity of rebates for private health insurance with simultaneous penalties for not taking it out just gave the companies carte blanche to increase their prices. We ditched our health insurance last year - never used it, relatively big strain on our tightened budget for bugger all gain. For our health needs, self insurance for small things and the public system for big stuff, which is what we did with private insurance anyway.
I’ll be observing the changes to the public and private health systems with great interest. I’m reaching an age (I’m 57) where I may need elective surgery for things like hip replacement, heart bypass surgery, etc, so I’ve (resentfully) kept paying for private cover. This actually costs me more than paying the extra Medicare levy would have, but it allows me to have stuff done without putting up with, e.g., a bone-on-bone hip for a couple of years. In fact I recently changed funds because the one I was with suddenly announced that the scheme I was on would no longer pay for the sorts of things I’m likely to need.
If the public system gets improved to the point it needs to be at, I’ll have no qualms about ditching private cover, as I don’t like giving spivs like those in the private health system breathing space.
I too am combobulated.
Top post and thread.
Au contraire, I’ve been rather concerted by the changes.
It’s all very turbing.
Yes, I’m mayed by it all.
I find it quite gusting and graceful.
Are you ’sing us, Liam?
I think this gag is straying past petitiveness.
It’s ingenuous of you to claim that you are gusted by these rational, logical and jointed changes, Liam.
PS My understanding of the Constitution is that the Senate can only delay / try to amend, but not reject the budget. Fraser could effectively delay the budget because the money was running out. Not now it wouldn’t! If the Coalition simply holds up the budget, we should still we get any of Howard/ Costello’s forward projections that haven’t yet been changed, as well as whatever has already passed the Senate - for as long as the government can still pay them. The Senate changes on 1 July. If it stays stubborn, the Government always has the Double Dissolution alternative
Given Kev & Wayne are keeping pre-Election promises, how will Jen & Joe Public (the majority of whom gain from the Budget) react if the Coalition pushes Rudd to a Double Dissolution over alchopops?????
More to the point as far as the Coalition is concerned, since Big Business (their main election-fund contributor) was critical of John & Paul’s 2007 efforts and sees Kev & Wayne heading in the right infrastructure directions, how well will this play for the Coalition in a Double Dissolution … over alchopops???
Mind you, the way the Coalition is behaving & any advice on how to play the media they’re taking, just about anything is possible.
Yes the coalition’s stand is bold, visionary, and reminds me on Henry V’s speech at the gates of Agincourt.
Here is where we stand and fight! The line in the sand! where teenagers puke at 3am, there shall we be!
What a wonderfully Australian stand to take. Yes, we should we able to drink as much as we want and we shall fight to the death anyone who taxes our alcopops! I want to see a photo op of Turnnbull et al on the Barcardi Breezers. Wankers!
Adrian, Leinad, Lefty E, Liam
While your jokes have all been very couth, and it’s tempting to tenuate along those lines, we should probably be more stinting in our attempts at humour, so that this thread can once again be railed.
Well yes, and they’re now encouraging the people who have in the past made the system profitable to leave. Thus my comment about those who in the past have supported the system, but now want to draw on it being the losers.
Heh, you sound like the kind of person the health funds would be happy to ditch their private cover - before you start making too many claims.
But what public grounds exist for the public subsidisation of an otherwise non-viable industry?
myriad: WRT climate change, the big-ticket item is their emissions trading policy. Just about everything else is irrelevant.
I think my point Robert is that it didn’t have to be. The emissions trading system isn’t going to be the silver bullet. There’s plenty to be done. Apparently they’ve only now just worked out for eg that their pitiful and delayed allocation of funding to renewables has meant they are now robbing Peter (solar) to pay paul (geothermal) - run out of time, but see the article in I think the Oz today.
What the OP sdays is that Rudd is reforming health through stealth, Isn’t that what Howard did, but in the opposite direction? Howard was not a policy wonk, but policy was oriented by his government toward the private sector. It’s still unclear where Rudd is going with this one, as he is a self-confessed pragmatist when it comes to the issue of private versus public provision of services. I would guess he’ll move health into a new type of private provision. If he were a radical he would have taken over the hospital system. He didn’t and he won’t.
Rudd’s election strategy was also the ’small target’ one chosen by Howard in 1996. Rudd is not Howardlite, but the fact is that he is a neo-liberal and a social conservative as was Howard. The difference between the two is that Rudd has far more intellectual tools, but still no agenda for government. He’s making that up in government, as he goes along.
Great post, Possum. Definitely confirms everything I’ve thought about Rudd (temporarily basks in reflected glory over shared parental name; note to self: start doing family tree on father’s side) and Swan, who has really come into his own with this budget. I predict he’ll be regularly wiping the floor with Malcolm Show Pony Turnbull et al now that he’s brought the maiden budget down.
What I’ve found really interesting is the angst among members of the punditry and Howard’s aspiationals earning over $150k/annum about being weaned from the public teat. Apparently having their dole cut is the “politics of envy” and not about greedily latching onto public funds with gusto. The mantra is that they work hard for their money and pay tax, while implying that the rest of the work force does neither and by extension is undeserving of a slice of the bribery pie. Maybe the absence of non-core promises has discombobulated them.
As for the alchopops crapola, there were several columns in The Australian this morning about some dill who drives a ute having to reconsider voting labor because they’d increased the tax on his favourite drinks. A story more worthy of the Courier Mail or some other trashy tabloid, I would have thought. Next thing they’ll be asking Corey Delaney/Worthington to write an opinion piece on the budget.
TT and ACA will no doubt pursue Ute Man with their cheque books for his story about how the alchopop tax tragedy has impacted on his and his family’s life, with a follow-up in a few weeks showing how he’s bravely struggled on under the intolerable burden imposed on him by the heartless alchopop tax grab imposed by arch-villain Wayne Swan. He might even get a spot on Big Brother!
myriad, I’m assuming (and I may be wrong) that when the emissions trading policy is announced, there’ll also be projections of what revenue will be raised by it, and that’s when we’ll start hearing about the serious climate change stuff.
Meeting of Liberal party “brains” after listening to JWH’s latest advice.
JWH: Maintain the rage.
1st. Party “brain” :(all sipping on their alcopops in party room back at New Parliament House) Now what did John mean by that?
2nd. Party “brain”: Well he said, “Maintain the rage.”
3rd. Party “brain”: (Probably ‘doing it hard’ Abbott)Sh*t, man, lets do 1975 all over again. I mean it worked back then.Didn’t it?
I will keep my health insurance (and not drop out due to change in medicare levy threshold) for extras cover that I make good use of and I feel fine about that. I think that the public system should not have to support certain kinds of things which private insurance covers. As was discussed on the other thread the public and private systems cater for different markets and the public system should be kept strong, so that if anyone(rich, poor, city, country) is need of urgent medical attention the local hospital have beds, manpower and equip etc to deal with these things. I feel that for other things (optical, fitness programs..)self funding or private insurance is the way to go, but I would love to see basic dental covered by medicare and bulk billing doctors that are a bit easier to find when you need one!
On that note, Newcastle has an excellent after hours GP access program, (which is such a boon when you’ve got kids sick in the middle of the night) and if the GP superclinics, FXH referred to, follow this model I think that this will be of great benefit for many communities.
Re Jane’s comments and the dill in the Oppo Echo-I saw that too and thought to myself-now that’s a handy demographic to punditise on, isn’t it?
It is a great example of the real contempt these wankers have for the people they imagine when they ‘think’ someone who doesn’t earn $150,000 pa. I would love for the charlie pictured this morning to be the ALP pin up boy in an election campaign on ‘responsible alcohol consumption and the infrastructre crisis!’. ha ha ha. I haven’t had a such a good string of laughs for a long time!
Mark said:
I don’t think there is, and as I’ve said previously I think the 30% rebate should be removed - I think that would have been a better alternative to changing the threshold for the surcharge. But that doesn’t change the fact that there will be losers out of the changes.
I also don’t see the medicare surcharge levy as a private insurance subsidisation. We have a progressive tax system and I don’t think its inconsistent to tax those on higher incomes extra to help fund the medical system if they choose to put a higher burden on the publicly funded system when they can afford alternatives.
Mercurius #43
What am I?
Sorry… no… just got something in my eye, that’s all.
44 Chris (a different one)
just a small point:
It has never been profitable.
People leaving funds results in a saving.
People are double dipping because despite paying for insurance it’s not full cover (you pay once for the insurance and then again for the gap).
We’re going to find out how many.
myriad: I think you’d be surprised at just how much difference the emissions trading system makes.
It’s going to redirect billions of dollars every single year towards reducing emissions.
As to the solar thing, I’ve got a post on that coming up. In a nutshell, there are presumably people in the government who’ve decided solar panels on house roofs are a complete waste of their money (whether you accept their view or not, that’s what they think). So they had to think up a pretext to kill the rebate without actually doing so up front. And they came up with a pretty politically clever way of doing so.
I think its a bit more complex than that. The older and sick who leave the fund will result in savings for the health funds, but then few of those will be encouraged to leave by the medicare surcharge threshold changes as most of them would not have had to pay. The young and healthy who leave rarely made claims in the first place and are very profitable for the insurance funds (until they get older and start making claims).
Since the health funds aren’t really allowed to change premiums based on age and potential health problems (unlike other insurance schemes where they can charge more based on risk), they rely on lots of healthy people to cross subsidise the unhealthy ones.
57 Chris (a different one)
I agree that it’s complex, and I’d suggest the variability in the claims shows that no-one knows what’s really going on. The funds themselves are pretty quiet - the fight is being put through a proxy, unless of course the AMA members are the ones who have the most to lose…
It’s a fundamental that people leaving means a saving - check the budget papers. It’s the net result thats cloudy and complex.
If a lot of those leaving are healthy non-claimers, then the government is paying the funds money for no good reason whatsoever, and they’ve decided they don’t want to do that any more.
I suspect we’ll find that doctors will have to start working back inside the public system for less money than the funds were paying them, and that the funds are going to have to reassess the fees they pay doctors in order to stay afloat, which again, will push doctors back to the public system.
Have a careful look at who is squealing and what they have to gain/lose.
Back to the theme of the thread - it’s be nice if the odd journalist would take an in depth look at the issue instead of filing 5 minutes for tonight’s TV or tomorrows budgie cage liner.
Robert, I’m not talking about the domestic solar PV rebate scheme, I’m talking about this:
Rudd et al realising they’ve botched the government support for viable renewable energy in Australia
And to both you and Mark yes I realise that funding will allegedly flow with the emissions trading scheme, but last time I looked climate change was pressingly urgent now, and if we can afford to shove billions into future funds for health etc., there was zip reason why they couldn’t have done the same for accelerating our critically lagging response to CC - in fact by your own arguments they will be able to easily repay whatever they brought forward from the emissions scheme revenue.
Nor is the emissions trading scheme going to do much at this point about changing people’s habits, such as energy efficiency. For a very simple eg if providing a tiny fund (compared to the need) for landlors to retrofit insulation is such a fab idea, why not extend it to every household as the Greens have suggested? And remind me again why it is that a) it’s logical to rollback the PV household rebate but b) sensible to give all the investment property owners another handout to insulate homes and c) household actions don’t make sense, large scale ones do which is why d) we’re delaying, defunding and deferring everything except yet another massive subsidy for the least proven technology, clean coal?
myriad, I agree about the urgency, but I also think that I’d rather see a well thought out and designed program of expenditure, rather than buckets of money that will achieve nothing, Howard style. As Possum said, we have to look to the interaction of the budget with other policy initiatives and announcements (prior and prospective) and stop looking for all the problems of the world to be solved on one Tuesday night in May.
don’t you lot read piers,it’s all spin, spin ,spin don’t you know.and i believe him .he hasn’t got his hand on it because he is not blind ,he doesn’t even wear glasses
Oh yes I might have misunderstood what you were saying - its certainly a saving upfront to the government as the savings on the rebate will exceed the reduced income from the surcharge. They’re probably assuming no extra costs from people accessing hospitals more - though to what extent is unclear - and long term could be very different from short term. Also the hospital costs come out of the state budget not the federal
If things go pear shaped the states will get the blame, not Rudd.
But certainly not a saving for the health funds’ point of view to have people leave when they are young and healthy.
Unless the make it compulsory to advertise energy efficiency ratings of houses for the rental market (which I think they should!), there seems little point in offering subsidies to landlords to insulate houses. By the time tenants have worked out the place is not insulated well they’re stuck in there for at least a year anyway. Very few landlords are going to take up the rebate.
Given how long they’ve had in opposition promoting the need for CC initiatives I’m kind of surprised there was so little in the budget related to it. Apparently the solar PV installers have already started receiving cancellations and I’ve seen similar comments on various green housing mailing lists.
62 Chris
agreed.
I reckon if markets need as much protectionism as the funds receive, then it should be government controlled, and bugger noting it as a separate line on the tax return - it’s just another bloody tax and should be rolled in to the rest.
Cutting out the baby bonus for couples or someone on $150,000 p.a. to me is a mark of someone who does not think things through. Australia wants more children..so, why not give all new mum’s a bonus regardless of how rich they are. The bonus should be applied for and the rich probably won’t think about doing so, but $150,00 pa is not much this day and age. The pensioners have missed out again! Someone pointed out today that who paid for the hospitals we have today…of course, the pensioners of this day with their taxes. They are just thrown on the scrap heap once their use is over.
Mark
I agree we need a well thought out plan, but some things are pretty darn obvious.
It is easy to sustain an argument that funding and implementing a few large scale solar thermal plants is a vastly simpler proposition than solving the perceived health or education issues.
Health and education don’t have any obvious well thought out plan, but the govt rapidly figured out how big the bucket of money should be. It is also absolutely certain we will *ALWAYS* have perceived health and education issues. If you gave our health and education system to the Australia’s in 1900 they would be utterly gobsmacked at the fabulousness of it. Dissatisfaction with the present state of these things is a permanent feature of the human condition, not an indicator of a genuine need for action.
On the other hand we can actually ensure all our electricity generation is non-emitting, that is a specific and solvable problem, not an open ended perception dependant issue like health and education. Our health and education can NEVER be good enough.
It is extremely odd that funding for the inherently unsolvable problems of health and education can be quantified rapidly, but a truly solvable problem is so deeply unquantifiable.
Getting the jump on some solar thermal plants will not undermine Garnaut’s plan, the advances in thinking inspired by the need to produce the required action will instead inform the plan and its updates. The early plants won’t be nearly enough to solve the whole problem so there is plenty of work left for Garnaut’s plan to do. The early plants will also reduce the impact of Garnaut’s plan by providing some funded generation right off the bat.
The justification for action on clean generation now is easy. It is overwhelmingly likely that every month of delay for action increases the ultimate cost we face by multiples of the short term saving from the delay.
How is it you manage to agree about the urgency but argue for delay?
Bobo, two points:
(a) There’s delay as well in the health and education funding. None of it will be spent this coming financial year.
(b) These funds are being created out of commonwealth tax revenues across the forward estimates - ie their capital comes from surpluses. Since presumably we won’t know what the revenue will be from Garnaut til Garnaut reports, it can’t be allocated. Yet. But it will provide an additional source of revenue over and above those monies already allocated. Meaning that it also doesn’t have to compete with other claims on public expenditure.
Why? Because that’s good in itself? If it’s being suggested that we need a larger workforce in the future to both continue to keep the economy running and social needs provided for, and to pay for the support of older non-working Australians, the much cheaper and easier way to go is to raise the levels of skilled immigration. Because you get the workers you need instantly, and without cost to the public purse in terms of education, etc. And the government has done that.
Btw, and more effective. Baby bonuses of themselves do little or nothing to raise the fertility rate. And we’re only talking about a small minority of people who won’t be eligible for it.
Well, 15 grand isn’t, but I assume you mean 150 grand. It may or may not be “much” but since only 3% of households earn more, according to Canberra Uni economist Ian McAuley, that’s hardly the problem of the other 97% of us, is it? Are a small number high income earners really going to rush out and have more kids for 5k?
Whatever does this mean? What would they have got from Howard? A one off cheque for 500 bucks or something? The government is going to review the basis on which the pension is calculated - which will lead to real and sustainable increases.
Mark - I have my doubts that the baby bonus actually increases the birth rate at all, though probably has some effect on how long mothers stay at home after the birth, even with high income earners.
But given that the baby bonus, especially with the way its shaped next year into fortnightly payments, is basically defacto maternity leave (8 weeks at minimum wage) - do you think publicly funded maternity leave should be means tested?
Mark, neither of the two points you raise appear to provide any support for delaying the action I suggested. The action I suggest won’t meaningfully draw on any actual funds for some time in any event, but critically it gets the process moving.
We know we need an emissions free grid and it isn’t even that hard to make estimates of what that might cost. If we are really lazy we can refer to Ausra’s already released estimates as an example.
Garnaut’s further input isn’t actually required in order to make some first steps towards clean generation. Those first steps are so obvious that they will not undermine any plan by Garnaut and they aren’t even expensive in 2008.
All the government needs to do is announce a tender for proposals due by Nov-2008 to build say a 500MW clean generation plant fully operational by Dec-2012 where the tenderer is the ultimate plant owner. The various bidders can estimate the cost and indicate how much of that cost should be government funded and make a convincing case that they can build it, showing how they have selected sites and thought the process through. The government can then review the tenders and award a winner by say Feb-09 and start the process which will take a few years to complete. The drawdown of government funds will happen out till 2012 or so, in plenty of time for the future surpluses to meet the cost. The likely total government cost of the process out to 2012 is probably much less than $400M, with industry and financiers meeting the remaining cost (since they get to own the plant).
The cost in 2008 is close enough to zero. The cost in 2009 is probably around $50M.
Such a process would teach us important things and enable faster future replication. The point is it is possible to embark on meaningful action now and take genuine steps in the right direction with what we have and know now.
Can someone who wants urgent action honestly really rather wait until the ETS is running in 2010 and then start such a process two years later than we could have?
Oh come, 150k “not much” bla bla.
Get real. Its not the state’s problem if you bought a McMansion you cant afford on a massive joint wage, then hocked yerself to the eyeballs to buy a Toorak T