Tony Abbott is barking mad and the Liberal Party refuses to put him out of his misery

This is what the Australian Parliament Library stated in December 2013 about public debt in the year the Abbott Government was elected:

# General government, as defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) comprises all government units (of local, state and national governments) and non-profit institutions controlled and mainly financed by the government.

The general government gross and net foreign debt currently stands at 14.1 and 12.3 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) respectively.

There has been no change in the gross debt, but there has been an increase of 0.1 per cent in net debt as a percentage of GDP since March 2013.

The total Australian public sector (including general government, and financial and non-financial corporations controlled by governments) gross and net foreign debt currently stands at 19.5 and 13.5 per cent of GDP respectively. Gross and net foreign debt has decreased 0.7 and 0.8 percentage points respectively since March 2013.

# The private sector is responsible for 80.5 and 75.0 per cent of Australia’s gross and net foreign debt respectively. This is an increase of 1.7 and 3.1 percentage points of gross and net foreign debt respectively since the March 2013 quarter.

On the basis of these figures Tony Abbott and his Cabinet have been crying ‘debt and deficit disaster’ at every opportunity.

Now all has changed.

This was Prime Minister Abbott quoted in the Financial Review on 18 March 2015:

Tony Abbott promised voters a "dull" May budget and is content for now with current forecasts of a net debt equivalent to 60 per cent of the economy and no surplus for 40 years.

Mr Abbott said while such a debt ratio, four times the current level, was "too high" and "we want to get it in a much better situation than that", he added "a ratio of debt to GDP at about 50 or 60 per cent is a pretty good result looking around the world".

These are graphs of Australia’s net public debt between 1981-82 and 2013-14, with projections up to 2017-18 based on the Abbott Government's first budget, and net interest payments covering the same periods:

The Guardian 9 June 2014

The difference between the historical record, the last full financial year, what Abbott promised in May 2014 and what he now expects voters to tolerate is mindboggling.

In the space of one budget cycle Abbott has altered his expectations and now predicts that net public debt will grow by an estimated 46.5 per cent over the next 39 years.

What renders his new fiscal position so bizarre is that there appears to be no economic need for the level of debt he now wants the nation to carry as the only way this level of growth in public debt could occur is if, by his own admission, the Federal Government did nothing but sit on its hands for the next thirty-nine years and introduce no new finance policies.

Indeed I strongly suspect that Australia has not carried even a ratio of 60 per cent (or higher) gross public debt to GDP since the period covering 1942-1950, when the nation was in the middle of an almost six year-long world war and then was starting to pay down war debts.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott just demolished one of his latest reasons for proposing deregulation of university fees

This was Prime Minister Tony Abbott being quoted in The Australian on 14 March 2015 concerning his desire to deregulate university fees:

Mr Abbott said just one Australian university was now ranked in the world’s top 50.

“Why not try to get two in the top 20. Unless we take the dead hand of Canberra away that is going to be extremely difficult,” he said.

It seems Mr. Abbott has either not bothered to research the issue and relied on a single recent newspaper report or he is just making things up again because he knows News Corp media is not going to challenge the nonsense he spouts.

The 2014-15 Times Higher Education world university rankings survey (covering 400 universities) lists five Australian universities in the top 100 and two, I repeat two, in the top 50 universities.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2014-15/world-ranking

In Abbott's Australia it's all about protecting those who 'have' and knocking the 'have nots' into the gutter

The Daily Telegraph 22 February 2015:

A SECRET plan to kick millionaires off the aged pension was shelved by the Abbott Government’s budget razor gang in favour of slashing the indexation of payments for every pensioner in Australia.

The Sunday Telegraph can reveal that cabinet’s budget razor gang was asked to consider reforms to slash pension payments to wealthy seniors last year by changing the taper rate.

In another stunning leak from the nation’s most powerful cabinet committee, senior ministers have confirmed they agonised that the Prime Minister would be accused of kicking seniors off the pension and breaking a clear election promise not to cut pensions.

Instead, Treasury proposed a change to the indexation arrangements for all pensioners _ meaning the rate of increase would effectively be slowed _ from 2017….

The indexation change was announced in the May budget. Welfare groups and Labor argue it will cut pensions by $80 a week within 10 years. According to the Parliamentary Budget Office, this amounts to a $23 billion cut to the cost of the age pension by 2023.

For the first time, Liberal sources have revealed the indexation cut was not the preferred option of former Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews.

Mr Andrews had instead proposed a targeted cut that would only hurt wealthy seniors.

His preferred solution was to change the taper rate to withdraw pension payments faster from wealthy seniors with investment properties and investment income. The family home would have remained exempt from the pensions asset test.

Over time, this would have helped slow the growth of the large numbers of asset-rich Australians who claim the age pension.

This proposal would have reversed the 2006 decision by the Howard Government which brought more higher income seniors into Australia’s aged pension system by easing the taper rates….

The Audit Commission report also suggested a similar reform to the taper rate, suggesting it be increased to withdraw benefits at the rate for 75 per cent the dollar after pensioners reached an income threshold. Currently, the rate is 50 cents in the dollar.

SuperGuide 22 September 2014:

The UPPER asset thresholds for the Age Pension assets test increased again on 20 September 2014, which means more Australians may now be eligible for a PART Age Pension

By way of example, this means Abbott & Co decided that a single person over 65 years of age with no dependents, owning a $1 million+ home on up to 2 hectares of land, who has $770,000 in other assets producing an income of $900 per fortnight, will still receive pension and energy supplements with a combined worth of over $2,000 per annum – while a single person over 65 years of age with no dependents, owning no property, having no other assets, will see the value of the aged pension he/she receives reduced by an est. $416 per annum in 2017 (increasing to est. $4,160 per annum by 2025) due to the Abbott Government changes to pension indexation.

Yes, in Abbott’s Australia it’s all about protecting those who have and knocking the have nots into the gutter.

Can no-one in the Liberal Party put a brake on these fools?

This week regional Australia woke to find that the foundation statistics used by local government, community groups or individuals lobbying for an increase in government services/funding are now under threat.

The Sydney Morning Herald 19 February 2015:

The controversial proposal to axe the 2016 census has originated from the Bureau of Statistics rather than the Abbott government, the bureau has revealed.

The ABS has asked the government to legislate to remove the requirement that it conduct a census every 5 years and replace it with a requirement to conduct the survey only once every 10 years as happens in Britain and the United States.

The political spin on the proposal to abandon the 2016 national census and change the period between census nights from five to ten years, is that the 109 year-old Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has requested this.

Various journalists point to the fact that the ABS was without a chief executive for almost a year, has had to reduce staffing numbers, is behind in its preparation for the 2016 national census, while its computer system is old and in urgent need of replacement.

However, one doesn’t need to look far for the underlying reason for the bureau’s malaise.

Successive federal governments have starved it of funds and resources. A fiscal position the foolish Abbott Government continued with relish, when in May 2014 it increased the ABS annual funding reduction (Efficiency Dividend) and included a reduction in staffing numbers of est. 100 employees.

Will no-one in the Liberal Party put a brake on Messrs. Abbott, Hockey and Cormann before their mindless and destructive cost-cutting destroys yet another vital institution?

BACKGROUND

Australian Financial Review 29 January 2014:

The ABS needed government support if it was to continue to produce its current workload, Mr Pink says in the annual report.

He warns that without action, the ABS will no longer be able to maintain its mandated functions in the future “as the trusted and respected statistical leader” in Australia.

“Our constrained budget situation may require hard choices in the coming year as we ensure the next phase of our business and infrastructure transformation strategy, which is so critical to our future sustainability, proceeds in 2014–15,” Mr Pink says.

In his final annual report as Australian statistician, Mr Pink thanked his staff for their work in “an increasingly difficult, constraining and frustrating environment in which to operate”.

Mr Pink has not yet been replaced and Ian Ewing is acting Australian statistician…..

Bank of America Merrill Lynch Australia chief economist Saul Eslake said he had no reason to believe the funding crisis had yet materially affected the quality of the ABS statistics, “but I have no trouble believing that at some point it will”.

Australian Government Treasury Portfolio Budget Statements 2014-15, May 2014:

	MEDIA RELEASE
5 June 2014	Embargo: 11.30 am (Canberra time)	71/2014

ABS announces planned changes to future work program

The acting Australian Statistician, Jonathan Palmer, today announced planned reductions to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) work program. 
The ABS must reduce expenditure by about $50m over three years. While the ABS has been able to implement efficiencies in its operations, these are insufficient to meet the expenditure target. As a result, the statistical work program will be reduced from 2014-15. 
Mr Palmer said the revised work program, developed after consultation with key Australian Government agencies, will continue to meet Australia’s core statistical needs. 
“Our highest priority was to maintain activities that are critical to effective government decision making and deliver the most public benefit.
“While the revised forward work program retains core statistical elements and outputs, we have had to discontinue or reduce outputs in areas that are valued by the users of those statistics. If funding is provided for the work we are ceasing, we will reinstate it.

“The quality, integrity and relevance of our statistics are critical to informing effective decision making and we must not lose sight of that as we plan for the future,” Mr Palmer said.

The work program changes, which will be implemented from 1 July 2014, are:

Discontinue

* Environment collections from Australian Households

* Waste Account

* Measures of Australia's Progress

* Australian Social Trends

* Survey of Tourist Accommodation

* ABS funded component of Culture, Sport and Recreation statistics 

Reduce

* Industry statistics research, development and reporting in selected areas

* Social conditions statistics research, development and reporting in selected areas

* State and territories statistical services engagement and analysis activities

* Regional statistics analysis and development

* Macroeconomic research and development engagement in international activities

* National information and referral services response times

* External statistical education development programs

Review

* Review the House Price Index, with the view to discontinuing it pending identification of alternative sources to meet the Australian National Accounts and other requirements

Further details of the work program changes will be advised to affected users in due course.

As Australia’s national statistical agency, the ABS provides official statistics on a wide range of topics relevant to government, business, and the Australian population.

The Sydney Morning Herald 13 February 2015:

When his predecessor as Australian Statistician Brian Pink left in January 2014, he wrote that the bureau had barely enough cash to "keep the lights on".

Instead of replacing him promptly, the Treasurer and the Prime Minister's offices tossed around options and deferred the decision until December when they finally gave the job to Kalisch, one of the original applicants from earlier in the year.  

If all you have is Abbott & Forrest's cashless debit card how do you catch a bus to Grafton and back to see a specialist doctor or attend a job interview?

The question in the title of this post is only one of many that will arise if the Abbott Government introduces a debit card which won’t allow disability support pensioners, the unemployed or those receiving  any form of federal government benefit or allowance (other than aged and veteran pensions which appear to be exempt) any cash whatsoever. The plan apparently is to place the entire government cash transfer into a locked bank account which the welfare recipient can only operate through the cashless Healthy Welfare Card.

The Australian 14 February 2014:

THE Abbott government will push ahead with the controversial healthy welfare card to address indigenous disadvantage, along with all but one of the 27 recommend­ations of Andrew Forrest’s sweeping blueprint for welfare reform….

The most contentious of the Forrest reforms is a healthy welfare card, a debit card that would quarantine a person’s welfare payments to prevent their buying alcoh­ol and drugs.

Senator Scullion said the government had considered the Forrest review and now was looking at the “challenge” of implementing them.

“We have adopted every one of the recommendations except for the tax-free threshold for indig­enous businesses,” he said.

“We think the outcomes (in the Forrest review) are the sorts of outcomes that we all desire and we think the recommendations are sufficiently robust to be able to examine and look at how we imple­ment them.”

Other measures recommended in the review included integrating early-childhood services, case management for vulnerable children, tying family tax benefit payments to school attendance and funding only vocational training that is linked to job outcomes.

Excerpt from the Forrest Review, Chapter 2, October 2014:

In summary, the Healthy Welfare Card would:

* allow individuals to use the mainstream banking system to manage their welfare payments rather than the expensive Centrelink income management system

* enable the purchase of all goods and services, with the exception of alcohol, gambling products, illicit services and instruments that can be converted to cash (such as gift cards) and exclude activities discouraged by government, or illegal in some places, such as pornography

* be issued by banks on the basis of a current bank account, which is already required for the current cash payment of welfare support

* use a cashless debit card redeemable at Australian retail stores and accepted at any BPAY or EFTPOS terminals through internet and phone banking with the protection of fraud security be linked to a locked savings account which can accrue savings for major purchases, such as a deposit on a home, whitegoods, furniture or rental bond, or unexpected large costs

* use existing data mining technology to monitor use of the card to detect any unusual sales or purchases, with Centrelink applying on-the-spot penalties on retailers and individuals for fraudulent use of the card

* have the scope to expand to accept other government payments such as funding for care packages under the new National Disability Insurance Scheme.

The Sydney Morning Herald 24 October 2014:

Mr Forrest's welfare management scheme would see all welfare payments to all Australians, other than age or veterans' pensions paid into a savings account, which could be accessed by a "health welfare card"….

More than 20,000 Australians currently have their incomes managed voluntarily or compulsorily around Australia in places including the Northern Territory, Perth, the Kimberley region, South Australia and Cape York, with trials in local government areas, including Bankstown, Greater Shepparton and Ceduna.

Some welfare recipients have their incomes managed to deal with issues around child protection, financial hardship and drug and alcohol dependency. Other people have their incomes managed simply because they have been on a particular benefit - such as Youth Allowance - for three of the previous six months.

The current schemes, which were introduced by Coalition and Labor governments, quarantine at least half of a person's payment for necessary items and prevent spending on things such as alcohol, cigarettes, home brew kits and pornography. At this stage, the various schemes are due to end in mid 2015 and mid 2016 and the government is considering its next move in the area.

UPDATE

The question is only partially answered by Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister Alan Tudge, who says the Government is "very seriously considering a trial but doesn't want to rush a decision.
He says if the Coalition goes ahead with the card it'll be extended beyond Indigenous populations….
Second point I'd make is that, if we proceed at all, it would likely be done on a trial basis in a discrete geographical area, where it probably would apply to everybody who is on income support payments in that geographical area.

Mr. Tudge also does not anticipate Health Care Card holders not being able to access a small amount of cash, but doesn’t know how much this will be or how the amount will be decided.

What is clear is that those on Centrelink benefits or allowances will have little input into the development of this new income management scheme on steroids.

The truth about Tony Abbott's war on terror?

From time to time snippets of truth concerning Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s expensive war on terror, estimated to cost at least $400 million a year, appear in the media. 

This is one example.......

The Canberra Times 17 February 2015:

Iraq. The diggers are carrying diplomatic passports because Baghdad's government won't sign a "Status of Forces" agreement. Our troops are cooped up inside bases watching from the sidelines as Iranian Quds revolutionary guards prosecute the fight against ISIL (and whoever else gets in their way). Oh, and the Iraqis don't even want our aircraft based in their country. Abbott's like the boyfriend who can't understand a polite brush-off.

ABBOTT'S AUSTRALIA: Is a public service fire sale on its way?

The Canberra Times 20 January 2015:

Tens of thousands more Australian  public service jobs are to be sized-up for potential privatisation as the Abbott government begins work on its "contestability program".

One public sector expert has warned the program is the beginning of a "slow bleed" of the federal bureaucracy that could ultimately see more than 30,000 Commonwealth government jobs lost in the coming years.

The Finance Department has confirmed that  "portfolio stocktakes" are underway with government departments being assessed to see if their work can be farmed-out to either the private sector or the  commonwealth's growing  "shared services" operation.

Departmental bosses will also be ordered to replace their public servants with technology wherever they can and ICON, the high-tech secure communication network linking government departments in Canberra is also being scoped for sale…..

The government has already shown it will not shy away from privatisations with scoping studies for sell-offs of the Australian Mint, Defence Housing Australia, Australian Hearing Services and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission registry already underway.

Medicare, Centrelink and some Veterans Affairs payment services may be taken over by private players and the Finance Department is also looking at the sale of ICON, the point-to-point fibre connection system that links 80 government agencies at 400 sites around Canberra.

And we wonder how Tony Abbott gets away with it?

For those among us still wondering how Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott manages to convince Coalition backbenchers to toe the line with regard to his punitive policies, here is the answer – by and large they are stupid.

Take Kevin Hogan the Nationals MP for a large federal electorate on the NSW North Coast, who on the morning of 15 January 2015 was quoted in The Daily Examiner:

Member for Page Kevin Hogan said the policy would not affect Clarence Valley residents because, in the majority of cases, doctors in the region saw patients for over 10 minutes.

"I don't support the city-based corporate six-minute medicine model of healthcare where doctors churn through 10 patients every hour as a policy," Mr Hogan said.

The policy to reduce the Medicare refund by $20.10 for GP visits under 10 minutes duration would not affect Clarence Valley residents?

The estimated resident population of the Clarence Valley is in excess of 51,000 persons.

Research done at the Family Medicine Research Centre in conjunction with the Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney reviewed data from BEACH (a continuous national study of GP activity) and reported in June 2014 that between 1 April 2012 to 31 March 2013 only 10% of GP visits were timed as 6 minutes or less while a total of 12% were less than 10 minutes duration1.

So if every person visited the doctor only once a year it is likely that an estimated 6,120 visits to local doctors in the Clarence Valley would have been short consultations – leaving non-concessional patient(s) around $33-$38 out-of-pocket on each of these visits.

Across the entire Page electorate those GP consultations affected would have numbered over 15,994. More if one considers that Australians go to the doctor on average between 3.73 to 3.78 times a year and in NSW the figure is probably slightly higher.

Even leaving aside concessional patients within those 15,994 plus visits, that’s possibly in excess of $200,000 extra per annum that people in the electorate would have been paying from 19 January 2015 - before national outrage forced a government backdown on 15 January.

This backdown didn’t include the planned $5 across the board Medicare rebate cut for all visits to the local doctor from 1 July 2015.

This measure will see in excess of $765,000 come out of combined local pockets each year for GP visits within the Page electorate. Across the Northern Rivers region it will total an est $4.7 million per annum.

The Member for Page is clearly wrong in his assumptions.

Of course the Clarence Valley is affected by the Abbott Government’s attempts to dismantle Medicare and the health care universal safety net. His entire electorate will suffer.

Given the the last national census revealed that the Clarence Valley continues to have a higher proportion of households with incomes below $600 per week (33.8%) than New South Wales (21.7%) or Australia (21.1%) it is possible that this area will be affected more than most.

Kevin Hogan has obviously taken the Prime Minister’s word as gospel and not bothered to do any independent research himself, which given the prime minister’s track record, makes the Member for Page a very stupid politician.

1. Australia-wide in 2013-14 only 8 doctors referred to the Professional Services Review by the Department of Human Services (DHS) were the subject of "inappropriate practice" findings. In that financial year no referrals to DHS for suspected fraud were recorded.

Is this the road Tony Abbott is taking to make the poor pay more for food and other essentials?

The Drum 11 January 2015:

It appears Tony Abbott will try to expand the GST by replicating the campaign blueprint used by John Howard to introduce the tax in the first place. But what worked then might not work now, writes Paula Matthewson.

More than a decade after the Howard Government introduced a goods and services tax, political pundits remain divided over whether the accompanying GST campaign was effective.

Some point to Howard's re-election after proposing the new tax as proof of the campaign's success, while others claim Howard almost lost because of it.

Despite the lack of consensus it appears the Abbott Government is using the same campaign blueprint, this time in an attempt to create public acceptance for increasing or broadening the GST.

Back then, Howard was saddled with an earlier promise to "never, ever" introduce a GST but was being pressured to introduce one. According to one account, senior members of the business community were openly questioning Howard's economic reform credentials, while the press gallery were asking why he wouldn't lead (or at least follow).

So the then PM created a situation where journalists and economists, business and welfare organisations and even voters called for him to "reverse" the never-ever promise for the good of the nation. Howard did this by focusing the numerous fragmented commentaries into one national discussion: one that centred on Australia's "broken" tax system and how it could be "fixed" by scrapping a bunch of inefficient taxes and replacing them with just one.

The mechanism Howard used to focus the conversation was a taxation taskforce (incidentally chaired by Treasury official and former Keating adviser, Ken Henry). It was established to prepare options for tax reform, and recommended that a consumption tax be part of the mix.

A year later, following much public discussion, the Howard government presented voters not only with a proposed GST but an entire package of tax reforms. The package included personal income tax cuts, increases in the tax-free threshold and pensions, and the scrapping of wholesale sales tax. Nine other taxes imposed at the state and territory level were also slated for elimination. Most importantly, all the money raised by the GST was to be provided to the states and territories, supposedly ending their dependence on the federal government's largesse.

Howard then blitzed voters with a controversial advertising campaign before immediately plunging the nation into a moderately early federal election, which he either cleverly won, or foolishly almost lost, depending on whose analysis one finds more convincing.

PM Abbott is clearly banking on the campaign having been a success for Howard, because his "increase the GST" campaign looks eerily familiar.

A bevy of Treasury boffins is currently developing a tax reform paper, while the general public's awareness is slowly being raised through discussion in the media about the need to broaden or increase the GST.

Comments such as those made last week by government backbenchers and ministers serve to kick along the public discussion while keeping the PM's hands clean of the debate until the Treasury report is released later this year…..

Abbott Government health funding cuts will hit home on the NSW North Coast

New South Wales residents can expect the state public hospital system to experience a further strain on service delivery in 2015 courtesy of both federal Abbott Coalition and state Baird Coalition governments' health policies.

On 5 June 2014 The Sydney Morning Herald reported:

The Bureau of Health Information report released on Thursday shows that from January to March more than 600,000 people visited NSW public hospital emergency departments, a 2 per cent jump compared to the same time last year.

About 73 per cent of patients left emergency departments within four hours, up from 66 per cent last year, but still falling far short of the 81 per cent target…..

The new figures show that while about 97 per cent of people are getting surgery on time, some patients are still waiting more than six months.

Median waiting times for ear, nose and throat surgery are now 153 days. Gynaecology, urology and prostate surgery waits increased between seven to 10 per cent.

''NSW still has the longest waiting times for elective surgery in Australia and close to the longest in developed countries,'' said Dr McDonald. ''A 302-day median wait time for a knee replacement is just unacceptable.''

On 11 January 2015The Australian noted:

NSW has abandoned a national target for attending to people who need treatment in hospital emergency departments after the federal government cut reward payments.
Under a national partnership deal struck between the states and the commonwealth in 2011 under the Gillard government, all states were meant to have reached a benchmark of seeing 90 per cent of patients in emergency departments within four hours from January 1 this year.
The agreement included rewards of $50 million a year for reaching this target, but in the federal budget last year the government abolished the payments.
NSW Health Minister Jillian Skinner said, because of that, “there is currently no formal target tied to rewards payments”.
NSW intended to keep to last year’s target of 81 per cent instead of using the new target of 90 per cent, she said.
Although emergency department performance has been improving, it has not met national benchmarks…..

In practice this means that during a year public hospital emergency departments are expected to experience an increase in the number of patients presenting because the Abbott Government has cost-shifted its Medicare rebate cuts onto individuals and families from January 2015¹, its public hospital funding cuts have also made matters worse for those seeking treatment at hospital accident and emergency departments.

The figure below clearly shows the best that the ill or hurt in NSW could expect in late 2014 – an average wait to receive treatment of between 41 minutes and 2 hours 29 minutes for the majority attending A&E departments.

The 95th percentile represents the time period within which most people received the relevant care or treatment.

Hospital Quarterly: Activity and performance in NSW Hospitals July to September 2014

On the NSW Far North Coast this averaged out for the majority of patients seeking treatment as a wait of between 29 minutes and 2 hours 11 minutes:

http://www.bhi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/251385/HQ18_EDLHD_Appendix_Tables_031214.pdf

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) is predicting that public hospital emergency department waiting times will now rise not by a factor of minutes but by hours in 2015.

1. Increased GP fees are expected to commence from mid-January 2015 and increase again in July for over 15 million Australians, as Medicare rebates cover less of general practice & specialist doctors standard fees. Many patients will be paying a standard upfront fee of $75 or more for a simple 10 minute visit to their local doctor as fewer medical practices are expected to continue bulk billing. The Medicare rebate formula would have meant that the the federal government met half of that cost for non-concessional patients. However, from 1 July 2015 the medicare rebate on a $75 fee will be reduced to $32.04 leaving the patient $42.95 out-of-pocket.
If a medical practice decides to use the AMA recommended schedule of fees and abandon bulk-billing all together, then concessional patients (such as aged and disability pensioners or children under 16 years) will also have to pay an upfront fee of $75 for a 10 minutes consultation and be $34.95 out-of-pocket.
For non-concessional patients seen by their doctor for between 6 and 10 minutes the rebate reduction will increase their out-of-pocket expense to $20.10 from 19 January rising to $25.10 after 30 June 2015.

UPDATE

A statement that needs to be taken with a grain of salt…….

The Sydney Morning Herald 15 January 2015 at 12:34pm:

The government has capitulated and scrapped its plans to next week cut the Medicare rebate by $20 for short visits to the doctor after a fierce backlash by doctors and non-government Senators, who vowed to veto the measure.

In her first act as the new Health Minister, Sussan Ley broke her holidays to announce on Thursday that the cuts - quietly introduced by her predecessor Peter Dutton late last year - are now "off the table".

Ms Ley said she was still committed to introducing price signals into Medicare including the revised $5 GP co-payment due to start July 1, but pledged to "pause, listen and consult".....

The ongoing Tony Abbott entitlement saga

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has an annual base salary of $507,338 per annum and a wide range of parliamentary entitlements.

In the second half of 2014 the Australian Department of Finance released the latest available list of paid entitlements.

On first glance, just looking at one 4-day period immediately raises suspicion about a claim for travel allowance by the Prime Minister.

Perth Now reported on 30 March 2014 that Abbott was in that city for party political purposes:

PRIME Minister Tony Abbott will fly his Cabinet to Perth this week in an attempt to rally last minute support for the Liberals in the upcoming Senate election.

With just one week to go before the re-run senate poll, Mr Abbott has decided to unleash his federal ministers on Perth as part of a week-long assault to muster support for the Liberals.

The move comes amid growing fears within the Liberal camp that they could lose a crucial third senate position in Saturday’s election – a result which would make it even more difficult for Mr Abbott to pass laws in the federal parliament.

Informed sources said yesterday Mr Abbott’s decision to fly his Cabinet to Perth was a strategic move to remind voters that there were already five West Australian ministers in the federal Parliament and that Liberal senators would be part of an already strong contingent of government representatives in Canberra.

While in Perth, Mr Abbott will also attempt to swell the coffers of the Liberal Party by being the headline act of a party fundraiser tomorrow night – charging $5000 a table to attend.

“Western Australia is at the heart of my Government. We have five Ministers from WA, three in the Cabinet, which means WA has an incredibly strong voice around the decision-making table and that will be on display when Cabinet meets in Perth on Tuesday,” Mr Abbott told The Sunday Times yesterday.

“If Western Australia wants a strong team and a better deal, there’s only one way to vote and that is to vote for the Liberal candidates who will have a strong voice within the Government…. [my red bolding]

On 31 March he squeezed in a visit to Pearce RAAF base in Perth and an appearance at a WA Telethon awards event, ahead of his headline appearance at the Liberal Party fundraiser on 1 April and the supposed official Cabinet meeting with his ministers on 2 April.

The Australian Dept. of Finance reported that between 30 March and 2 April 2014 it gave a travel allowance refund to Tony Abbott of over $2,000 for this particular visit to Perth:

Associated VIP flight costs totalled $17,470 to fly him and advisors/staff from Canberra to Perth via Sydney & Melbourne, plus a further $11,550 to fly both he and his entourage back to Canberra on 3 April.

Abbott has a long history of alleged abuse of parliamentary entitlements, including this instance as Opposition Leader and this example as Prime Minister of a manipulation of entitlement criteria.

Given that Tony Abbott tends to go into full electioneering mode ahead of any formal election campaign, I’m sure political tragics around the nation will be closely watching his expense claims this year.

What will Abbott's Australia look like in 2015?

So what will Abbott's Australia look like in 2015?

Taxpayers will be footing a conservatively estimated bill of $400 million this year for the Abbott Government’s participation in the war against ISIL, with little practical effect on either the political situation or the fighting in Iraq and Syria.

At the same time taxpayers will also be paying out an estimated $5.3 million a month this year because the Abbott Government assumed full responsibility for the continuing search for missing Malaysian Airlines commercial flight, MH370, which disappeared into the ocean ten months ago with 6 Australians amongst the 239 passengers. 

Purchase of Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s personal VIP jet will possibly be completed during 2015. This purchase is estimated to cost at least $250 million.

http://militaryaircraft-airbusds.com/Missions/MissionsMilitary/Transport/VIP.aspx

By July this year the budget deficit will probably have blown out past the December 2014 MYEFO predictions.

Childcare fees are predicted to rise again and an est. 74,400 families are expected to hit the rebate cap and be cut off from further childcare assistance sometime during the year and, therefore be ineligible to apply again until the following financial year.

Increased GP fees are expected to commence this month and increase again in July for over 15 million Australians, many of whom will be paying an upfront fee of $80 or more for a simple visit to their local doctor.

Changes to the Goods and Services Tax (GST) will probably be presented to the Australian Parliament by the Abbott Government and, an increase in the base rate or widening of this tax (effective in 2017-18) is likely to be tagged onto the end of these changes to compensate states which would otherwise lose a percentage of existing GST income under these proposed changes.

Wages for ordinary workers are not expected to increase markedly and real wages may even fall further than the September 2014 annual growth low of -0.01% which was due to cost of living rises outstripping the 2.29 % wages growth.

There will be an estimated 803,952+ people without a job.

Affordable housing stock will continue to decline for the estimated 2.3 million Australian who rent their housing. On 5 April 2014 there were only 808 properties for rent on the NSW North Coast and none were affordable by an unemployed single parent (with one child over 8 years of age) receiving the Newstart Allowance and only 25 rental properties were affordable by a single person on the minimum wage .

On any given night this year there will be more than 100,000 homeless men, women and children living on the streets or without a permanent roof over their heads.

Mainstream media is expected to begin reporting deaths said to be related to the Abbott Government’s ongoing funding cuts to health/social services delivery and eligibility changes to safety net welfare payments.

Near El Niño conditions are predicted to continue in the first part of this year which means drier and warmer than average weather is likely in many areas.

Treasurer Joe Hockey will be careful not to be photographed doing a victory dance before presenting the 2015-16 Budget Papers to the Australian Parliament.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott will in all likelihood increase the frequency of his formal televised statements in an effort to lift his own polling numbers and yet still manage to be caught by professional photographers inappropriately touching women in public.

http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-culture/abbott-under-fire-for-awkward-unwelcome-photo-op-with-new-female-cabinet-minister-sussan-ley-20141224-12d8sd.html

Voters may also hear more about the Prime Minister’s alcohol consumption and further allegations concerning drinking binges by the admitted “Grog Monster”.

Questions will continue to be raised concerning entitlement expenses lodged by Prime Minister Abbott and his ministers, with a possible focus on cash refunds from taxpayer pockets for what is essentially party political campaigning.

Activities of the Coalition Advisory Service, headed by Government Whip Phillip Ruddock with a staff of ten and ultimately financed by the taxpayer, may begin to come under scrutiny as unofficial electioneering heats up ahead of the 2016 federal election.

#Libspill rumours on Twitter and in mainstream media will possibly continue throughout the year, due in part to a persistent and deep sense of anger and frustration among Coalition supporters.