Nationals keep up their reputation of telling whoppers to NSW North Coast electorates

The whoppers, pork pies, downright lies being told by State and Federal Nats MPs to NSW North Coast voters are becoming so frequent and predictable that by the time the next general elections roll around their reputations won’t be worth a brass farthing.

Here’s one of the latest efforts found in The Daily Examiner on 29^th February 2912 which left Andrew Stoner with egg on his face:

“THE CURRENT 50/50 funding model may make the 2016 deadline for the Pacific Hwy duplication unachievable, according to NSW Deputy Premier Andrew Stoner.

The NSW Nationals leader and Minister for Regional Infrastructure and Services said a return to the previous 80% federal, 20% state funding model could see the 2016 deadline met.

He said by the Gillard Labor Government walking away from the previous 80/20 funding model in favour of the current 50/50 model, the dual carriageway duplication of the highway by 2016 was in serious jeopardy.

"Every other piece of the national land transport network in NSW has been funded at 80% or better by the Federal Government," he said.

"For the Gillard Labor Government to suddenly walk away from a historic funding split of 80/20 is not only disappointing it really jeopardises the 2016 completion date."

But it appears Mr Stoner may have his facts wrong when it comes to previous funding arrangements, with the federal ALP claiming it was not responsible for implementing the current funding arrangement.

Federal member for Page Janelle Saffin hit back at Mr Stoner, saying the 50/50 funding model for the highway was introduced by the federal Coalition and not by federal Labor, as Mr Stoner claimed.

"50/50 funding was first established not by Labor but by the former Howard government back in 2004," she said.

"It was established to reach the goal of the full duplication of the highway by 2016…."

Federal Labor accuses NSW O'Farrell Government of attacking foster and grandparent carers

In October 2011 I posted that In NSW 24,000 children may be in care by 2013 and, pointed to reports that the O’Farrell Coalition Government was attempting to squeeze foster parents with children sixteen years of age and over and, cost-shift more of the financial responsibility for these children onto natural parents and the Commonwealth.

Now JENNY MACKLIN, Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Minister for Disability Reform, and

JULIE COLLINS, Minister for Community Services Minister for Indigenous Employment and Economic Development, Minister for the Status of Women, are taking the NSW government to task in this 2 February 2012 media release.

Liberals attacking foster and grandparent carers in NSW

The O’Farrell Government has shown the Liberals’ true colours when it comes to dealing with families and vulnerable people.

The New South Wales Liberals have slashed $213 a fortnight from the already stretched budgets of foster carers of teenagers aged 16 and over.

The Minister for Families, Jenny Macklin, and the Minister for Community Services, Julie Collins, today called on the NSW Government to reinstate these payments to foster carers of older teenagers.

This is an attack on carers, who not only open up their homes to young people in need, but give their time, energy and financial assistance to help them have a better life.

The Liberals cuts come at the same time as the Gillard Labor Government has boosted family payments by up to $4,200 a year for teenagers aged 16 to 19 in school or training.

Only a Labor Government understands the pressures on families and carers who feel the pinch on their household budget every week.

We recognise that it doesn’t get cheaper to raise children as they get older.

That’s why we’ve ensured that eligible foster carers can receive the boost to the Family Tax Benefit, to make sure they’ve got room in their budget to give the teenagers they are caring for the best chance at a great future.

But the Liberals are putting this at risk. Foster care families will go backwards under the O’Farrell Government’s slash and burn policy making.

This attack on foster carers follows the threat from NSW Minister for Community Services, Pru Goward, to grandparent and other kinship carers that they must apply for child support from the child’s parents.

The Child Support Scheme is an Australian Government initiative to ensure children from separated families are supported by both their parents.

The NSW Liberals’ policy to ‘require’ grandparent carers to apply for child support is misleading and is not consistent with the Australian Government’s policy.

It is unnecessarily putting pressure on the sometimes strained relationships between grandparent carers and the child’s parents.

Although the option is available for relative carers in NSW to apply for child support, the Australian Government does not require or compel carers to do so.

The Australian Government also does not support changes to the Child Support Scheme proposed by the NSW Liberals to open up child support arrangements to foster carers.

These are just more cost-cutting exercises from Pru Goward, who is feeling the heavy hand of Barry O’Farrell on her department’s budget bottom line.

We do not support these ‘policies’. We understand that it is not always in the child’s best interests for grandparent carers or foster carers to apply for child support. 

A Labor Government will always act in the best interests of children.

Date: 2 February 2012

Commonwealth moves to ensure coal seam gas projects are subject to scientific evidence - but will the states comply?

The Australian Government has moved on the issue of coal seam gas mining by creating an independent panel to provide Commonwealth and state approval agencies with scientific advice on mining licence applications for large-scale coal seam gas mining projects.

Because this federal government does not have the outright constitutional power to ban coal seam gas mining or significantly limit its expansion and its current plan is dependent on state co-operation, now is the time to pressure National Party MPs on the NSW North Coast to support this panel.

Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities:

Federal environment minister, the Hon Tony Burke MP, has approved the appointment of an expert panel to advise him on coal seam gas water management, for Queensland coal seam gas projects approved and conditioned under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.Those projects include the Queensland Curtis LNG project, the Santos Gladstone LNG project, and the Australia Pacific LNG project. The expert panel will provide advice on the adequacy of water management plans which the companies must submit under the conditions of approval.
The members of the expert panel are:

• Professor Paul Greenfield AO, Vice Chancellor, University of Queensland
• Professor Chris Moran, Director, Sustainable Minerals Institute, University of Queensland
• Dr Richard Cresswell, Sinclair Knight Merz
• Ms Jane Coram, Geoscience Australia
• Associate Professor Heather Chapman, Griffith University.

Several major gas/petroleum companies are pursuing projects to extract CSG from the Bowen and Surat Basins in Queensland, and other CSG producing areas in NSW. The Queensland projects would feed export-oriented LNG plants in the Gladstone area, the majority on Curtis Island off the coast opposite Gladstone. The projects involve significant capital expenditure and would operate over a long period……There are uncertainties of groundwater and surface water impacts from the extraction of significant amounts of CSG water including the risk of impacts to aquifers and groundwater quality which may lead to impacts on matters of national environmental significance protected under the EPBC Act.

Terms of Reference for the Expert Panel (PDF - 79 KB)

Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer Wayne Swan on November 21, 2011:

The Government has listened to community concerns, and will:

·   *    Provide $150 million to establish a new Independent Expert Scientific Committee that will provide scientific advice to governments about relevant coal seam gas and large coal mining approvals where they have significant impacts on water; oversee research on impacts on water resources from coal seam gas and large coal mining projects; and commission and fund water resource assessments for priority regions.

·    *   Establish a new National Partnership Agreement with the states through COAG, agreeing that the Commonwealth and states have to take into account the advice of the Committee in their assessment and approval decisions.

·    *    Provide $50 million in incentive payments to the states to deliver this outcome.

·    *   Mandate that the Independent Expert Scientific Committee publicly disclose its advice to ensure local communities have all the best information available to them.

NSW North Coast MP Janelle Saffin in a media release on the same day: 

Page MP Janelle Saffin today welcomed the Federal Government’s move to ensure that all future decisions about coal seam gas projects are based on the most rigorous scientific evidence available.

“I’ve made many representations to Federal ministers and the Prime Minister on CSG, about what can be done at the Federal level to address community concerns.  It is not an easy area, as so much is under the power of the states. 

“I had asked the Minister for the Environment, Tony Burke, to explore the nature and extent of his power vis-à-vis the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) and the Federal Water Act.

“I’m pleased that the Government has listened to the representations and the concerns of the community, particularly in regard to the impact of CSG on our water. 

‘The Government recognises that the community can only have confidence if all environmental approvals and licensing decisions are made on the basis of transparent, objective scientific evidence.

Upgrade of Pacific Highway at Glenugie just south of Grafton has entered the home straight

Joint Media Statement

Federal Minister for Infrastructure & Transport Anthony Albanese

and

NSW Roads Minister Duncan Gay

MAJOR UPGRADE WORK AT GLENUGIE COMPLETE

The upgrade of Pacific Highway at Glenugie just south of Grafton has entered the home straight with major works now completed and motorists set to be driving on the newly duplicated stretch of road by the end of the month.

Federal Infrastructure and Transport Minister Anthony Albanese today joined Page MP Janelle Saffin onsite to see firsthand the finishing touches being applied and to thank the local community for their patience over the past 20 months while the work was being carried out.

“I also congratulated the project team on a job well.  Their expertise and hard work has brought the project in on-time and within budget, delivering safer, faster and less frustrating driving conditions along a further 7 kilometres of highway,” said Mr Albanese.

“The completion of the entire upgrade will be yet another major milestone in the ongoing upgrade of this vital road.  However, I am the first to acknowledge that there is still much to be done if the vision of a better, safer and fully duplicated Pacific Highway is to become a reality.”

The Glenguie Upgrade is a jointly funded project, with the Federal Government contributing $54 million and NSW Government a further $6 million.  The project is on track to be fully completed by December, with only some minor work still outstanding.

NSW Roads Minister Duncan Gay said as well as delivering better, safer driving conditions, the ongoing duplication is also lifting the Pacific Highway’s capacity to carry the growing volumes of freight now being transported along it.

“This task has been given even greater urgency by the fact that interstate freight between Sydney and Brisbane is predicted to almost triple by 2029, with 80 per cent of this growth destine to be carried by trucks using the Pacific Highway,” said Mr Gay.

“In partnership with the Federal Government, we’re determined to get the job done as quickly as possible.  Already the full duplication of the Highway is the largest road construction project underway anywhere in the nation, with more than 1,000 workers currently on site upgrading some 69 kilometres of road.”

[From the Office of Janelle Saffin MP, 25 October 2011]

           

We'll all be rooned!

Even before the Murray Darling Basin Plan was released or widely read last week (in an Australia which currently has a population of 22 million plus and produces food for around 50-70 million people annually) the doomsayers were bellowing across the land, and as usual the Oz meeja were happy to give them column space......

Water cuts would lead to riots: warning Sydney Morning Herald 7th October 2010

Jobs, farms to be hit under river plan Sydney Morning Herald 7th October 2010

'Huge cost' in returning water to Murray The Australian 7th October 2010

Plan will 'save river, kill towns' The Australian 8th October 2010

The water fight The Australian 10th October 2010

Cities will suffer from Murray-Darling cuts‎ ABC Online 10th October 2010

Not to be outdone the rightwing pollies joined in......

Murray Darling Basin plan rewards the inefficient: Nick Xenophon Adelaide Now 8th October 2010

The plan will destroy communities, said the opposition's water resources spokesman, Barnaby Joyce. ''The ultimate goal of a plan such as this seems to be that we wish our nation to be fed by somebody else,'' he said. Sydney Morning Herald 9th October 2010

BOB KATTER, INDEPENDENT MP: We will now be a very, very big net importer of food. We will be one of the very few countries in the world that will be a large net importer of food. The Insiders 10th October 2010

DANNY O'BRIEN FARMERS FEDERATION (to press): The plan that's been released today would be a dagger to the heart of regional Australia. The Insiders 10th October 2010

And of course a perennial climate change sceptic/lobbyist added her tuppence worth......

The Murray Darling Basin Authority released a 'Guide to the Proposed Basin Plan' yesterday which had been touted as an independent scientific report. My impression of the document, however, is that it is an audacious grab for more water based on popular myths....there is enough water in the MDB anyway – no need to take water from anyone. Jennifer Marohasy 9th October 2010

Well this little wood duck's response is straightforward. For generations we've been robbing the environment of water it could ill-afford to lose and (town or country) we've all been complicit in ignoring what farmers and primary industries have been doing in the Murray Darling Basin. Now it's time to pay the piper, suck up the pain and give that water back in big measure.

K-K-Keneally is just too cute for words

In 2009 Wayne Swan said that the Rudd Government wouldn't tolerate the NSW Government clawing back a big hunk of the base-rate pension increase for single pensioners in increased rental payments for those in public or community housing.
The Rees Government temporarily placed a stay on implementing the rent increase until September 2010.
This month the Gillard Government has requested the Keneally Government not to claw back this same increase and again the NSW government has temporarily stayed its hand.
Presumably for only a short period after last Monday's indexed pension rise because the last state budget deliberately didn't quarantine that 2009 base-rate increase.
Premier K-K-Keneally is being just a little too cute if she thinks that wiping $18 dollars from the payment in hand received by public housing tenants on single pensions won't be noticed if it doesn't quite coincide with this month's $15 pension increase.
They'll notice Kristina and they're bound to remember on polling day in 2011.

This is the Member for Tweed in June this year in the NSW Parliament:
"But the New South Wales Labor Government is clawing back $7.50 per week from those people who can least afford it. Approximately 28 per cent of the Tweed electorate's population is aged over 65 years. In fact, for this age group the Tweed ranks second in the State, behind Port Macquarie. Aged pensioners have worked hard all their lives and have given a great deal to this great State, if not this great nation, of ours. Yet their pension increase is being clawed back. Some people may say that $7.50 is not a large amount, but it will buy several loaves of bread or other essentials. Many aged pensioners budget down to their last dollar every week. Last year electricity costs increased by 20 per cent and over the next two years they are expected to increase by another 40 per cent. Many pensioners have told me that their bills will increase by $300, $400 or $500 a year, yet all the Government says is that they can get the pensioner rebate to offset the increase. The pensioner rebate is $140, so they will not save anything. In fact, they will be worse off.
Aged pensioners in the Tweed have told me that they take cold showers every second day because they cannot afford to run the electric heater for their hot water systems, and time and again they turn off appliances. In other words, their lifestyle and comforts of living are being eroded. No longer can they afford the things for which they worked hard all their life. I don't normally agree with much that Geoff Provest has to say, but in this case his words bear repeating.

A bit of background Fair dinkum, you're a bit of a political b*tch aren't you Kristina and Australian pensions increase effective 20 September 2009 and other changes

Garrett needs to intervene on the NSW North Coast

Forests NSW is once more in the news - this time over allegations that it is improperly harvesting trees within endangered ecological communities in Doubleduke State Forest. Including areas containing koala, sugar glider and giant barred frog habitat.

Doubleduke, Grange, Yabbra; the list of forest habitat under threat from mismanagement by the very agency designed to protect old growth and threatened species in these working forests is growing.

Federal Minister for Environment Protection Peter Garrett, along with his department, needs to intervene on the NSW North Coast.

It is patently clear that the Keneally Government in New South Wales cannot effectively manage the conduct of its own agencies and NSW Minister for Mineral and Forestry Resources, Paul McLeay, is failing in his portfolio.

While it is obvious that timber cutters working within state forests have little respect for the one year-old NSW Department of Climate Change, Environment and Water which appears to be directly responsible for policing aspects of forestry management.

Along with poorly implemented state environmental policy (where it even exists), sustained population growth along the NSW coastal corridor is placing so much pressure on what remains of the natural landscape that increased local species extinction is inevitable and future fresh water quality compromised in some areas if the present approach to environmental issues is allowed to continue unchecked.

The Sydney Morning Herald on 30 June 2010:

Forests NSW is already under investigation for breaches of licence conditions at a separate logging site about 30 kilometres from Doubleduke state forest, the scene of the latest logging.
It was fined $1200 by the department in May for a separate series of licence breaches in the same district, but the relatively small sum angered environment groups campaigning for more oversight.

ABC North Coast on 1 July 2010:

The North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) says State Forests has committed 20 breaches of environmental safeguards in the Doubleduke State Forest south of Ballina. This follows similar breaches in the Yabbra State Forest for which State Forests was prosecuted.
Sue Higginson from the Environmental Defender's Office says NEFA is looking at what legal action it can take over the Doubleduke issues.
"The proper course of action is for the State regulatory agency to be the regulator in relation to the compliance and enforcement of the environmental laws," she said.

Brisbane Times on 9 July 2010:

Evidence of systematic damage to rainforests in northern NSW as a result of government-supervised logging has forced the environment department to again investigate its state-run counterpart, Forests NSW.
The alleged logging of old-growth rainforest, inaccurate surveys and damage to endangered species habitat in Grange State Forest, near Grafton, amounts to the third time in three months that the forestry agency has been accused of breaching its own guidelines in northern NSW.
''It's really a disaster, and very, very depressing to see country that has never been logged before destroyed in this way,'' said a spokesman for the Clarence Environment Centre, John Edwards, who helped document the damage. ''It does appear that the guidelines are being breached in a routine way. And if Forests NSW is just fined it is the public that ends up paying anyway. People inside the organisation should be held personally accountable.''

Update:

Felled tree might have been 1000yo The Daily Examiner 14 July 2010

BBQ Brumby served on a skewer with sauce piquante

If there was an award for questions from the floor after a National Press Club Address, this one should get first prize:

"Mr Brumby, Sue Dunlevy from the Daily Telegraph. You're saying today —  the title of your address is "putting patients first". But it's not something that you're doing in your own hospital system. Victoria's hospitals see fewer emergency and elective surgery patients within the recommended time than hospitals in New South Wales. You spend $123 less per patient than New South Wales. Your hospital system provides fewer beds per thousand people than New South Wales. And your hospital performance has been going backwards for five years. Why should you be regarded as some kind of authority on health? And why should patients in other states have to put up with a second-rate system because someone who can't run his own health system is behaving like a bully?"

You little bewdy, Sue!

Dividing the GST pie in 2010

Just goes to show - if you whinge long enough and hard enough you're bound to be heard.
New South Wales finally gets a slice of the GST pie which begins to reflect the amount of this consumption tax we Welshies pay.
From the Commonwealth Grants Commission media release on 26th February 2010:
"The Commonwealth Grants Commission has released its advice on how GST revenue should be distributed among the States and Territories in 2010-11. .....Under the Commission's recommendations for 2010-11, Victoria and New South Wales, and to a lesser extent Queensland and South Australia, receive larger shares of GST revenue compared to 2009-10, while Western Australia, and to a lesser extent the Northern Territory and the ACT, receive smaller shares. The share of Tasmania would stay unchanged. The Chairman of the Commission, Alan Morris, said, "This review takes into account the significant changes in the fiscal circumstances of the States since the Commission's last review in 2004. At the time of that review, New South Wales and Victoria were fiscally stronger than the other States. While their fiscal capacities are still above average, those of Western Australia and Queensland have strengthened quite dramatically over recent years as a result of strong increases in their revenue raising capacities, principally from mining royalties. The fiscal capacities of these two States are now the strongest. These four States now share the cost of raising the fiscal capacities of the four weaker States to the average. "Fiscal equalisation is designed so that, as a State's own capacity to raise revenue, or its cost of delivering services, diverges from the national average, there are compensating adjustments to its GST revenue", Mr Morris said. "That is what has happened in recent updates, and in this review."

2010 CGC Review final report here.

Dividing the Goods & Services Tax according to Granny Herald:
NSW + $1.07 billion
Victoria + 872 million
Queensland + $545 million
S. Australia + $357 million
Tasmania + $91 million
NT + $78 million
ACT - $30 million
WA - $223 million
SOURCE: GRANTS COMMISSION 2010-2011

Today is the start of Anti-Poverty Week 2009 in Australia and still Rudd, Swan & Macklin haven't acted against September pension increase grab by the states

This week across Australia people and organisations are observing Anti-Poverty Week 2009 which has as its main aims:

• Strengthen public understanding of the causes and consequences of poverty and hardship around the world and in Australia;
  
• Encourage research, discussion and action to address these problems, including action by individuals, communities, organisations and governments.

Over 100,000 Australian single pensioners (National Seniors statement to Courier Mail) will begin this week still worried that the Rudd Government has yet to make any concrete move to protect their recent $30 per week pension increase from the greedy grasp of state governments and community housing companies.

According to 2007 FAHCSIA data the majority of the 714,156 Disability Support Pension (DSP) recipients across Australia are single and don't own a home, so one would expect that these pensioners are significantly represented among single pensions who will lose 25% of the 2009 pension increase in late 2010.

DSP recipients are most heavily clustered in New South Wales which makes the Rees Government pension grab all the more distasteful - a fact these pensioners will possibly remember at the next election.

Etching from CAP Art Blog

Paternalistic system entrenched by state pension grab says CPSA, but doesn't reveal full extent of Commonwealth-State duplicity

Excerpts from recent Combined Pensioners and Superannuants Association media releases concerning the recent increase in the base pension rate for single pensioners:

Paternalistic system entrenched by pension grab

"By taking a quarter of the pension increase away in public housing rents, state governments are entrenching the paternalistic notion that pensioners should be grateful for anything that they get" said Charmaine Crowe, CPSA Policy Coordinator.
"It says to pensioners in public housing that they owe the state governments something because they were lucky enough to secure public housing in the first place."
CPSA calls on the Federal Government to make good on their assurance that they will "take whatever actions are required to ensure that this money is delivered permanently to the pensioners of Australia" (Treasurer Wayne Swan, ABC Radio, 29 September 2009).
"This pension increase is in response to the fact that the pension was seriously inadequate - seriously inadequate for pensioners in public housing, as it was seriously inadequate for home-owners and pensioners renting privately."
"Pensioners are sick and tired of having to battle to get anywhere. It seems as soon as pensioners win one battle, they're faced with ten more."
"The extra $30 a week is needed for pensioners to pay higher electricity bills, pay higher water bills, and to pay for higher-priced groceries. By taking away a quarter of the increase, it is clear that state governments do not comprehend the cost pressures facing pensioners everyday."

State governments see dollar signs in the pension increase

"The increase in public housing rents also tells private landlords that it's okay to charge pensioners more for a roof over their heads." "It's disgraceful that some of the poorest people in our community will be footing the bill for state infrastructure, when every cent they receive is needed for the essentials in life."

What the CPSA doesn't point out is the fact that the Rudd Government went as far amending the Aged Care Act 1997 in order to honour its commitment to protect the September 2009 pension increase for those single pensioners in aged care accommodation, but only quarantined $20.18 per fortnight. So that these pensioners are also not seeing the full benefit of the recent $60 per fortnight increase in the base pension.

What the Rudd Government has done is use this pension increase as a backdoor way of increasing funding to both the NSW Government public housing sector and public/private aged care providers.

Making a mockery of its 2009-10 budget pledge; The Government is reforming the pension system to improve pension adequacy, make its operation simpler, and ensure its sustainability into the future.
The global financial crisis is a timely reminder of the importance of an adequate safety net for older Australians. and Jenny Macklin - Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs joined us the morning, pensions fall under her portfolio.
She confirmed that the budget announcement of $32.49 for single pensioners will be money in the hand. That is - on top of their current payments and allowances

This is a cynical exercise worthy of the former Howard Government and, I expect that quite a few pensioners on the NSW North Coast will remember Labor's tricky move when it comes time to cast their votes at the next state and federal elections.

Oi, Swanee! You've huffed and you've puffed - when are you going to blow the states' pension grab out of the water?

Just a small reminder to Australian Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan that it's 8 days since he promised to stop state governments from taking a bite out of the one-off pension boost which came into effect in late September.
Since then there's been barely a peep on the subject from the Rudd Government.
Waddaya doin' mate? Don't drag the chain!

Shame Rudd Shame: government gets a fail on pension increase

State government housing authorities and community housing are lining up to take a bite out of the Rudd Government $60 per fortnight base pension increase for single pensioners.

Those on low incomes in public housing normally pay 25 per cent of their total income in rent, however the NSW Government has already changed rent calculation rules for community housing so that single pensioners are often paying more than 25 per cent of their total income on rent each fortnight and, in many parts of NSW that steep late 2008 rent increase was implemented in one fell swoop despite the Federal Government being told that there would be a graduated increase over years.

That particular fiddle saw at least an extra $22 per fortnight immediately removed from the pockets of single pensioners living in community housing.

At present state governments are considering a twelve month delay of any rent increase based on the higher fortnightly pension payment, but there is no guarantee that incorporated community housing won't take a cut of the extra money before the end of the year.

When the Rudd Government first announced it was considering a pension increase it assured the electorate that the additional income would be exempt from consideration by nursing homes, aged care hostels, and supported accommodation when factoring accommodation costs. No ifs, buts or maybes.

One now wonders if even these pensioners will actually be getting the full benefit of the additional payment.

The Rudd Government had within its power the ability to make this pension increase an exempt fortnightly allowance or exempt pension supplement for other pensioners but it chose not to do so.

I suspect that this failure to quarantine the increase was a deliberate pandering to state interests and Rudd, Swan, Macklin et al hoped that pensioners would keep quiet as greedy state governments cut into their payments to subsidise fiscal mismanagement.

If Ms. Macklin has a red face as the Brisbane Times cartoonist infers - it's probably only due to media scrutiny and a caught-out Treasurer Wayne Swan needs to do more than threaten to take on the states over this issue - he needs to act this week.

Shame, Rudd & Co, shame - you have treated single old age, disability and other pensioners living independently in the community as though they are the undeserving poor.

What I think of the Rees Government is of course unrepeatable in polite company.

What I think of a virtually silent federal and state Coaltion Opposition defies description (I'm particularly looking at you Nationals MP for Clarence Steve Cansdell, who thought previous NSW rent increase tactics were fair).

NSW public hospitals once more becoming thought of as a place you go to die?

When I was a nipper a hospital was considered a place you went to die.
By the time I became an adult hospitals had become places where you went to be treated and maybe if you were lucky, cured.
Now as I get even older and read the growing litany of medical errors, I begin to wonder if perceptions are swinging back again and we're once more becoming afraid of hospitals?
Take this old man left on a bedpan for so long in a public hospital that he had to have surgery for the ulcers this disgusting neglect created.
NSW Health Care Commission media releases over the last twelve months don't instill a lot of confidence either. Neither does the growing list of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, psychologists etc. who are either reprimanded, suspended or deregistered in this state.
If you want a real scare - just read this May 2009 Medical Journal of Australia article which looked at the chances of survival if a baby is born in a public hospital:
"After adjusting for the same maternal variables, serious adverse neonatal outcomes showed similar differences between the two hospital groups.
Term babies born in public hospitals were more likely to require high levels of resuscitation, to have an Apgar score < 7 at 5 minutes, and to require admission to a neonatal intensive care facility or special care nursery (Box 3).
Perinatal death was twice as likely for babies born in public hospitals.
Even using a composite for adverse perinatal outcome (patients with at least one adverse outcome), the unadjusted OR was 1.30 (95% CI, 1.28–1.33) for public hospital deliveries.
When the adverse perinatal outcomes were compared individually by method of birth, the differences between public and private hospital sectors persisted for all the adverse outcomes studied (data not shown).
For example, for spontaneous vaginal births, the rate of Apgar score < 7 at 5 minutes was 0.9% in the public group compared with 0.6% in the private group.
The differences for forceps deliveries (1.6% v 1.1%), ventouse deliveries (2.1% v 1.4%), and caesarean sections (1.3% v 0.5%) showed a similar pattern.
The rates of perinatal death were similarly lower in private hospitals for each method of birth: spontaneous vaginal birth (0.2% v 0.1%); forceps delivery (0.5% v 0.2%); ventouse delivery (0.2% v 0.1%); and caesarean section (0.3% v 0.1%)...
Conclusion: For women delivering a single baby at term in Australia, the prevalence of adverse perinatal outcomes is higher in public hospitals than in private hospitals."

So Prime Minister Rudd - when are you going to fix this appalling state of affairs?

Secretary to the Treasury Ken Henry on the good, the bad and the ugly

From Dr. Ken Henry's speech to the Australian Economic Forum on 19 August 2009 concerning the Rudd Government tax review now underway:

"So what does this mean for the panel’s deliberations? As a first step, the panel is considering taxes and transfers on their individual merits, how they sit within the overall architecture of the tax-transfer system, and how they will meet the opportunities and challenges of the future. Importantly, this assessment is being undertaken without regard to the level of government which currently administers that particular tax or transfer.
The Panel’s concern is to ensure that our tax-transfer system is calibrated to emerging challenges and opportunities that arise from things like population ageing, the re-emergence of China and India and continuing technological change.
As part of its enquiry, the panel is assessing how different taxes and transfers rate against the standard policy assessment criteria – fairness, efficiency, simplicity, sustainability and coherence. These criteria will enable us to identify taxes which should be levied, taxes that are so irredeemingly poor that they should be abolished, and taxes that are reformable – the good, the bad and the ugly."

Rudders & Co charge towards the global warming guns

Rudders & the Council of Australian Governments are re-enacting the political stupidity of the Howard era and charging down the valley towards the guns of global warming armed only with the forlorn hope that government can again defer doing anything meaningful about greenhouse gas emissions.
Yesterday's COAG communique tells teh plebs exactly what is expected of us - use less energy, pay more for what energy we do use, invest in renewable energy products for our homes and handover the credit for any energy savings to whatever big polluter needs to hide the fact that it's refusing to clean up its act.
By the time Rudders has bent over backwards to please every big industry player and political donor, there will be almost no large business paying for carbon credits or obliged to invest in renewable energy.
So many are exempt under Rudders latest massage of the renewable energy target scheme that it fair sticks in the craw.
COAG is obviously hellbent on taking part in a 21st century version of the Charge of the Light Brigade, when stupidity amongst the officer class resulted in annihilation.

A Healthier Future For All Australians Interim Report transcript: a revolution has been recommended but will Rudd and Roxon listen?

The A Healthier Future For All Australians interim report was released today.

At first reading it is somewhat like the curate's egg - good in parts - and although this report is heavy on broadly worded aims and a fair degree of wishful thinking it does have one startlingly good recommendation that the Commonwealth should assume responsibility for primary health care (outside of the public hospital system).

What the report recommends regarding oral health:

11.1 We propose that Australia should have a scheme 'Denticare Australia' for universal access to preventive and restorative dental care, and dentures, regardless of people's ability to pay.

11.2 We propose that 'Denticare Australia' be based on a mixed approach of public and private cover. The additional costs would be funded by an increase in the Medicare Levy of 0.75 per cent of taxable income, with people opting either to become a member of a dental health plan (with a private insurer), or to use public dental services.

11.3 We support an equitable approach to financing a universal dental scheme. Under the proposed approach, the funding of dental services will be linked to ability to pay through an increase in the Medicare Levy.

We estimate that under this approach:

• Many people will pay no more than they currently pay for dental care – the increase in Medicare Levy of 0.75 per cent of taxable income will be smaller than existing out-of-pocket costs for dental services for many people.

• People on low incomes will pay considerably less and have much better access to dental health services.

11.4 We support the introduction of a one-year internship scheme prior to full registration, so that clinical preparation of oral health practitioners (dentists, dental therapists and dental hygienists) operates under a similar model to medical practitioners.

11.5 We propose the national expansion of the pre-school and school dental programs.

11.6 We propose that additional funding be made available for improved oral health promotion, with interventions to be decided based upon relative cost-effectiveness assessment.

Full copy of A Healthier Future For All Australians interim report is here.
Reform directions section is here.

See: Attention: Rudd, Rees, Roxon, Saffin, Elliot. This mouth has been almost a decade on the public dental treatment waiting list

Attention: Rudd, Rees, Roxon, Saffin, Elliot. This mouth has been almost a decade on the Australian public dental treatment waiting list

This is the mouth of a NSW North Coast pensioner who has been on the public dental treatment waiting list for the better part of a decade.

A third world image of poverty in the Lucky Country.

When is the Federal Government going to finally fulfill its constitutional obligations and take full responsibility for public dental health services across Australia?

North Coast Area Health Service debt in 2009

I guess that we should all be thankful for small mercies on finding that the North Coast Area Health Service debt of $9 million is the fourth lowest across New South Wales.
Still, the total picture clearly shows that it is time for the Commonwealth to resume total responsibility for the provision of public hospitals and health services.
Unfortunately, all Kevin Rudd promised in the lead up to the 2007 federal election was that he would take over the running of public hospitals if the states did not agree to a national reform plan by mid 2009.
Hardly the answer to so mammoth a problem, when the debts keep mounting and the states (especially New South Wales) are so obviously incapable of solving the financial and workforce crises in health services.

Debt List:
Sydney South West Area Health Service $0
Hunter New England Area Health Service $0
Children's Hospital at Westmead $4.5m
North Coast Area Health Service $9m
Greater Western Area Health Service $10m
North Sydney Central Coast Area Health Service $22m
Greater Southern Area Health Service $22m
South East Sydney Illawarra Area Health Service $24m
Sydney West Area Health Service $26m
NSW Health owes $117.5 million to creditors
(Debt figures according to The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 January 2009)

NSW Inc. - Rudders whistles in the wind

Poor old Rudders. Opinion polls still going his way nationally, but the entire ball of wool unravelling at state level.
The Prime Minister wants NSW Premier Rees and Co to get their act together and go to the next election with a fighting chance.

Problem is that more than one or two senior members of the NSW ALP are now openly saying that the only way to fix factional problems and lack of political talent, or ensure true generational change, is for Labor to "spend some time on the Opposition benches".

That remark has been echoed by party members on the NSW North Coast and could be overheard outside local government election polling booths last Saturday.