The truth about Grafton Hospital funding

From The Daily Examiner letters to the editor pages in April-May 2013.

HE SAID:

Truth about hospital

I take deep umbrage to the statement by Shirley Adams that Janelle Saffin is the only one to do anything for Grafton and the Valley.
Shirley has never been backward in blowing her own trumpet but she knows very well what was achieved in my time as member.
The community centre, South Grafton levee, the hockey complex, the Airport Road, upgrades to state and private schools, a new railway station, the tourist centre, the list can go on.
The Grafton hospital is a good case in point. John Howard asked me to identify a project in my electorate to be funded from the surpluses we were achieving in government. I chose Grafton Base Hospitable because the State Labor Government had been promising upgrades but nothing ever happened.
The estimated cost of upgrade at the time was $18million.
John Howard came to Grafton and announced that the Federal Government would provide $18million to upgrade the hospital but he would give the money to a local committee because he did not trust the State Labor Government to spend the money on the hospital. If John Howard had not made this commitment, there would have been no interest from Labor.
These commitments were made because we had money in the bank, not the legacy from Janelle Saffin - at present $272billion of debt. Interest alone on this debt is $8billion a year. How many Pacific Highways would that fund?
Shirley Adams, Dr Allan Tyson and The Daily Examiner were all at that press conference and heard the statement. None has had the decency to acknowledge that as fact. There was no election called and the money was immediately available.
Remember, hospitals and highways are state responsibilities under the constitution and John Howard was the first prime minister to offer federal help for health, the Pacific Hwy and money to local councils for rural roads.
The very fact that Janelle Saffin claims there was interest accumulating proves the money was in a dedicated account for Grafton hospital and not part of the budget process of the new government.
I am delighted that Grafton Base Hospital has finally been upgraded, but an outbreak of the truth in these matters, instead of blatant politics, would be a pleasant change.

 Ian Causley

Chatsworth

SHE SAID #1:

Unrealised promise

Ian Causley (The Daily Examiner, letters April 23) stated; "John Howard came to Grafton and announced that the Federal Government would provide $18 million to upgrade the hospital but he would give the money to a local committee because he did not trust the State Labor Government to spend the money on the hospital.
The very fact that Janelle Saffin claims there was interest accumulating proves the money was in a dedicated account for Grafton hospital and not part of the budget process of the new government."
Yes, John Howard was reported as making that announcement on October 10, 2007.
Four days before he announced his intention to call a federal election and seven days before the writs were issued, Parliament dissolved and the caretaker period commenced. (Australian Electoral Commission 2012).
Additionally, this promised hospital upgrade funding was not included in the Howard Government 2007 budget papers, in October there was no "local committee" for it to go to if it had actually been allocated and, on October 11, 2007 the NSW Government rejected this "election promise" (ABC News).
Then on November 24, 2007 the Coalition lost government and John Howard lost his seat. So Mr Causley's $18 million existed only as an unrealised promise and it is wrong of him to suggest otherwise.
Especially as in June 2008 the then NSW Nationals MP for Clarence identified federal Grafton Hospital upgrade funding as being provided by the Rudd Government.

Judith M. Melville

Yamba

SHE SAID #2:

The real truth

It is a bit sad that former member for Page Ian Causley (DEX April 23) feels the need to claim credit from retirement for delivering the Grafton Base Hospital redevelopment.
I acknowledge that Ian, after years of inaction, elicited an $18 million commitment out of former prime minister John Howard in the dying days of that government.
However, that pledge was unfunded and had strings attached. Mine was funded and came with no strings.
The big difference here is that my 2007 election commitments of $18 million for stage one and $5 million for the Grafton GP Super Clinic, made with former prime minister Kevin Rudd's full support, were rock solid.
I was the politician who actually delivered the goods. Federal Labor's $18 million was in the 2008-09 budget, the money went to the then NSW Labor Government, where it earned $1.2 million in interest while the project was being planned.
Ian is plainly wrong when he suggests that the money was in some dedicated federal account. It was not.
I lobbied former NSW health minister John Della Bosca for the interest to be directed to the project, which was unprecedented, and for his government to contribute a further $500,000 to planning.
I got both for our community.
I made sure, with Dr Allan Tyson's attention to detail and Shirley Adams OAM's vigilance, that a total of $19.7 million in funding was wisely spent on building a first-class emergency department, operating theatres, and some extras.
Ian's attack on Shirley, who is widely respected as one of the Clarence Valley's leading citizens, was unwarranted and petty.
He should know that it is not just about the funding.
Hard-working MPs then work with their community to bed down the project with bureaucrats, construction managers and staff.
This is how we, as a united local community, fought for and won first-class health facilities offering high standards of patient care.
And for the record, I secured and delivered a further $10 million for stage two of the Grafton Base upgrade, made up of $6 million from this federal government and $4 million from the then NSW government.

Janelle Saffin MP

Federal Member for Page

A blast from the past

Does the name Neville Newell ring a bell? The letters editor of The Sydney Morning Herald awarded top marks to Newell's contribution and gave it the pole position.

Windsor's dignity turned on the light

So it appears that now a National Disability Insurance Scheme levy will have bipartisan parliamentary support (''Green light for the NDIS as Abbott comes to the party'', May 3). Good news indeed. Good news coverage for this positive move from the Opposition just 24 hours after Tony Abbot's expressed indifference and Joe Hockey's hostility.Why not any credit for the person whose words shook the perennial negatives from the Opposition ? Not undoubtedly because they were about to be rendered irrelevant by the Independents surely. Thanks, Tony Windsor MP, your speaking up frightened some ''humanity'' into our federal opposition.

Neville Newell Brunswick Heads

Source: SMH, 4/05/2013

Pic credit: Parliament of NSW

Abbott outed as class warrior intent on taking from the poor and giving to the rich

Excerpt from Nicholas Reece writing in The Age 29 April 2013:

As Age columnist Tim Soutphommasane presciently observed in these pages, ''class warfare'' has become the catchcry of a new conservative political correctness.

The truth of this assessment is made clear by an analysis of the competing policy platforms of Labor and Tony Abbott's Coalition. What it shows is that both parties have policies that result in a redistribution of resources from one group in society to another.

This is not surprising. With only finite revenue, a decision to give to one individual or group means, by definition, that another will miss out.

What is surprising is the extent to which Coalition policies will result in a significant redistribution of wealth upwards rather than downwards. Consider the following Coalition policies:

■ Lower the tax-free threshold from $18,200 to $6000. This will drag more than one million low-income earners back into the tax system. It will also increase the taxes for 6 million Australians earning less than $80,000.

■ Abolish the low-income superannuation contribution. This will reimpose a 15 per cent tax on superannuation contributions for people earning less than $37,000.

■ Abolish the proposed 15 per cent tax on income from superannuation above $100,000 a year. The combined effect of these two superannuation changes is that 16,000 high-income earners with superannuation savings in excess of $2 million will get a tax cut while 3.6 million workers earning less than $37,000 will pay more than $4 billion extra in tax on their super over the next four years.

■ Abolish the means test on the private health insurance rebate. This will deliver a $2.4 billion tax cut over three years for individuals earning over $84,001 a year, or couples earning over $168,001. People on lower incomes will receive no benefit.

■ Introduce a paid parental leave scheme that replaces a mother's salary up to $150,000. To put it crudely, this means a low-income mum gets about $600 per week while a high-income mum gets close to $3000.

■ Abolish the means-tested Schoolkids Bonus that benefits 1.3 million families by providing up to $410 for each primary school child and up to $820 for each high school child.

These policies will result in low- and middle-income earners paying billions of dollars more in tax while those on higher incomes receive billions in tax cuts and new benefits. Rather than take from the rich and give to the poor, the Coalition policies are a case of take from the poor and give to the rich. And this remains the case even taking into account the flow-on effects of the abolition of the carbon price and the funding of the Coalition's paid maternity leave through a tax on big companies.

So who is waging the real class war?

Nationals candidate Kevin Hogan thinks he is Barack Obama

One of the crass aspects of federal election campaigning in America are those offers of brand mugs, t-shirts, car magnets, coasters and posters in exchange for donations to someone's political campaign.

President Barack Obama’s campaign team excelled at the hard sell during his first successful federal election campaign.

Now Australian voters are being invited to participate in similar tackiness, without the reward of receiving a mug from China or a t-shirt from Bangladesh.

Kevin Hogan wants voters to clothe his campaign workers. Yes, you read that correctly – the people of Page need to hand over $5 to stop some poor National Party supporter from being forced to door knock bare from the waist up.

The double standard of the Leader of the Opposition

Yet another example of Australian Leader of the Opposition’s view that it’s all right when he or the Liberal Party does it but a sin if someone in the Labor Party does the same thing.

The Age 25 April 2013:

Tony Abbott has attacked a government decision to double termination payouts for federal political staff to four weeks' pay, despite having sought more generous arrangements for outgoing Liberal staffers when he became Opposition Leader in 2009.

Correspondence obtained by Fairfax Media from Mr Abbott to the then special minister of state, Joseph Ludwig, shows Mr Abbott asked for eight weeks' ''settling-out'' time for seven staff who had been employed in the private office of Malcolm Turnbull when Mr Abbott replaced him as leader on December 1, 2009.

Asked about the new payout standard on Wednesday, Mr Abbott was scathing. ''This is another sign of the Labor party's contempt for taxpayers,'' he said.

''This is a taxpayer-funded handout to political staffers and, frankly, it's just not on. It shouldn't be happening.''

Add ups and gazintas

Daily Examiner reporter Lachlan Thompson's piece in today's paper provides proof that he's a words man and not an add ups and gazintas bloke. Check out what he wrote about Yamba Cinema's Merv Cousemacker and do the sums yourself.

End of an era for movie man

Sixty-four years ago a nine year-old boy had to fill in for his ailing uncle and change the reels on a movie film projector.

And as Yamba Cinema moves into the digital age that boy, who is now 81 years old, is sad to see his skills made redundant.

If you have watched a film in the Clarence Valley in the past five decades there is a good chance Merv Cousemacker was operating the projector.

Mr Cousemacker's uncle Jack Ellem operated a touring cinema show on the east coast during the 1930s and '40s.

One night Mr Ellem was sick with yellow jaundice and nine-year-old Merv, who had keenly watched his uncle since the age of five, stepped in to help.

There began a life-long love affair with film and projectors which resulted in Mr Cousemacker running a travelling cinema show throughout the '50s and early '60s, operate a cinema in Maclean and finally own his own in Yamba.

During the 1950s Mr Cousemacker and his wife, Elaine, travelled and put on weekly screenings, complete with newsreels in Copmanhurst, Tucabia, Glenreagh, Brushgrove, Lawrence, Ulmarra, Iluka and Red Rock.

"Until television did us out of business," Mr Cousemacker said.

During the 1970s and '80s they operated the Picture Palace in Maclean - the cinema's name is still ingrained in the pavement.

"One of my greatest memories was filling the theatre there, which seated 1200 people, twice screening Born Free," Mr Cousemacker said. 

Read the complete piece here.

Abbott and Hockey condemn National Disability Insurance Scheme to limbo if Coalition wins government

This was Australian Federal Opposition Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey writing to concerned citizens in June 2013:

Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott at a press conference on 30 March 2013:

It would appear that neither of these Coalition politicians want to see the National Disability Insurance Scheme launch in 2013-14 or become fully realized by 2018, as planned by the Gillard Government, if they place so many pre-conditions on its implementation.

UPDATE 2 May 2013:

The Opposition Leader has still not given his unconditional support to the levy and continues to misrepresent known details of the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

UPDATE 3 May 2013:

Abbott & Co continue to lay the ground work to roll back NDIS funding if they gain government; 

deep misgivings within the Coalition about the potential for its cost to explode in the next decade.