Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was humiliated when events in the insulation fiasco forced him to publicly apologise. He admitted that the public had every right to be critical of his government - and that many election promises had not been kept.
The sudden announcement of a plan to fix the ailing hospital system comes as no surprise. Rudd is seeking to regain the initiative and there is no doubt that hospital reform is high on the list of things the public demand.
It sounds like a good plan - in theory !
The Federal government takes over hospital funding, and pumps up the Federal contribution from 35% to 60 %. Control of each hospital reverts to a local board, removing hospital decisions from the vast state bureaucracy.
But from there it runs into trouble. To fund that Federal increase the government will reduce the state's take from the GST by fifty billion dollars.
The states will fight that tooth and nail - and it should be remembered that when the GST was first proposed, the deal was that implementing this brand new tax would see a host of state taxes - including land tax and stamp duty - reduced or abolished. The states were given a five year reprieve - but when that expired they reneged - and now we have both taxes still dipping into our pockets.
It is proposed that if the states fail to fall into line, the matter will be decided by referendum.
Gaining referendum approval has a dismal history when the matter has been opposed by the states and demanded by the Federal government, and this idea has yet to progress through the usually fractious Senate.
The best that can be said is that hospital reform is a useful distraction in an election year. Specially so when the government is reeling from a number of disasters that have highlighted the waste of public money - and a litany of broken promises.
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