from http://www.411mania.com/politics/columns/62705/A-Tainted-View-11.03.07:-Australian-Election-Coverage.htm Let's face the facts: Western Australia's hospitals are in a mess. And who's responsible for this mess? Western Australian Health Minister, Jim McGinty- and ex-trade union official. Yes, PART of the blame can be assigned to Jim McGinty, and yes, he's an ex-trade union official. An even BIGGER part of the blame can be placed on the head of the federal Liberal government, who, over the past ten years, has introduced patient co-payments to GP visits, putting them out of the reach of some of the community. The flow on effect of that policy has been the diversion of huge numbers of patients that previously visited a GP to hospital emergency departments. This has moved the cost of treating these patients from the Commonwealth to the states, and has directly caused emergency departments around the country to consistently overflow to the point of collapse. The biggest problem with the health system in Western Australia (and, for that matter, every other state in the country) is that the federal government collects the taxation earmarked for funding health, and (unevenly) distributes it to the states, who are tasked with then funding the shortfall, and managing the system. We then get a situation where when the system collapses, the state blames the feds and the feds blame the states, and nothing gets done. You know, maybe the answer is for the commonwealth to make some sort of commitment to stop the endless buck-passing and accept final responsibility for the hospital system. If only someone thought of doing this. Oh- wait. Somebody did: You know, with the complete clusterf..k that is the Liberals' campaign, you would almost believe that they are TRYING to lose this election. Almost. Let's go on with the original advert. ust like another ex-union official, Eric Ripper, who is responsible for a shortage of police, nurses and teachers through lack of funding. Eric Ripper? You are trying to win points against the federal opposition by taking shots at Eric Ripper? The guy hardly has a profile in Western Australia, and under his reign as Treasurer WA has seen record surpluses and growth- you know, the same qualities that you fellate Costello over. He isn't hated, and he certainly isn't the guy who catches the blame in the Western Australian community for Teachers, Nurses and Police Officers. That blame tends to sit with the Education Minister, the Health Minister and the Police Minister. Funny that, eh? Nobody cares about Ripper. The only thing that mentioning his name would achieve would be to remind people that he actually exists. That said, the reason why we don't have enough nurses and teachers is that not enough people are being TRAINED as teachers and nurses. That is the fault of the tertiary education system- again, a responsibility of the FEDERAL government. The Police shortage is dues to the fact that there is little incentive for people to make the sacrifices necessary to serve on the force for $50,000, when the same person can get $150,000 for working a cushy job in the booming mining sector. Unless the Federal government is advocating doubling the pay of entry-level police officers, the problem won't get solved. I wonder how economists will react to that idea? But it could get worse, because soon there could be a Rudd Labor government in Canberra Oh good. At least now we're talking about the federal opposition. You know- their actual OPPONENTS? ith 70% of the ministers being ex-trade union officials with hardly any other experience, and if that happens there will be an even bigger mess. And Western Australia, you will pay for it. You know, I'd love to hear John Howard detail his adult work experience, or his experience in the real world, where you have to be independent and work for your own living. Or did he live in his mummy's house until he got married in his thirties? (In case you're wondering, John Howard joined the Liberal Party at the age of 18, where he served in various functions including as the President of the Young Liberals. The man did live with mummy right up until he got married, and first ran for parliament at the age of 28. His only notable achievement was being a political party member. So much for experience, eh?) As a point of comparison, a the same percentage of the coalition front bench consists of lawyers and bankers. I would wager that as a rule, unionists are far more representative of Joe Public than a group of millionaire barristers and merchant bankers.As for the risk of
