COAG: when a noxious nerd can bore hairy-chested premiers into submission

Terry Barnes reviews this week's COAG meetings.

You have to take your hat off to Kevin Rudd.  Deal or no deal he has pulled off a political coup in getting the premiers of the two biggest States to tap the mat after weeks of furious and ugly Labor Party brawling. 

Rumour has it that on mid-Tuesday afternoon the Labor leaders caucused, and they decided to give Rudd what he most wanted because the Prime Minister had threatened them with yet another tedious PowerPoint presentation.   

And how would you like to be John Brumby today?  Before COAG he was like the bully in those Charles Atlas ads in the comic books of my boyhood, kicking sand in the face of the Ruddy weakling.  But just as in those ads, the weakling had the last laugh and Brumby, having demanded an extra $1.2 billion a year, obtained barely 20 per cent of that before giving away everything.  And as in the ad Rudd walked off with the girl – in this case NSW premier Kristina Keneally.  The bullied has become the bully.

Rudd is now waving the 27 page COAG communiqué in the same way Neville Chamberlain (another nerd with an anachronistic dress sense) waved the Munich Agreement in 1938.  And as we now know Munich did not prevent a European war:  similarly, the COAG agreement will not end conflicts between the Commonwealth and the States on health funding.

Colin Barnett of Western Australia’s was the undoubted hero of this charade.  Unlike Brumby he held to his principles on State retention of GST against Rudd’s relentless pressure (not even allowing his State counterparts to have dinner out of his purse-lipped presence) and, as far as it appears, has kept the funding goodies for his State on the table for now at least.  He was the only person in the room who showed any real guts and conviction.

What has resulted is great pre-election politics for an increasingly desperate Rudd, who has deviously allowed the electorate to convince itself that he’s taking full control of public hospitals, when all he is talking about is “majority funder” status for Canberra.  But what has emerged from the Cabinet room with the battered and broken State and territory leaders from the Cabinet room is a sham of a plan:

• It has substituted funding bribes (a journalist calculated that Monday’s goodies were showered at the rate of more than $200 million an hour) for sensible and coordinated approaches to unblocking the arteries of the public hospital system.
• He has delivered a public hospitals and not a health policy.  So much money has been tipped into the public hospitals and related buckets that there will be precious little available for sensible and bipartisan moves in areas including primary care and general practice, preventive care and chronic condition management.  True comprehensive health system reform has been set back years.
• To pay for it will involve another pile of new money that can’t come from a budget surplus – there will need to be a further surge of public debt and cuts in other areas of health  spending, let alone the federal budget as a whole.  If I was a private health insurer or a pharmaceutical manufacturer I’d be very nervous about the future – but Rudd knows that the public has little love for them and so can wear their anger as a result if he slashes and burns in their spheres.

But most importantly there will still be a blame game, there will still be cost-shifting, and the States will still be able to skim funds as they go to local hospital networks – for “overheads” no doubt.  And Tony Abbott, who has kept his powder dry over recent weeks, can now frame his own health policy on his terms, knowing that most of what Rudd has sought won’t start happening until well after the election.  In other words, there’s still time for the voters to overturn the COAG outcome at the ballot box.

This week’s result is politically savvy, no question about it.  Rudd wants a double dissolution on a friendly issue and seeking a mandate for this plan (whatever the immediate DD trigger) is his preferred fighting platform.  But what he’s delivered is bad policy, short-sighted policy and self-serving policy.  It will unravel and most likely collapse – Rudd just hopes it will wait until after the election to  do it.

Terry Barnes is an editor of Menzies House.

Comments

[Vikas Nayak]

1.

The whole thing is a joke. Queensland Nepotism strikes again.

NSW : $249.21 per person.
VIC : $252.63 per person.
QLD : $402.76 per person.
WA: $356.13 per person.
SA: $396.97 per person.
Tas : $275.57 per person.
ACT : $296.23 per person.
NT : $327.48 per person.

Total Contribution Source : http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/states-to-run-pm-kevin-rudds-health-cure/story-e6frgczf-1225856154073

Population source : http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4705.0Main+Features12006?OpenDocument

Feel free to tabulate it out yourselves (incase i made a mistake)

[John Redding]

2.

Can someone please find Kevin Rudd a job at the UN? I'm really getting tired of his woeful politics.

[Clinton Mead]

3.

Based on Sep 2009 populations statistics (http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/3101.0) I get the following figures per person:

NSW: $239.62
VIC: $240.26
QLD: $241.10
WA: $244.30
SA: $246.70
TAS: $267.64
ACT: $279.98
NT: $303.96

[Jonathan]

4.

Thanks Terry. That's really made the main issues clearer in my mind and I'll definitely be posting this article on my facebook page.

I'm really concerned that Rudd is taking swipe after swipe at Australia's federation and so few seem to care.

[Clinton Mead]

5.

As much as Rudd is swiping at Australia's federation, Abbott is even more scary.

I quote Abbott:

"Let's amend section 51 of the Constitution to empower the national parliament to make laws generally for the peace, order and good government of the commonwealth. This would not abolish the states, just ensure that in the event of disagreement the national government calls the shots."

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/opinion/plan-now-for-a-federation/story-e6frgd0x-1111118008317

Sadly, if you're a Federalist, your best option between the major parties is quite possibly Labor.

[Terry Barnes]

6.

Vikas, Clinton - have you taken the Commonwealth Grants Commission formula into account in your calculations? It skews the shares for some States up, others (especially WA) down.

Jonathan, many thanks.

[Clinton Mead]

7.

Furthermore, Abbott wants to take over hospitals completely, and doesn't even have enough respect (or knowledge) of the constitution to hold a referendum on the issue:

“The Prime Minister has been waving the big referendum stick over the states' heads but he does not need a referendum to fully fund health services,” he said. “Section 51 of the constitution already gives him that. So this is game-playing by him.”

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/canberra-should-fund-hospitals-abbott/story-e6frgczf-1225853074415

Exactly what part of Section 51 gives the commonwealth authority over hospitals?! Unless you put doctors in lighthouses, its not in section 51.

When it comes down to it, if you're a supporter of federalism, your best bet is to preference Labor over the Coalition.

Both Howard on IR and Abbott on Health shows Labor is sadly now the standard bearer of the two major parties on states rights.

[Clinton Mead]

8.

Terry, my figures indicate only 3% difference between the five largest states by population, with WA doing better than NSW, VIC and QLD.

They were taken from:

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/3101.0

and

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/states-to-run-pm-kevin-rudds-health-cure/story-e6frgczf-1225856154073

[Georgina]

9.

Is this another "watch" debarcle - a "hospital watch".It seems with Rudd's plan there are five levels of bureaucracy - Federal funding administered by the Treasurer (I guess), State Management (what of?) Local Networks responsibility, activity based funded provided by a "hospitals pricing authority" - a "hospital watch". How this department will price an activity sounds as though it defies all sensible reasoning. It will be a bureaucratic nightmare. For an example - take a gall bladder operation which turns out to be more than just straight forward and takes more than the price of the procedure! If the Government takes away the rebate on private hospital insurance then the beds allocated in this "plan" will soon be filled. And who will look after these extra beds anyway? I can't see waiting times in emergency departments or elective surgery improving at all under the Rudd "plan" the funding for which has been eked out bit by bit to bribe the premiers. It is no use saying there will be 2500 beds here and more beds there when there is not the trained staff to look after them. This has happened before when wards had to be closed down because of staff shortages. There is no mention of research and preventative treatments e.g. for mental health, eye surgery,(take macula degeneration sending people blind), alzheimers etc.and the list goes on. nor is there any mention of keeping up to date with urgently needed equipment. And how about the dreadful state of some hospitals where there is an urgent need of updating or rebuilding - nothing. No wonder Rudd did not venture into Hornsby Hospital (our local hospital) - it is a thorough disgrace. I am sure other hospitals are in the same boat.

[Grant Petras]

10.

Some hands on experience showing through here Georgina, well said.

It is a damned shame that health gets reduced to this level of political bickering and game playing.

I am un-ashamedly a proponent of a single funder model for public health services in Australia. Casemix is an obvious & proven tool for measuring output and is as good as anything to start with.

But....what you say is absolutely correct, the approach to Australia's Health Policy must be integrated and 'wholistic' ('scuse the strine) if anyone (including our side of politics) is serious about addressing all the issues that are health....which is just not about being sick! and does not have one simple solution.

The health 'issue' is incredibly complex and deserved of far more respect than Krudd has shown it with his knee jerk headline grabbing spin policy on the run.