NSW Election

[am Bays]

Appears the ALP have returned with a reduced majority on the floor of one.

Coalition picks up two seats ALP and others lose one each.

Might be a pointer to the end of the year, despite being on the nose the govt has been retained as people are doing well financially and don't see an urgent need for change....

[Rik E Boy]

There was a massive WGAF element in this election. NSW folk pretty happy with themselves and as such the incumbent is returned. Could be a good state for Howard in the Federal election.

regards,

REB

[Snaggletooth Tiger]

That's because the Federal Government (especially the Coalition) don't give a shit
about anyone west of the Murray!
...What am I saying?...
West of Penrith!!!

[Magpiespower]

Literally one side of the bridge voted Labor, the other side voted Liberal.

With Clover Moore's Sydney seat in the middle.

I just couldn't vote for either Iemma or Debnam.

So I left my ballot unmarked.

NSW folk pretty happy with themselves and as such the incumbent is returned.

Nobody is happy to have this Labor Government returned.

However, the prospect of a Debnam-led Liberal Government was too much for most to contemplate.

As such, we're stuck with incompetents like Costa, Sartor and Tripodi for three more years...

[McAlmanac]

Any Liberal of any talent in the Howard era has zeroed in on the Federal arena - nobody of any quality wants to be in opposition. The quality of candidates in State politics per se has deteriorated over the years.

[PhilG]

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[GWW]

Is Debnam that bad, or was Labor's scare campagin relating to likelihood of a potential Lib govt ceding IR powers to the Fed govt, quite significant?

[am Bays]

Is Debnam that bad, or was Labor's scare campagin relating to likelihood of a potential Lib govt ceding IR powers to the Fed govt, quite significant?

I think it is a case of Debnam being that bad, seriously State Liberal branches are **** across the country, factionalism is rife (Wets v teh drys) more concerned about fighting themselves than the ALP. Haven't quite worked out the old political maxim if you can't govern yourselves how can you govern the state/country.......

I can see them imploding big time if Rudd wins this election and Howard retires and his strong unifying force (my way or teh highway goes)....

[GWW]

Was the infighting as bad when Brogden was leader, or has it just magnified since Debnam took over?

Sounds like a real lack of talent in the NSW libs, going back to Kerry Chicarovski (spelling?).

[am Bays]

Was the infighting as bad when Brogden was leader, or has it just magnified since Debnam took over?

Sounds like a real lack of talent in the NSW libs, going back to Kerry Chicarovski (spelling?).

Some say the NSW Liberal infighting was what caused Brogden to attempt suicide, his opponents in Liberal party (the Drys) were about to leak more rumours about him (4 corners episode last year). There is a real battle going on for control of the NSW Liberal party.

The last Victorian Opposition leader before Beallieu got brought down by factional infighting, Olsen (drys) v Brown (wets) undid the SA Liberals when they should have remained in power to at least 2005 after the 1993 election and QLD libs v the Nats has always been problematical since the Joh years.

[Magpiespower]

G-Dub, Debnam is that bad and then some - I'd be amazed if he survives O'Farrell's challenge.

Iemma inherited a basket case from Carr and Labor did it's best to lose the election - health, education and public transport are in all sorts.

And that was before the countless ministerial scandals - Scully, Tripodi, Hickey, Beamer and The Octopus to name but a few.

FFS, there was a CityRail meltdown the week leading into the election but Debnam couldn't land a glove on Iemma because he didn't have a transport policy!

Why? Apparently, it wasn't important. Bet Des Corcoran wish he had as much luck back in '79.

Libs would have put up a much better showing with J-Bro as leader.

Guaranteed.

[PhilG]

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[Psyber]

Iemma inherited a basket case from Carr and Labor did it's best to lose the election - health, education and public transport are in all sorts.

The problems with education can be laid at the feet of the Federal Government - what with all the funding going to the private and indy schools bringing the standard in public schools down.

Not quite Phil.

The federal position is that they subsidise private schools because the states don't as part of the negotiated arrangement. The states are supplied with all the agreed funding for state education and health expenditure, but the federal governemnt has no power to make sure they actually spend it on those areas instead of diverting it to other areas that suit their purposes. After all students in private schools are entitled to some taxpayer funded support too just like those in public schools. Perhaps an education voucher for each child which the parents could spend on private or public education at their discretion may be a fairer option?

The same applies to health. The states' budgets are supposed to cover public health, the federal budget supplements private health care because the states don't. It is the same deal really.

The problem is that a lot of buck-passing then follows. There may be a case for handing both those issues over to the federal government, and either leave the states to deal with local infrastructure issues, or even disband the states in favour of grouped council areas a bit like US and UK counties. I just would want to make sure we didn't agree the pay the county politicians! [I once told Alexander Downer face to face that we made two mistakes in 1901 - federating at all, and agreeing to pay our politicians who were unpaid volunteers up till that date.]

[PhilG]

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[Psyber]

Phil,

We all pay taxes if we earn above the basic threshold and all our children are entitled to some tax revenue based support for their education. It is not fair to say you have to forfeit your share if you choose to go to a private school any more than it is to scrap Medicare and say you can only go to state funded public hosptial junior doctors who have been on duty 50 to 80 hours a week unless you are rich enough to pay the whole fee yourself.

In the UK last time I heard the waiting list for a Femoral Hernia repair was 5 years, but the generous NHS will give you a free truss to wear while you wait. And that hasn't come about because they are subsidising private medicine, because they aren't!

Similarly, despite the allegedly terrible fully privatised US health system you chances of surviving 5 years with abdominal cancer are 71% in the US and only 38% under the wonderful free socialised health service in the UK!

Reason:

In the US you get shunted around until you get sent to the hospital your private fund has a contract with, or if you are uninsured to the private hospital your local county pays a retainer to, but then you get exactly the same treatment as the milionaire in the next room. If an abdominal mass is suspected you get an MRI and an Ultrasound straight away. However, in the UK it is all free, but it is all rationed to fit the budget. You are not allowed to have an MRI or and Ultrasound until the cheaper X-ray detects something that proves the need for further investigation. The whole point is that the other investigations will find an abdominal cancer before it is extensive enough to be detectable by X-ray.

Source: UK weekly news magazine "The Spectator" January 2007 - an article by a journalist who mother had an abdominal cancer detected [late] in the UK.

PS: Paul Keating could afford not to have private health cover because he had influence - if any of his family hit the ER in the middle of the night the senior consultant would be called in. Anyone else would get the junior registrar who had been on duty since 9am!

[PhilG]

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[Psyber]

Psyber, the point I'm making is that private education should be for those who can afford it. Same goes for the health system to an extent, although the private health system is actually bigger than the private school system so there is an argument for ongoing government support for private health. My point about health is that someone with full private cover shouldn't be occupying a public bed. Those beds should be for public patients first (not withstanding any emergency situation of course), and I happen to think that's partly why public hospital waiting lists are so long.

If the parents have the money to privately educate, let them make that choice with their own money. I happen to support an education levy (a la the Medicare Levy) and I'm considering supporting the adding of a surcharge to the rich if they go public, and no levy for those who are rich and go private. The public system needs a leg up desperately.

Interesting...Mal Fraser allowed those who took out full private insurance to be exempted from the Medicare Levy as they were operating on their own recognisance outside the system, but Hawke canned that one.

However, I don't think the education system has to be oppositional any more than health needs to be. It was socialist dogma pushing the idea that all education should be public and all health care should be public that created the divisions we have now!

Prior to Gough Whitlam the federal government subsidised health care to share room level and I think it was 75% of the AMA determined medical fees. Private Funds, like the SA Railways Union Health Fund my father was a member of administered the health insurance. If you wanted to insure for a private room and full doctors fees you paid the extra premium yourself. The subsidy was a sliding scale from about 30% to 100% for the basic cover according to income. So, Gough's "million uninsured" that justified his creation of MediBank [the forerunner of Medicare] were only those who had never bothered to sign up.

My father was then a member of two funds - the SA railways one and the Druid's Lodge [later NHSA]. He could afford to be in two because with nearly everybody being in a fund, and those funds being administered by volunteers rather than an ever expanding bureaucracy, kept them cheap, and when there were medical bills he was allowed to claim from both and make a small profit to offset the cost of membership.

In those days too because medical fee benefits were based on the AMA rate, not some arbitrary 65% of it like the current MBS fee, most doctors accepted the 75% for the poorer patients. Most specialists also gave some of their time free to the public hospitals in return for the use of private beds there for patients who were too acutely ill to be managed in smaller private hospitals, and the hospitals benefitted from the doctors time and from fees from private patients. On the other hand even those fully funded by the goverment subsidy only [public patients in modern terms] had access to beds in share rooms in private hospitals for more minor or routine illness. It was a cooperative system rather than an oppositional one. This cooperation about where more severely ill patients went also saved a lot of duplication of intensive care facilities and kept overall costs down.

I don't know that private/public schooling was ever that cooperative, but there is some facility and class sharing of that type going on in Victoria now, which won't if there are no subsidies to private schools in future.

However, once upon a time behavioural standards were upheld in state schools and one felt safe about one's kids attending one. [I went to Woodville High myself.] By the 1980's on Le Fevre Peninsula there was enormous effort being made by parents in the area, even non-Catholic parents, to get their kids into the local Catholic schools, because of the standard of behaviour and drug use in the state schools in the area. Now, it is not just the rich who send their kids to private schools it is the deperately worried who want them to be safe and to get a good education. Until the late 1980s I employed staff in Adelaide. Many of them were women working part-time just so they could get their kids into these schools. They made good employees - they were motivated.

The problem with education standards and behaviour standards in state schools that drives parents to do this in not a lack of money. It is driven by a social philosophy in the education hierarchy that many parents are not happy with - not so much "laissez faire" as "let it rip"!

[Sojourner]

I happen to be in favour of abolished state governments. Of course it has to be done right, but it can be done. Some responsibilities would have to go to the councils, but most would go to Canberra. And with the independant audit in place - and apply it to councils as well as to Canberra everyone would get a much better idea of where the tax money is going.

There you go PhilG, it was bound to happen sooner or later - we agree on something........!

[PhilG]

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[Psyber]

Psyber, the real problem with public system IS money. The problems you are talking about is a symptom of the lack of money. A lot of good teachers were leaving the public system, leaving teachers who just aren't up to the job. That leads to the lack of control you are talking about. I think the education unions have a very good point to make about that. The social philosphy you spoke of was brought on by the lack of money to bring in the people that were needed.

I agree that it is an issue that is getting parents to send their children to private schools. But I think that should have caused a funding boost and a "control" boost by the state government to respond to the problem. Who was in power at the time of those issues on the Le Fevre Peninsula, Psyber?

The rest of what you said is interesting. Medibank was a great thing to do. I don't think a lot of people "never bothered" with insurance. They just couldn't afford it despite the cheap nature of them. Don't forget that the dole was a pittance then. Or they didn't understand it (applies mostly to the immigrants that came in from non English speaking countries). Medibank simplified matters for them considerably - as Medicare does today. I'm not saying there wasn't anyone who just never bothered for no good reason - there were of course.

PS - We are as one on the disabled, Sojourner!

Phil,

Good teachers did not leave the state system simply because of lack of money. In fact i would say they rarely did.

They left because the bureaucrats turned them into clerks instead of teachers - constantly filling in forms for the desk jockeys. That is also why the public hospitals can't keep good medical staff, and a lot of the nursing staff ultimately quit and just do agency work. Often money and facilities isn't what matters, but being treated as responsible and respected professionals who know how to do their job and don't need to be second guessed and told what to do - something most committed socialist bureaucrats and politicians I have known don't grasp. They seem to think that the money is what matters and for enough of it people will compromise their professional principles.

Those who don't leave tend to be those the bureaucrats are right about, or more commonly those of the same social philosophy who accept the nanny-state approach as "right" and of course want to teach it to our children. That itself is a good reason to send your kids elsewhere, where they won't be taught by propagandists posing as educators. That attitude and acceptance breeds compliance with the bureaucrats, and that allows the bureaucrats to cut the money and spend it on important things like junkets for MPs and themselves, or goodies for marginal electorates.

In power then? The Labor government in SA led by John Bannon - I lived in his electorate at the time.

In contrast with your view, I think MediBank was a disaster and destroyed a great system and promoted oppositional behaviour and attitudes in society. If a person was poor enough the basic private insurance cost them nothing, and as for not knowing - every union was running its own fund and promoting it. Social Workers working for the state community welfare services were in a positon to advise clients it existed and how to get it on the federal government's budget! AND there was still the option of free treatment at the public hospital, so the change was never necessary.

The big deceit was that the purpose of MediBank was not to promote better health, but to create the pre-cursor environment for a UK style NHS, that would ultimately produce worse health - see my post about abdominal cancer elsewhere in theis forum.

It was never adequately funded. The levy was never enough to maintain it - and never has been since. The idea was to get the doctors bulk-billing, then convert them to "capitation" as in the UK. That is, every patient is on a doctor's "list". The doctor gets funding for his list and has to ration it as best he can even if it is not enough. If the patient wants to change doctors he or she has to get the government's consent. If a doctor doesn't want to see a patient who has threatened them with violence the doctor has to get the government's consent. But the bureaucrats love it because they have all the power and can control the budget and make the doctors do the dirty work of rationing care and dealing with the anger.

To try to make that work the Whitlam government deliberately shelved the refunds for doctors accounts not bulk-billed for three months before processing them, but enough doctors then started requiring up front payment to thwart them - because they were tipped off by doctors who were refugees from the UK who had seen it happen there.