Talking Politics | PUNT ROAD END | Richmond Tigers Forum
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Talking Politics

Panthera Tigris

Tiger Champion
Apr 27, 2010
3,705
1,730
*smile* me there's been some quality humour about the past couple of days since the Morrison revelations.

Call me an old man. But I reckon a lot of the social media humour just doesn’t have anything on the extremely witty performance humour of the likes of Clarke & Dawe back in the day.

I am really missing their double act about now. This particular Morrison incident would be absolute rolled gold handed to them on a platter for their style of humour.

I’m imagining Clarke playing several Morrison ministerial alter egos, avoiding answering any questions as he keeps trying, but falling to find the correct minister to answer the question continually shuffling through alter egos.
 
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MD Jazz

Don't understand football? Talk to the hand.
Feb 3, 2017
13,329
13,714
Council of Elders!

Paul Keating, John Hewson, Peter Garrett, Peggy O'Neal, Tony Windsor, Lowitja O'Donoghue, Noel Pearson, Judy Davis, Tash Sultana.

You're welcome, Australia.
I like the mix
 
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artball

labels are for canned food
Jul 30, 2013
6,894
6,306
GG Hurley and his wife are religious zealots like Morrison.
And they're mates.
 

tigerman

It's Tiger Time
Mar 17, 2003
24,156
19,624
So Morrison secretly got sworn into 5 portfolios. I imagine that gave him access to what they were working on.................spying on them?
Yep, he was spying on his ministers.

If Morrison thinks Australian are going believe that he didn't want to undermine the confidence of the 5 ministers, he'll have us believing in the tooth fairy.


"As the former prime minister put it yesterday, he did all this because, in part, he feared "some threat to the national interest as a result of unilateral action by an individual". In those circumstances, he felt the prime minister should have "the ability to take responsibility and to take action".

"Let that sink in. The prime minister of the day was worried some of his chosen ministers with "unilateral decision-making powers" might act against the national interest."

"If a prime minister doesn't trust someone to exercise ministerial powers appropriately, they shouldn't appoint them. If a prime minister fears a minister is going to use their powers against the national interest, they should sack that minister and appoint someone else. That's how the system works."

"Instead, Scott Morrison took the unprecedented step of secretly giving himself the authority to override five ministers holding these "unilateral decision-making powers".

"Morrison defends the secrecy on the grounds he didn't want ministers going about their jobs any differently. Had they known what the prime minister was up to, he said, this might have "undermined the confidence of ministers in the performance of their duties". Indeed."


 
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tigerman

It's Tiger Time
Mar 17, 2003
24,156
19,624
Reckon this could at least partially explain Morrison's motives.

The same seems to apply to the very religious GG Hurley, appointed by Morrison. Who, when he was Australia's highest Military Officer, the Chief of Defence, wrote to Senator Lambie saying “ I encourage you in future to provide me an opportunity to address any matters of concern you may have rather than becoming aware of them through a media release.”

 
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spook

Kick the f*ckin' goal
Jun 18, 2007
21,919
26,433
Melbourne

Yesterday we got some perspective on the astronomical profits being reaped in the coal sector when BHP released results for its coal division. The BHP Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA) notched up a 73% return on assets. If 10% is a respectable ROA, 73% is virtual banditry given the $1bn a month in public subsidies for the fossil fuel sector.


These soaring returns will be replicated by all the coal and gas giants as they hand down profit results later this year.

Then there is taxing multinationals. As Buckley points out, the gas giant ExxonMobil paid zero corporate tax on $16bn of revenue in FY2020, Shell paid zero tax on $5bn of revenue and the Hong Kong-owned Energy Australia paid zero corporate tax on $7bn of revenue. (In contrast, the BHP release yesterday showed the company paid $10.5bn in income tax and royalties.)
 
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MB78

I can have my cake and eat it too
Sep 8, 2009
8,005
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Double the cost than what they budgeted. Time the pull it back. Country roads and our health system are the shambles.

If we had a sound opposition Andrews would be out in November.
 
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Sintiger

Tiger Legend
Aug 11, 2010
18,206
17,608
Camberwell
Comparing the SRL with the EWL is a false equivalence. The EWL was not in the budget, not in the forward estimates (which are 4 years) but a contract was signed by the LNP government without a business case and for politics only. Then it was cancelled by the new labor Government for politics ( for the record I was in favour)
The SRL is a plan, there is not much allocated in the forward estimates. The reality is that there is not that much to cancel and certainly not enough to “fix the health system”, whatever that means.
I have lots of thoughts on the health situation as some may know I am involved with the system. I may post them at some time but suffice to say the reduction of the issues to election slogans is ridiculous and actually a bit soul destroying
 
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BT Tiger

Moderator
Staff member
Jun 5, 2005
3,485
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Warragul
The issues in health are not concentrated in this state alone - An overburdened health system is the price of living with Covid and health care across Australia and the entire world has been impacted. No doubt our hospitals need help but you can't pull nurses and doctors out of thin air. The common story I've heard from those i know in the health system say staff are burnt out from working through the pandemic and there is a massive backlog of leave requests.

From what I can tell, the Andrew's government are attempting to make things easier by reducing the elective surgery wait times in buying out these private hospitals, but the issue is a lack of staff. Even if we increased nurse pay tomorrow it wouldn't have any effect for quite some time.

It's not a choice of "have a functioning health system" OR "have a suburban rail loop". We can do both, but they're both going to take time to resolve.
 
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Sintiger

Tiger Legend
Aug 11, 2010
18,206
17,608
Camberwell
The issues in health are not concentrated in this state alone - An overburdened health system is the price of living with Covid and health care across Australia and the entire world has been impacted. No doubt our hospitals need help but you can't pull nurses and doctors out of thin air. The common story I've heard from those i know in the health system say staff are burnt out from working through the pandemic and there is a massive backlog of leave requests.

From what I can tell, the Andrew's government are attempting to make things easier by reducing the elective surgery wait times in buying out these private hospitals, but the issue is a lack of staff. Even if we increased nurse pay tomorrow it wouldn't have any effect for quite some time.

It's not a choice of "have a functioning health system" OR "have a suburban rail loop". We can do both, but they're both going to take time to resolve.
All true BT but of course it so also way more complex than that. There are multiple problems of which some sit with the commonwealth and some with the states. Some also sits with the medical profession who have supported a cartel like system of controlling numbers of specialists and their training through a college system which ensures the maintenance of their incomes.
But whatever the causes the facts are that for years the Victorian public hospital system ( and other states as well) was funded to a level of survive not to a level of thrive both in terms of the amount of services and also the infrastructure available to the system. It was based on growth of 3-4% a year with some price growth as well. The commonwealth actually caps its contribution to public hospitals at 6.5% in value p.a. This is not an ALP thing or a LNP thing, I have worked in and around the system with both and they are the same. Public Hospitals are always scraping for money.
Suddenly we have a pandemic, growth in labour available stops because we have no immigration, staff absenteeism due to illness grows and we are now being asked to accomodate growth much greater than we have ever had before because of the demand for catch up and delayed care during COVID with physical capacity not built for it and actually less labour available.
The system was not set up for this level of demand, both in terms of infrastructure or labour, and a response required to meet that demand needs way more time than we have.
This is a failure of not building a resilient system which rests with all governments but it is also because we as voters and taxpayers demand that we don’t spend more than we have to. How do we think a party saying they were going to increase health spending by billions to build a resilient public system for something like a pandemic would have gone at an election?
The solution is an overhaul of the whole system which starts with training of sufficient doctors, nurses and others in the university system and in teaching hospitals, a very large increase in capacity, research and Digital health, and an overhaul of the split between the feds and the states. We also need a large increase in Medicare fees for GPs to attract doctors back to general practice and incentivise them to provide a real bulk billing alternative to hospital emergency departments.
I can tell you one thing for certain and that’s Matty Guy does not have the answers any more than Dan Andrews does.
This can only be solved in the long term by a bi-partisan approach to redesigning the system for resilience and a willingness for the feds and the states to agree to relinquishing some power. Those of us in the system don’t have high hopes that this can ever happen.
I’m sick of hearing the system is in crisis. We have a system built for one level of activity being asked to do an abnormal level of activity with little or no capability to achieve it. When we realise that we can understand that what is happening now is an entirely predictable outcome to the problems caused by the pandemic.
 
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BT Tiger

Moderator
Staff member
Jun 5, 2005
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All true BT but of course it so also way more complex than that. There are multiple problems of which some sit with the commonwealth and some with the states. Some also sits with the medical profession who have supported a cartel like system of controlling numbers of specialists and their training through a college system which ensures the maintenance of their incomes.
But whatever the causes the facts are that for years the Victorian public hospital system ( and other states as well) was funded to a level of survive not to a level of thrive both in terms of the amount of services and also the infrastructure available to the system. It was based on growth of 3-4% a year with some price growth as well. The commonwealth actually caps its contribution to public hospitals at 6.5% in value p.a. This is not an ALP thing or a LNP thing, I have worked in and around the system with both and they are the same. Public Hospitals are always scraping for money.
Suddenly we have a pandemic, growth in labour available stops because we have no immigration, staff absenteeism due to illness grows and we are now being asked to accomodate growth much greater than we have ever had before because of the demand for catch up and delayed care during COVID with physical capacity not built for it and actually less labour available.
The system was not set up for this level of demand, both in terms of infrastructure or labour, and a response required to meet that demand needs way more time that we have.
This is a failure of not building a resilient system which rests with all governments but it is also because we as voters and taxpayers demand that we don’t spend more than we have to. How do we think a party saying they were going to increase health spending by billions to build a resilient public system for something like a pandemic would have gone at an election?
The solution is an overhaul of the whole system which starts with training of sufficient doctors, nurses and others in the university system and in teaching hospitals, a very large increase in capacity, research and Digital health, and an overhaul of the split between the feds and the states. We also need a large increase in Medicare fees for GPs to attract doctors back to general practice and incentivise them to provide a real bulk billing alternative to hospital emergency departments.
I can tell you one thing for certain and that’s Matty Guy does not have the answers anymore than Dan Andrews does.
This can only be solved in the long term by a bi-partisan approach to redesigning the system for resilience and a willingness for the feds and the states to agree to relinquishing some power. Those of us in the system don’t have high hopes that this can ever happen.
I’m sick of hearing the system is in crisis. We have a system built for one level of activity being asked to do an abnormal level of activity with little or no capability to achieve it. When we realise that we can understand that what is happening now is an entirely predictable outcome to the problems caused by the pandemic.

Prior to the pandemic the Victorian government used to boast they had the most "efficient" health system in Australia.. As you say, it was designed to sit within the goldilocks zone of efficiency and expense. The pandemic has thrown the spanner in the engine and suddenly we're seeing all aspects of health struggle, GP's, paramedics, nurses, and even down to nursing home staff (which are little more than glorified cleaners in the public systems). Big changes are needed, for sure but it's not going to happen within this election cycle.

And back on the subject of SRL, I'm not sure exactly when the London or Paris underground rail systems were being designed but I wouldn't be surprised if there was similar outcry and gnashing of teeth about the expense of it all. (although I could well be wrong here as they likely had populations of Melbourne's size 40-50 years ago). Now their systems are world class and the envy of other high density cities. Melbourne's population growth isn't going to slow down and we'll appreciate this kind of foresight in 20-30 years. It's for the benefit of the next generation and it's good to see governments thinking beyond their 3-4 year election cycles.
 
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Sintiger

Tiger Legend
Aug 11, 2010
18,206
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Camberwell
Prior to the pandemic the Victorian government used to boast they had the most "efficient" health system in Australia.. As you say, it was designed to sit within the goldilocks zone of efficiency and expense. The pandemic has thrown the spanner in the engine and suddenly we're seeing all aspects of health struggle, GP's, paramedics, nurses, and even down to nursing home staff (which are little more than glorified cleaners in the public systems). Big changes are needed, for sure but it's not going to happen within this election cycle.

And back on the subject of SRL, I'm not sure exactly when the London or Paris underground rail systems were being designed but I wouldn't be surprised if there was similar outcry and gnashing of teeth about the expense of it all. (although I could well be wrong here as they likely had populations of Melbourne's size 40-50 years ago). Now their systems are world class and the envy of other high density cities. Melbourne's population growth isn't going to slow down and we'll appreciate this kind of foresight in 20-30 years. It's for the benefit of the next generation and it's good to see governments thinking beyond their 3-4 year election cycles.
All public hospitals in the country submit patient level costing data to a federal body that prices activity, which is the basis of how the commonwealth contributes its share to the states. Based on that data Victoria was and is the lowest average cost jurisdiction in the country which is where the “most efficient” tag comes from.
I totally agree on the SRL. All massive infrastructure projects probably look wasteful before being built. The NBN is a perfect example and the shame about that was we let Turnbull approach it like an investment banker looking for cost/benefit rather than approaching it as nation building.
 
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spook

Kick the f*ckin' goal
Jun 18, 2007
21,919
26,433
Melbourne
All public hospitals in the country submit patient level costing data to a federal body that prices activity, which is the basis of how the commonwealth contributes its share to the states. Based on that data Victoria was and is the lowest average cost jurisdiction in the country which is where the “most efficient” tag comes from.
I totally agree on the SRL. All massive infrastructure projects probably look wasteful before being built. The NBN is a perfect example and the shame about that was we let Turnbull approach it like an investment banker looking for cost/benefit rather than approaching it as nation building.
Turnbull approached the NBN like someone doing what Rupert told him to do.
 
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