According to Peter Dutton and Tony Abbott, the Government’s hospitals reform plan is a political stunt.  They’re entirely correct, of course — witness the Prime Minister’s Budget-like media blitz in the past 24 hours, featuring appearances on evening news bulletins, Today and radio. But like the best stunts, it also has some serious policy behind it, which is why Dutton and Abbott are keeping a low profile until they figure out a line.

Several commentators have concentrated this morning on the number of impediments in the way of implementation.  The states won’t like it.  Most referenda fail.  Legislation will have to pass state parliaments.  The Opposition will oppose it.  Screaming Steve Fielding will be brought into play in the Senate.

All of those are opportunities as much as potential stumbling blocks, particularly in NSW.  Don’t lose sight of the fact that NSW is where the policy imperative of better hospital management coincides with the political imperative of dissociating federal Labor from state Labor and bolstering federal Labor’s flagging vote.  No government ever likes to back a loser in a referendum, but what better way than to concentrate voters’ minds on health, the core of NSW Labor’s image problems, than a referendum with Kevin Rudd on one side and whoever is acting NSW Premier on the other?  Rudd’s only challenge there will be to ensure voters think he gave the famous sauce bottle a fair shake with the states before rushing off to a referendum.

Tony Abbott has been left in the tricky but not impossible position of opposing two ideas he has broadly supported in the past — national funding, and local management, of hospitals, and of handing the Government the means to paint him as an obstacle to better health services, building on the Government’s Big Lie-style incessant repetition of the spurious claim that Abbott ripped a billion dollars out of health funding when Minister. Abbott’s reflexive opposition to everything the Government proposes is starting to creep into political coverage.  It’s also not clear that Peter Dutton has the policy goods in him to craft a nuanced response — remember, the Coalition in Opposition has been bad at health policy for a long time, going right back to Peter Shack’s disastrous failure to have a policy ready for the 1990 election.

In contrast, I’m forced to reluctantly admit, Nicola Roxon has emerged as a solid communicator.  I had her pegged as a Labor hack, and an economically illiterate one as well, but whether she’s that or not, she is across her brief and, unlike very many of her colleagues, has mastered the art of answering interview questions and sticking to her talking points in a way that sounds a lot more genuine that her boss’ habit of sticking to the script regardless of questions. The contrast with Dutton, who appears permanently enraged about everything, is occasionally painful.

As for the Senate, well, I haven’t seen any evidence that voters reward obstructionism on issues where they want to see action.

Then again, this is the Government that found a way to turn a bipartisan policy on an ETS into a political debacle, although there’s a decidedly simpler message to sell here: “funded nationally, run locally”.  That will be repeated ad nauseum between now and the election, with or without a referendum.