The AFP is apoplectic about today’s report in The Age of the scathing criticism made by Victorian Supreme Court Judge Paul Coghlan of aspects of their handling of the Tamil Tiger’s case. The Herald Sun, always grateful to publish the propaganda of police agencies, is gearing up to run an AFP rebuttal tomorrow.

A “disgruntled surgeon” writes: Casemix v block funding? Victoria ahead of the pack? What a load of rubbish. While Victoria uses a case-mix formula to fund public hospitals (it’s called WIES, or Weighted Inlier Equivalent Separations, pronounced “weece”) what Brumby is not telling the public is that each hospital’s WIES is capped, making the system in effect block funding by stealth.

You get so much WIES for each FY and if you are over or under you’re in trouble. My public hospital routinely “runs out of WIES” in late April or early May every year, leading to a curtailing of elective operating and frantic efforts made by the administration to cut activity (by closing wards, etc).

The health bureaucracy punishes hospitals which do not use all their WIES by cutting next year’s allocation (you obviously didn’t need it); they punish hospitals who go over their allocation (despite this being a prima facie case for more funding) by cutting next year’s allocation (that’ll learn you, be more frugal); and those who fail to meet their waiting list targets (even after dodgy waiting list practices, averaging the zero wait for private patients etc, without which every hospital would fail) by, naturally, cutting next year’s allocation.

“Obviously if you couldn’t get through this year’s work on what we gave you, you just aren’t trying hard enough so let’s make sure you fail by even more next year so we can cut your WIES again.”

The whole system sucks, and no amount of Brumby saying our system is the best can cover up the cracks. Our system may be doing the best compared to others, but we have the lowest number of beds per capita, the lowest number of ICU beds per capita and the lowest number of ICU beds per hospital bed. The system is still grossly underfunded; just because Victoria’s system is the ‘least worst’ doesn’t make it acceptable.

Army Reserve units across Australia will not be participating in ANZAC Day 2010. Despite this being the 95th anniversary and the fact many Reservists are now veterans themselves, units have been prevented from marching as is the normal custom. Instead there will be a token presence in the form of catafalque parties on the cenotaphs in some areas.

It is sad because Defence forget that it serves the Australian community from which the Reserves are drawn. ANZAC Day was a reminder of this and the cost cutting sabre has fallen across our most sacred day. Despite General Gillespie’s media release at the end of December stating there were no cutbacks to the Reserves, including access to ammunition. We are constantly being cut and now have very little 5.56 ammunition to carry out the required six-monthly shoot. My unit has ceased parading almost completely — yet the new financial year is some months away.

Despite this, Defence constantly puts out advertisements for more public servants — another 200 for IT services this week. There are 3900 EL1, EL2, SES1 and SES2 band public servants across Defence — yet less than 400 infantry captain and majors who do the war fighting and less that 40 officers above the one star rank across the three services.

Regarding reports of unrest at The Bounce, Channel Seven’s new footy-tainment show: series producer Rachel Millar (who has worked on Rove, Arias, the Logies and Kath and Kim) has left. She is one of the most hard-working, diligent, highly-valued producers in the country. The job was then given to Pip Mushin (the cameraman from Frontline), who has little or no experience as a senior producer.

When staff complained to executive producer Rick McKenna they were told to fall into line or leave. Then another senior producer left, along with four of the five writers who could not abide by the decision. It was agreed that no one would speak to the media. After two days of this absurd behaviour (one staff member described it as an asylum), the majority of the staff were bursting into tears and that’s when everyone left.

As a teacher in a NSW high school we are unable to comment on the computer rollout or building program. Which means I couldn’t possibly say that both of these programs are a disgusting waste of money for fear of the reprisals. No literacy or numeracy standards will be improved, there is no dedicated course for the students who have to come to school until they are 17 (yet have no interest in academic/ATAR subjects) and capital works have not been value for money.