If you support Rudd's hospital plan -- you don't understand it

Crikey readers take Bernard Keane to task over his coverage on Rudd's health reform plans. Plus: SMAge journo Dan Oakes defends his coverage of the Thai riots, Simon Fuller continues to fuel debate and more.

Health reform:

Allan Griffin writes: Re. “Brumby’s weapons of mass distraction on display at the Press Club” (yesterday, item 2). It is a pity Bernard Keane did not show he had read or understood the commentary yesterday morning by John Deeble on Rudd’s plan before he launched into a flawed analysis of John Brumby’s position.

The simple facts are that the cost of health increasing so simply shuffling the financial deckchairs is an inadequate solution.

Rudd’s plan was incomplete when launched and he has dribbled out “extras” as the pressure from Premiers grew. Victoria has case mix funding and local hospital boards, so what is the benefit from the Rudd/Roxon plan for hospitals.

If Bernard Keane visited a public hospital’s’ emergency room at 10am in the morning and then at 10pm at night on weekdays he would see a major cause of overloading — an absence of local GPS who bulk bill and are available after 7pm at night. Bernard Keane should also read the Productivity Commission reports on comparative costs between the public and private hospital systems.

Why do we have wait four years to commence a new system which relies mainly on recycling 30% of GST collections and rebadging them as an increased contribution by the Commonwealth to hospitals?

Nowhere in the discussion is there any mention of increasing the Medicare levy to increase funds or a change to the funding of age care including higher contributions from users through bonds or reverse mortgages. Is it because Rudd prefers to act before the Henry review is released?

Rudd’s financial grab of GST income and doing little to make actual reform to the whole health system would make Ned Kelly seem like a gentleman. Is the takeover of primary and secondary schools next using the same dodgy arguments?

Maybe Bernard should take an aspirin and have a good lie down.

Niall Clugston writes: Bernard Keane’s wide-ranging attack John Brumby omits an important detail: the Victorian Premier is right. Brumby may be “provincial and insular”, or even a “loser”, but the fact is he has blown some fresh air through Kevin Rudd’s smokescreen on health reform.

It is testament to basic innumeracy of journalists that Rudd’s proposal of a 60-40 funding split is taken seriously. If there is no extra money, and if by law all taxes in Australia are Federal anyway (including the GST), the so-called plan is meaningless.

Admittedly, on the top of this Rudd has thrown in local hospital networks — but this is not new and not specific. Who is going to make the decision to build new hospitals or expand existing hospitals? Not local networks. How can you fund this through casemix? You can’t. At best this “reform” will be business as usual.

To sum up, if you support Rudd’s “plan”, you don’t understand it.

Thailand:

Dan Oakes, Defence and Foreign Affairs Correspondent, The Age & Sydney Morning Herald, writes: Re. “Richard Farmer’s chunky bits” (yesterday, item 12). Richard Farmer wrote:

One of our Asian neighbours is currently going through a political crisis that potentially threatens the security of the whole region but you might not know it if you relied on Australian newspapers. This week as demonstrators and soldiers die in the streets of Bangkok the turmoil is being relegated to pages well inside.

On Monday the Sydney Morning Herald did report the deaths with a picture on page one while The Australian had a little box on the front warning Australian tourists of the danger. Since then even the so-called serious broadsheets have acted as if what happens in Thailand is of little or no importance.

Bit rough with your analysis of our coverage of the Thai situation. We ran a feature by Ben Doherty yesterday, and I filed quite a long analysis of the situation for the National Times yesterday. Anyway, carry on.

Energy:

John Bushell writes: Re. “Energy prices will triple without a carbon price” (yesterday, item 22). Grant King, CEO of Origin Energy makes a valid point that the government’s proposed “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme” sends the wrong message to investors in energy generation.

With a 5% greenhouse gas reduction (GHG) target and 10 years of free kicks to the heaviest polluting coal-fired power stations what happens when the 10 years is up? Does the next government extend the subsidies to coal-fired power yet further? If so we would be in the position where the taxpayer pays to destroy the planet’s environment.

If catastrophic global warming is to be avoided then electricity generation in 2050 will have to average no more than 0.08 tonne CO2-equivalent per megawatt of power delivered.

Renewable energy and nuclear are the only energy sources that can achieve this criteria. Nuclear shares the same disadvantage as carbon capture and storage — its waste products create an infinite third party damages liability that must be met by future taxpayers.

Since electricity costs will rise anyway we might as well take the route that preserve earth’s atmosphere because the fossil fuel alternative will lead to even higher costs to repair global warming induced damage.

Cameramen:

Jim Hanna writes: Brian Mitchell (yesterday, comments) says ex-Channel Nine cameraman Simon Fuller was within his rights to tape on a public street. Maybe so, but what Brian may not understand is that journalists (and this should include camera operators) normally observe somebody’s right not to be quoted or taped when that person makes that request.

Unfortunately, this professional courtesy only seems to extend to people important enough for the journalist to keep on side, somebody they might need them as a source in the future, or somebody powerful enough to have them sacked or at least disciplined. Everybody else is fair game. There’s a simple test you can apply in these situations – would the cameraman have treated, let’s say, Peter Costello and his son the same way?

After they had repeatedly and politely requested not to be taped? I doubt it. Fuller behaved this way to Gad Amr and his son because he believed he could get away with it.

And Brian, I don’t think they “intimidated” the cameraman at all, but he certainly did his best to provoke a reaction from them.

Jenny Sams writes: Re. “Nine cameraman lynched on Twitter: ‘I’m not a racist’” (Tuesday, item 2). After reading about the incident in Tuesday’s edition of Crikey, I actually wrote a letter to management at Channel Nine. I asked for Fuller to be sacked. It was a terrible indecent thing to do to the father and son. They were goaded and taunted.

Fuller should be made to sit through a few re-runs of that. Thank you for exposing the truth, we all need to be a bit more tolerant. You are right, there is too much sensationalism on TV today.

Bias:

Max Batchelor writes: I am very disappointed at what a perceive to be an increasing left wing bias in Crikey, particularly Bernard Keane in Canberra and the logorrhoeic Guy Rundle from wherever.

There is constant criticism of the Libs and mostly support for the government and their policies. “Fair suck of the sauce bottle!”

It has become so bad in my opinion that I am seriously considering not renewing my subs when it becomes due.

Lesley Duncan:

“Drovers cat” writes: Never mind all the other news. Stop all the clocks, etc … for Lesley Duncan has passed. There it was, tucked away in the corner of the SMH website, that she of sonorous, smoky voice, late ’60s hit Love Song fame, backing singer on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and special feature on Alan Parsons Project’s album Eve with If I could Change your Mind has left us, age 66.