Diary of our stinking opposition

[village_person]

Labor frontbencher Andrew Leigh shifts position on previous support for a GP fee

Labor's shadow assistant treasurer Andrew Leigh was once a strong supporter of a compulsory fee for visits to the doctor - a policy now slammed by the opposition as a “GP tax” that would hurt the community’s most vulnerable.

But in a 2003 Sydney Morning Herald article Dr Leigh, then a PhD student in economics at Harvard University, argued a Medicare co-payment was “hardly a radical idea”.

“As health researchers have shown, cost-less medical care means that people go to the doctor even when they don't need to, driving up the cost for all of us," Dr Leigh and co-author Richard Holden wrote.

“But there's a better way of operating a health system, and the change should hardly hurt at all.

“As economists have shown, the ideal model involves a small co-payment - not enough to put a dent in your weekly budget, but enough to make you think twice before you call the doc."

Dr Leigh argued the fee should be enough to deter “frivolous GP visits”, but not enough to limit genuine preventive care. The fee should apply to everyone, including pensioners, except those who are chronically ill, he wrote.

Dr Leigh, who has opposed the proposal in media appearances over recent weeks, told Fairfax Media: "Since 2003, a lot has changed in the health care system, and I've changed my view on co-payments.

 “A GP co-payment was originally a Hawke government proposal led by Brian Howe, a member of the Left faction,” he said.

“As long as it is applied fairly across the community, a co-payment is a perfectly valid policy measure. If Andrew Leigh, before he had to toe the party line, recognised that then I welcome his contribution to the debate. I respect Andrew Leigh as a sensible economist.”

On Saturday, Dr Leigh, a former professor of economics at the Australian National University, distanced himself from an article he wrote in 2004 supporting fee deregulation for universities – another policy opposed by Labor.

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/labor-frontbencher-andrew-leigh-shifts-positio...

Yes, it’s the very well respected ALP whey-faced Dr Andrew Leigh who virtually declared his previous books and speeches as mere works of fiction. This brings into sharp focus Dr Leigh's economics degree.

[icyfroth]

Apparently they would like to change the Orientation of the LGBT flag as well.

LOL.

[tezza2844]

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@djlukjilly wrote:

Pink batts! and never mind the 4 people they killed with that scheme and the thousands they killed by opening our borders. Shame on them

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As usual always blame the which ever is in power Government, regardless of employers responsibilities:

Matthew Fuller was the first of the four young people who died working under the home insulation program.
He was 25 when he was electrocuted in a roof cavity in outer Brisbane in October 2009. His girlfriend, who was working alongside him, was badly burnt.  Matthew's father Kevin Fuller said his son had been laying ceiling insulation for less than a fortnight when he accidentally put a metal staple through aluminium foil and into a live electrical cable lying underneath.
Matthew had been working for installation company QHI when he died.
The company was directed by 19-year-old electrician Ben McKay, who was in charge of on-the-job safety for unqualified insulation installers like Matthew.
During the inquest into Matthew's death, Mr McKay told the Brisbane coroner's court that the installation could have been made 100 per cent safe by disconnecting power from the mains source.
But he said this was not routinely done because the work involved would have made it impossible for his company to make a profit.
At the inquest in May 2013, Mr McKay acknowledged he had been aware of up to four instances where staples had been put through cables before Matthew's death.
He said those incidents had not resulted in deaths.

Rueben Barnes.  The youngest victim of the installation scheme was Rueben Barnes, who was 16 when he was electrocuted at a home near Rockhampton in 2009.The first-year carpentry apprentice had been working for installation company Arrow Maintenance for less than a month and had received no insulation training and no induction.
His co-workers at the site had not been trained in first aid treatment for electric shock.

Marcus Wilson, 19, died of heat exhaustion after spending his first day in a new job working in a roof cavity installing insulation.
"I think it's just a make money scheme, basically. Get any workers you can in there, experienced or not, just get them in there, get your money's worth out of them, who cares about the workers," she said.

Mitchell Sweeney was the last person to die as a result of the scheme. He was killed in north Queensland in February 2010, months after the safety hazards of the insulation installation had become apparent.
The 22-year-old died after being electrocuted while using metal staples to lay conductive insulation in a roof in Cairns.
The practice had known safety hazards and had already been banned in New Zealand.
Lawyer Peter Koutsoukis from Maurice Blackburn is suing Mitchell's employer, Titan Insulations, on behalf of the young man's mother and two older brothers.
Mr Koutsoukis says Titan is in liquidation but has insurance and $330,000 in compensation
"And on the day that this event occurred Titan Insulation was responsible for his supervision, for his training, for instructions and all of those things, and so it's a strong action against them and so we're just focus

[tezza2844]

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@icyfroth wrote:

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@tezza2844 wrote:

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@icyfroth wrote:

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So you think Mr Shorten will be able to achieve 50% renewable energy by 2030 (if he's re-elected)?

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I think that toxic tony is our idiot PM at the present moment, Shorten may be able to achieve this if he is elected PM

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How do you think Mr Shorten will acheive this without (further) bankrupting the country? Renewable energy has to date not been economically viable, it has needed to be government subsidised to be able to be even implemented so far.

We are still relying on approx. 90% energy from coal burning sources.

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I think he had better get in power quick before this dope of a treasurer sends us down the gurgler with his inept budgets. Has he got all of his 2014 budget thro yet. Any chance of the 2015 budget going thro before he releases his 2016 budget?

Also still relying on "information" supplied by Casual Infamy website

http://casualinfamy.com/shortens-renewable-energy-insanity/

[moonflyte]

They will still be saying that an ETS is "NOT A TAX"  and pretend that it will do anything about Global Warming is a petard they will be hoist on and they are so dishonest and think the Voters will vote them back in. The sanctimony is breathtaking.

Plibersek and Wong wouldn't even vote for it, sent in proxy's and voted against it.

Plibersek has come out of the conference as double dealing, just like Gillard who was against a carbon tax under Rudd but in the end brought it in. Shame on them

[icyfroth]

LABOR’s attack on former judge Dyson Heydon is actually its third campaign to save the corruption-ridden CFMEU union from justice.

This is the true scandal: Labor is effectively running a protection racket for one of the country’s most notorious unions.

It is linked to the CFMEU by cash, friendship, blood and patronage, and keeps using its political power in a way that defends the corrupt.

In government in 2012, Labor agreed to CFMEU demands to sack the Australian Building and Construction Commission, which had repeatedly taken the union to court.

This week Labor voted with the Greens and independent senators to block the Abbott Government’s attempts to reinstate the ABCC.

Now — in its third strike for the CFMEU — Labor is smearing Heydon, a former High Court judge, demanding he be sacked as the head of the royal commission into union corruption.

Labor wants Heydon terminated not only because his commission has heard damaging evidence of Labor leader Bill Shorten’s shady deals as head of the Australian Workers Union — especially the undeclared and disguised personal donation of $40,000 he accepted from an employer.

Labor has actually been sniping at Heydon since his commission made serious findings of blackmail, thuggery and intimidation against CFMEU officials, with another three arrested last month.

Labor and the CFMEU know they must destroy Heydon before he destroys them.

This is why they are attacking this distinguished judge as “biased” and even a Liberal “bag man” on farcical grounds — that he accepted an invitation from Liberal lawyers to give a lecture on the law.

In fact, Heydon turned down that invitation when he realised the lecture was being sold as a Liberal event, yet Labor screams he now has a fatal “conflict of interest”.

But for a real conflict of interest look at the CFMEU’s ties to Labor and the Greens — ties that for some may suggest something dangerously close to a conspiracy to protect the criminal.

For a start, the CFMEU has given Labor more than $13 million over 19 years, and in the 2013-14 financial year gave the Greens more than $120,000.

Then there are the links of blood, patronage and friendship. Julia Gillard, the former Labor prime minister, was once the partner of CFMEU national secretary Michael O’Connor.

Gillard in her maiden speech to Parliament thanked O’Connor as “my closest confidant” and declared “I would not have reached this place without his support”.

Or check Labor’s frontbench today. Employment spokesman Brendan O’Connor is the CFMEU leader’s brother, and Senate leader Penny Wong is a former CFMEU official.

Such are the ties — the strings — that the CFMEU pulled when the ABCC was on its tail and the Gillard government in power.

The ABCC had cracked down on the CFMEU and AWU. Nearly 40 matters of possible criminal conduct including extortion, assaults and bribes were referred to police and other law enforcement agencies.

In the ABCC’s last year, courts hit construction unions with more than $2.5 million in penalties, and the CFMEU demanded Labor get this policeman off its back.

Gillard agreed, abolishing the ABCC.

The result was predictable. Lawlessness in the construction industry shot up, with 75 CFMEU officials eventually before the courts.

The CFMEU was so out of control that even Martin Ferguson, a former ACTU president and Labor minister, said the ABCC should be brought back to ensure the union was “brought to heel”.

But the CFMEU again called in favors from Labor and the Greens, the parties it had donated to.

Again they obeyed, this week using their numbers in the Senate — along with populists Jacqui Lambie, Ricky Muir and Glenn Lazarus — to block the Government’s attempt to restore the ABCC.

And now the same gang is trying to destroy Heydon, who in his interim report last December made findings against many unions, but particularly the CFMEU.

Heydon recommended criminal charges against several CFMEU officials, including NSW head Brian Parker, Victorian secretary John Setka, and Queensland branch boss Michael Ravbar, and he accused the union of “wilful defiance of the law”.

Setka was accused of blackmail, Ravbar of extortion and another official of making death threats to a whistleblower. Officials of industry super fund Cbus were accused of leaking private details of members to the CFMEU, which were used in an industrial campaign.

These — and more besides — are incredibly serious claims.

But how does Labor respond? By again shooting the sheriff. By smearing the good to protect the bad. By trying to protect its paymaster from justice.

If this is what Labor does now, fear for what it will do in government.

http://m.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/labor-cfmeu-shoot-the-sheriff/story-fni0ffxg-1227490382270

[myoclon1cjerk]

" By smearing the good to protect the bad. By trying to protect its paymaster from justice."

You mean just like the Libs are doing to whistleblowers re sexual and physical abuse of detainees?

[icyfroth]

BREAKING News: Special investigation reveals Abbott family owns a Dyson vacuum cleaner. PM to resign, ‪#‎TURC‬ to be abandoned.

[myoclon1cjerk]

And I bet the taxpayers paid for it.

[crosbystills]

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@myoclon1cjerk wrote:
" By smearing the good to protect the bad. By trying to protect its paymaster from justice."

You mean just like the Libs are doing to whistleblowers re sexual and physical abuse of detainees?

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Not to mention what they're saying about environmental groups who are objecting to mining projects on legitimate grounds.

The Lnp are arguing that only those in the immediate vicinty of a proposed mine should have a say. Maybe they could apply that logic to the other team. Adani HQ is 9000 km away - even their local office, in Brisbane, is 1000 km from the mine site. It's the environment; it effects all of us.

The minister stuffed up. When he was caught out the government, true to form, flew into a paroxysm of blame shifting.

[icyfroth]

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@crosbystills wrote:

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@myoclon1cjerk wrote:
" By smearing the good to protect the bad. By trying to protect its paymaster from justice."

You mean just like the Libs are doing to whistleblowers re sexual and physical abuse of detainees?

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Not to mention what they're saying about environmental groups who are objecting to mining projects on legitimate grounds.

The Lnp are arguing that only those in the immediate vicinty of a proposed mine should have a say. Maybe they could apply that logic to the other team. Adani HQ is 9000 km away - even their local office, in Brisbane, is 1000 km from the mine site. It's the environment; it effects all of us.

The minister stuffed up. When he was caught out the government, true to form, flew into a paroxysm of blame shifting.

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Yes well that's one thing I definitely hope is blocked by the senate.