The first of this two article series quantified and explained out of pocket (OOP) cost in the Australian Health system.
Some areas of OOP costs are acceptable and there is no need to intervene. OOP costs for non PBS pharmaceuticals, for example, largely reflect discretionary spending on products with little proven impact on health outcomes. (more…)
There has been recent public and media focus on out of pocket (OOP) costs for Australians receiving health care, usually referred to as Gap fees. Minister Hunt recently announced his intention to establish a Website to publish doctors’ fees. This reflects and maintains the public focus on gap fees charged by doctors. This is indeed an important issue, for it may be a significant impediment to equitable access to necessary health care, a principle strongly endorsed by Australians. (more…)
July 30, 2019 was the best of days for Australia’s immigration detention centre detainees because, at last, a mainstream media outlet revealed that their cruel maltreatment involved apparent criminal offences under Australian law. It was the worst of days, because it revealed that the law’s regulator had not charged Home Affairs over an emblematic asylum seeker death by the 29 July deadline. (more…)
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The Pine Gap Relay Ground Station could be closed, with appropriate notice of intent, without genuine disadvantage to US national security. This would provide a technically and strategically feasible pathway past the most important obstacle posed by Pine Gap to Australia becoming compliant with the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons(TPNW). (more…)
Yesterday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had dinner with Scott Morrison. They both believe in The Rapture when Christ will return to Israel with Jerusalem as its capital. Importantly at the moment we are being urged to join forces to counter the alleged Iranian ‘menace’ to Israel.
See below an article from Edward Wong on how Mike Pompeo’s beliefs are influencing US foreign policy, which we invariably follow. Odd indeed! John Menadue. (more…)
One response from a colleague to the contentious proposal by Professor Hugh White in his new book ‘How to Defend Australia’ that the government should seriously consider adopting a nuclear capability was the brief ‘Oh, for God’s Sake!.’ Underpinning such a comment is the prospect of the kind of dystopian nightmare that stalked the West’s Cold War MAD (mutually-assured destruction) containment doctrine. As Russia’s President Putin, among others, has suggested tersely, in a 21st century nuclear war ‘no one would survive.’ (more…)
Time and again, the long view in China has stood in sharp contrast to America’s short-term approach. Sun Tzu put it best in his ancient treatise, The Art of War: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.” (more…)
Deemed the Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations strategy, the military method is a US Marine special, still spanking new, featuring “the amphibious landing of troops on islands for seizure and capture as part of a forward projection of sea and air power aimed at the mainland.” (more…)
With Boris Johnson as UK prime minister, and his Brexit strategy crystal clear, the task of the Labour opposition is equally clear. It must expose the truth about Johnson’s no-deal option – namely, that it means a Trump-deal Brexit – and put forward its own plan to end Britain’s interminable ordeal immediately. (more…)
China is a nation with values deeply at odds with the West.
Early intervention is a vital piece of the complex puzzle, that is Australia’s homelessness. Long-term, appropriate and stable housing is becoming increasingly unattainable for many people. The current state of housing unaffordability leads to many people being at risk of becoming homelessness, or indeed being homeless. (more…)
Regulatory failure has been a hot topic in Australia recently. Royal commissions into the financial and aged care sectors have revealed major regulatory failures.
The harm done by these oversights has been significant. Regulation is not just red tape. It protects the interests of those who put their faith, money, and in some cases, loved ones, into regulated institutions. (more…)
A 39 year old man from Iran arrived by boat in 2013. He was not permitted to apply for a Temporary Protection Visa until 2017. For six years he has lived in fear and struggled with mental trauma. He has no protection, no income, no social support and no family. He believes he has no hope – and suicide is an option. (more…)
When, in his farewell address in 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of the dangers of the “unwarranted influence” wielded by the “military-industrial complex,” he could never have dreamed of an arms-making corporation of the size and political clout of Lockheed Martin. In a good year, it now receives up to $50 billion in government contracts, a sum larger than the operating budget of the State Department. And now it’s about to have company. (more…)
In his recent book Worship as Community Drama, sociologist Pierre Hegy described an unusual Catholic parish whose identity he hid under the name Church of the Resurrection. When the book was published earlier this year and we read the chapter titled “A Lay-Run Parish: Consensus Without a Central Authority,” we could tell that it was about us.
I asked Hegy about possibly revealing the facts behind the chapter. He replied that sociological protocols had to be followed in the book, but these would not apply to an article in a newspaper. OK, here goes.
When growth is slowing and interest rates are falling, the evidence indicates that a timely investment in social housing and an increase in Newstart are more likely to boost growth in jobs and incomes and provide better value than tax cuts, especially those going to high income-earners. Every dollar invested in social housing and Newstart not only improves lives, it also increases GDP by $1.20-1.30.
A dear friend and colleague, Graham Freudenberg, died this morning at the Redcliffe Hospital. He was admired and will be mourned by many people who knew him personally and a great number of people who knew him in public recognition of his work.
Throughout his long illness, he remained courageous and concerned for people around him, and particularly for the Labor Party that he loved. As he physically declined, the strength of his inner life became even more apparent. He was delighted that, in his last week of life he could see again ‘The Scribe’ on ABC TV.
His close friends and family, and Australians generally, have been privileged to know Graham Freudenberg.
John Menadue
The family of Graham Freudenberg, his influential political contacts, his many friends and admirers, the Australian Labor Party and Australia itself are diminished by his passing after a long illness. (more…)
“Having a go” just to put food on the table? Unless you’re a well-fed restaurateur or politician, it’s unlikely that you’ll “get a go” from this Government. (more…)
There are major differences but also similarities in the U.S.’ response to Russia’s S-400 deals with Turkey and India (more…)
The call is for Australia to cooperate with the US to counter Beijing’s allegedly expansionist activities in the South China Sea. But was it not the US itself, in its 1951 San Francisco peace treaty with Japan – signed and ratified by Canberra and 47 others – who in effect gifted most of the South China Sea islands – namely, the Spratly and the Paracel island groups – to China? The US then organized a separate document with the Republic of China in Taiwan – the 1952 Taipei peace treaty – making it even clearer that these islands should be taken from Japan and in effect given to China. (more…)
One of us was born on a fifth-generation irrigated dairy farm in NSW; the other in a country town in the Murray-Darling Basin.
The future of George Pell is in doubt but his shadow will remain for many years across the Australian Catholic Church. Through a rigged system he was able to effectively decide who became bishops in the Church. This was critical in appointments to the two most senior archdiocese in Australia, Sydney and Melbourne. Both Archbishop Fisher of Sydney and Archbishop Comensoli of Melbourne owe their appointments to George Pell. They are his proteges,his proxies. Anthony Fisher aged 59 has 15 years remaining as Archbishop in Sydney . Peter Comensoli aged 55 has another 20 years to run as the supremo in Melbourne .They are both very much part of the problem in the Catholic Church rather than part of any solution. But both Archbishops are likely to cling to the trappings of office that George Pell secured for them.
See below an address by George Pell eight years ago on the type of church that he was trying to build in Australia. It casts a long and dark shadow.
He gave this address on ‘Authentic Catholicism vs Cafeteria Catholicism’ at the Catholic Voice Annual Dinner in Cork, Ireland on 29th July 2011. The following is the text of the address (slightly edited) from the current issue of the Catholic Voice newspaper.
John Menadue
The polled groups also told the Pew Research Center that the U.S. military campaign in Syria wasn’t worthwhile
Stephen Duckett of the Grattan Institute has highlighted the growing and serious plight of PHI as more and more young people decide not to waste their money and are opting out of PHI. In response the CEO of NIB in a bizarre suggestion proposes that the government should ‘scrap Medicare and mandate private health cover'(AFR 23 July 2019). This is special pleading for a broken and terminal system.It would make things worse. He wants the government to save his failing industry despite a $12 b annual subsidy.
All the evidence shows that PHI is indefensible as to both equity and efficiency. Just look at the health disaster in the US. It is a wreck. (more…)
