Having signed up to the Labor party's e-newsletters I've been receiving information on policies, 'informal' videos Rudd has made, and grandiose visions for the future. Today though there was a significant change in tone with the video below. Instead of considered and convivial, it is brutal and singular with the idea that Abbott is a dinosaur and a destructive force to a progressive Australia. The low image quality and speedy release would tell us this video has been made quickly. What's the rush? Is this because Abbott is a real threat to Rudd? Or just to the ETS? And how badly do they want Abbott dead and buried?

Australia is dealing with the same problems on heath care, as the US, right now. Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd has been talking a lot (and he loves to talk a lot) about the revolutionary health care reform that is about to take place. Everybody wants health care quality to be better and – of course -  cheaper. But everybody should know that this double aim is impossible.

Rudd’s National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission has worked out that it will cost $3- $6 billion in order to fix up the overall health care system. But God forbid that people make it to the hospital! That will add another $4.5- $7.5 billion more to remain functional. Don’t forget the $3.5 billion needed to bring dentistry into line.

Congratulations lucky taxpayers, you get to pick up the bill.

This is what happens when you nationalise health care - and then leave it alone. The problem is not caused by health care being free; it is because the power, administration and setting of priorities within the health care system lie in the hands of bureaucrats, not doctors.

THE Rudd Government knows it's got a real perception problem with China, thanks to the ill-timed bumbling of and carelessness of Joel Fitzgibbon.

The Defence Minister's undeclared trips to China come as China is doing everything it can to take a huge stake in Australia's natural resources; after Kevin Rudd's "secret meeting" with China's propaganda chief has made a bad impression; as the Prime Minister's longstanding Sinophilia makes people suspicious; and as Australia is championing Chinese efforts for a greater say within the IMF.

But ill-timed bumbling doesn't mean Labor is handing over Australian sovereignty to China nor that Rudd is the Manchurian candidate with a Chinese chip in his neck and Harold Holt in the backyard of The Lodge.

The disclosure of the Defence Minister's failure to declare two trips to China paid for by his family friend, businesswomen, Chinese investor and landlady Helen Liu, couldn't have come at a worse time.

Given Rudd's declared standards of ministerial probity, it's probably a hanging offence but Fitzgibbon will get a suspended sentence as long as he doesn't have any more damaging disclosures.

His colleagues think he has behaved poorly but he still has the support of Rudd and Julia Gillard, whom he helped to their respective jobs.

As a minister he's been in trouble for a while but his failure to declare the trips - before he was a minister - doesn't create a vast Chinese conspiracy.

As China undoubtedly becomes more aggressive economically and militarily in a world it is increasingly going to influence, there are legitimate concerns about putting Australia's security - national, resource or economic - at Beijing's beck and call.

The Prime Minister and Wayne Swan both know they face a diabolical dilemma in choosing to accept much-needed Chinese investment while trying to keep China from controlling resource production in Australia and, hence, prices for our exports through state-owned companies or investment funds.

The choice is made more difficult by yesterday's decision to excise the sensitive area of the old Woomera rocket range from China's bid for OZ Minerals.

The Government's got a perception problem, Fitzgibbon's made it worse but there still isn't a Manchurian candidate. Dealing with China is part of the new world.

[via The Australian]

For possibly the first time in Australian politics a Labor government has a left wing leader & a left wing deputy leader. Nathan Rees is now the Premier of New South Wales with Carmel Tebbut his Deputy and they have four big problems to solve – Public Transport, Electricity, Health and Education. The key link about these problem areas is they each have massive workforce problems both internally and in the unions relationship with the state government. Theoretically a left wing government that cares about the workers should be in a unique position to improve the working dynamics in each system.

Take for example the Railway Bus system which is crucial to overcoming the daily frustrations that afflict Sydney. During the Pope’s recent visit all of the delays and breakdowns disappeared so (unless you think it was a papal miracle) we know it can be done even with our current technology. It’s possible but it will take a change in the working dynamics of both State Rail and the buses and all parties will have to work at it. We need this new government to work with and transform our public transport network into working like it did during the Pope’s visit everyday – with the same workers and with the same resources. Does everyone in Sydney have to become a Catholic to get the trains system working better?

The point is the biggest change our public transport system needs is not expensive new capital assets but transforming our transport workforce to work at it’s best 99% of the time. If Nathan Rees and David Campbell, his Transport Minister, can avoid go-slow campaigns and win the union’s eager involvement they can do it. Remember, Nathan, most people in Sydney have the daily transport experience to see if your government works better than the old one.

The Australian Labor government, that’s claiming to be green responsible, has saved $50 million by cutting solar panel rebates and given $500 million to the coal industry for research into carbon capture and sequestration and Peter Garrett, the Environment Minister, is going along with it. If it was real the coal industry would use its own money. The latest issue of The Monthly has a lead article written by John Birmingham which details the juggernaut that is Big Coal and the mammoth task in competing against it.

Reading it can give you a sense of hopelessness, a sense of powerlessness that is very similar to the experience people feel after talking to Peter Garrett’s office. People in the solar cell industry, people with “illegal” e-bikes who send in submissions that are never even acknowledged and writers like myself have all felt this. We know that real change needs micro steps as well as macro plans but Labor “environmentalists” are so glued to “the big picture” they can’t see how they are not only going backwards and disappointing us but also taking incentive away from real people to give to big corporations who will not deliver anything but profits to themselves. As the Oils once sang “Brave faces… fall silent… got those tears in their eyes”. Does it make sense to you, Peter?