Newsflash: We interrupt this blog to bring you breaking news - Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced the Federal Election will be nnnnnngh (make a snoring noise).
Even as an Anti-Wind Turbine candidate for the Senate, it's not yet 24 hours into an eight month campaign, and I'm over it already; and the Australian/Canberra media are pathetic, the majority of coverage has been about what Ms Gillard looked like, her new haircut, her glasses, etc. (just watching it now)
Granted, political parties and/or animals are always campaigning for the next election, but Labor have clearly been 'pre-campaigning' for the 2013 campaign, eg, slashing services with promises of all these things they will effectively then re-instigate in 2014; the Ms Nova Perris issue, etc.
The announcement of the election is purely self-serving, a desperate act by a doomed government, lurching from stunt to spin and back again to try and distract from where we are as a nation, and offers the government multiple layers of dis-association from what they have done to take us there; eg, 'we don't need to answer questions about what we've done, look at what we say we're going to do'.
I understand that having declared the election, the government can now officially (under electoral laws) use tax-payers money to advertise itself, etc, and they have a definable propensity (strong tendency to the point of habit) for just lying; the Labor party cannot be trusted on any single thing they say or do.
By the time it gets here, most people will be so frazzled, so over it, the election will be a farce based on the principle of "Just make it stop"; how does that best serve democratic process?
We now return you to normal services...Health Services in South Australia have been privatised by the Labor state government - Despite denials by ministers John Hill and Jack Snelling, Labor has privatised health by entering into a contract with a private company to build the new Royal Adelaide Hospital.
The vast majority of the state's health budget must/will be committed to the new RAH, which John Hill describes as "a hospital for all South Australians"; a hospital that must be operated to make a profit for that company.
Jack Snelling, as this weeks Health Minister, has just announced that he must immediately find savings in health of $900 million plus (let's make it a billion; just between friends).
I note that Jack Snelling has given guarantees about the future of Keith Hospital if it joins Country Health SA, but does not mention Bordertown Hospital.
I believe that if Keith Hospital joins SA Health, the Labor government will immediately argue that 2 hospitals only 30kms apart are excessive and un-affordable; goodbye Bordertown Hospital; I very much hope to be very wrong.
Regardless, the new RAH will get exactly the funding it needs to maintain that contracted profit margin and those 'savings' will come from elsewhere, other hospitals, regional centres, etc.
The state's entire health system will be run for the next 35 years (I would suggest is already being run) to ensure a profit for a private company; that is privatising health.
(After 35 years we will then be 'given back' our own hospital.)
It is exactly that obvious, that simple: private profit = privatisation.
When this allegation was put to John Hill recently (on ABC Radio) he flatly denied it but did not address the various points.
Nobody in Mt Gambier needs to be told about the broad lack of health services and/or professionals (no offence to all those workers, specialists, etc, caught in the middle) that forces people to attend Millicent, Portland, etc, and with the health system contractually focussed on the RAH it will get worse.
Other services have already been privatised, eg, mental health services, which leads nicely to;
Tomorrow: My Experience of Mental Health Services in Mt Gambier.
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