The Coalition has also walked away from plans to sack 41,000 public service employees, raising questions about how it will pay for major election policies
“Instead of removing 41,000 workers, the Coalition says it will now rely on natural attrition – or workers quitting their jobs – to reduce the public service.”
Oh great so instead of getting severance pay they just make your job hell and wait for you to give up and quit
I’m sure if elected he’ll find some pretext to bring these policies back (or something even worse).
EDIT: Oh and “wasteful spending” starting to be linked to Trump/Musk/DOGE may be a good thing in the near to medium term, since it draws a line between cuts to public service and the US (which is currently toxic).
Yep, good to hear the in-laws echoing criticism of Dutton this weekend - because they’re appalled he’s intending to copy Trump and Musk
I’ve got a bridge to sell to anyone who believes these liars
Labor had warned that major reductions to the public service could see welfare recipients and veterans forced to wait weeks or months for payments to be processed; Dutton had promised “frontline” positions would be spared, but hinted education and health department staff could be in the firing line.
Yep, education and health are definitely the first thing that have to go in order to control a population. The dumber and sicker they are, the easier they are to control. Learning from the great US of A.
A desperate population monkey dances wonderfully
Dutton is a hard right conservative. People like him want crack down on everything, wind back social programs like Medicare, get stuck into workers pay and conditions and screw up our relationship with major trading partners (like China). It’s pretty obvious that when he came out with those brain fart policies, he was speaking from the heart. The upshot is that he will revert as soon as he is PM.
Does Australia have Medicare?
Yes we have a good broad based system. A trip to the ER costs nothing. Many doctors visits are at least partially covered. I had to have overnight tests done which required a (public) hospital stay - no out of pocket. It’s not perfect but it’s pretty great compared to, say, the US. Conservative side of government would love to dismantle it and both sides chip away at it.
I know Australia has public healthcare, but is it literally called “Medicare”?
Yes, but unlike the American Medicare, ours is universal healthcare.
Yes it is. The first version introduced in the 70s under Whitlam was called Medibank but the Fraser government fucked that up. So the Hawke government reintroduced universal health care as Medicare in the 80s and Medibank persisted as a weird government owned private health insurer which Abbott privatized.
oh, yes its literally called Medicare. Since the mid 1980s
The Aussie system was modelled on the Canadian system at the time. It works well as there is somewhere that people can go and get free medical treatment even if there often is a long wait time.
Yeah it is.
I just had a quick look because I thought the Australian term would pre-date the american one but it doesn’t aparently we copied it from you.
It should’ve been Medicaus or mediroo or something.
I’m a little surprised. Wow. But it does seem to be older. 41 years according to wikipedia. Looks like it was the yanks who copied it ;)
Yep. medicare.gov.au Aussies all have a Medicare card which we show at medical appointments to handle the billing. Not everything is free but a lot is covered. I just had an ultrasound for a hernia and it didn’t directly cost me anything.
It’s crazy good.
3 kids born by c-section, all spending time in the special care nursery. The only thing that I had to pay for was parking.
“we’ve made a mistake” says the bloke who failed to kill harry potter the first time.
Fucking potato looking cunt, will hundred percent bring this back if he gets in.
Great news honestly.
The implications is that their strategists have told them that the stench on Trump and Musk is going to sink them unless they can differentiate themselves.
Shit is gonna get real in the US this week.
The further Dutton has to distance himself from Trump the better.
Except he’s only doing it to get elected. Once in you know he’s going to hitch back up to the Trump train
Sure.
At least there’s not going to be a wave of Trumpian style election promises though.
Palmer seems to think otherwise
Yeah but Palmer’s objective is not to get elected.
He uses the election as a platform to promote these far-right ideas.
People that vote for him will ultimately preference LNP before ALP anyway.
I’m hoping that him backing down from stuff won’t play well with his base. They like someone who appears tough.
Albanese drawing a hard line on the biosecurity/pharmaceutical stuff with the US is a nice juxtaposition.
“Dick tater”
The importance of internal public sector roles such as communications is something we need to continue to talk about to people who are worried about governments wasting money. We need to make it apparent to everyone that they are essential for basic, frontline public systems to work effectively. Our schools, hospitals, pollution control, roads… all rely on ‘backend’ systems and communication between different arms of government.
The major tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas (yes, we’re talking the US, not a poverty stricken nation) is becoming a problem because there are no communications between public health departments and agencies - because Trump has halted their funding.What a bunch of numpties
