Bill Shorten had a ragged media conference in the Adelaide seat of Boothby yesterday. He claimed Labor had no new or increased taxes on superannuation — technically correct, but several proposed rule super changes will raise more revenue — and a journalist got stroppy when the Labor leader refused to answer a question about the impact of Labor’s climate action policies to achieve its more ambitious emissions reduction targets.
The journalist, Ten’s Jonathan Lea, had asked Shorten “when can voters learn more about Labor’s emission reduction target, how you will get there and the cost to the economy?” It’s a fair question, given Labor has opted for a shopping list of emissions abatement measures rather than a coherent policy. The extent to which an emissions safeguard scheme that doesn’t cover around three-quarters of emissions, an electric vehicle target and some subsidy programs will drive a reduction of over 40% of emissions by 2030 is a valid subject for discussion during an election campaign, even if the government literally has no climate policy beyond, apparently, fixing the “climate deficit” by increasing emissions.
Lea made another point, noting that Shorten had “spoken almost exclusively since your budget in reply speech and focused on health.” Shorten disputed that, but it’s nearly true. Despite promising a couple of months ago that the election would be a “referendum on wages”, all Labor has done over the last fortnight is talk about health. Multiple announcements about spending on cancer treatment. MRI machines. New research funding. “Labor’s surgery waiting list blitz”. A (separate) “cancer waiting list blitz”. Mental health services. Yesterday it was pathology services. This morning it’s “$20 million to give blood cancer patients access to clinical trial drugs and therapies for blood cancer.” And, all the time, the incessant lie — and it is a lie, Labor-voting readers — that the government has cut health spending.
Health is the most influential issue in determining how people vote. And it’s a Labor strong point. Health was key to Labor coming within an ace of winning in 2016 off the back of its (again, deceitful) Mediscare campaign. And its own internal work has obviously prompted the strategy of beginning the campaign with a health spending blitz. The strategy has some conservatives rattled. “Shorten’s tactical focus on health, hospitals and cancer has kept health in the headlights, to Labor’s immense benefit,” Paul Kelly frets in The Australian today, conjuring the doubtless horrific vision that “voters decide they prefer higher taxes over the decade to finance higher levels of social spending.”
Perhaps — I can’t believe I’m typing this — Kelly’s right. If disengaged voters go into Easter with no idea about the election beyond that Labor is going to spend more on health, that will be a carefully-prepared win for Labor. But Australians are among the world’s longest-lived people and our quality of life in medical terms is improving. The priority in health spending is in Indigenous health, where “the gap” remains stubbornly unclosed, but Indigenous health has been absent from Labor’s campaign and was unmentioned in Shorten’s budget reply. There are indeed priorities in health, like removing the private health insurance subsidy and redirecting that spending elsewhere in health, but Labor’s focus so far suggests it wants the campaign to be a referendum on health services, while other key policy areas, like climate action, or wages, are obscured.
Health is undoubtedly a winner for Labor, but at this point it is starting to look like it is relying too much on an area where, at least for white Australians, they’re well-served.
I am obviously not a political strategist (whatever the hell that means), but I suggest an emphasis on social equity and tax system fairness will be a bigger ‘winner’ for Labor.
They have been talking about that too-Bernard clearly wasn’t listening to any of that, as it would upset his “Labor is Bad” narrative.
To capture the youth vote Labor should emphasise the environment & climate change.
The young don’t care about health, they take it for granted & cannot empathise with the aged or infirm. Plenty enrolled for the first time for the same sex plebiscite, this is Labor’s best chance to grab ’em.
In my view it should be wage stagnation, climate change, health – in that order – plus other issues as circumstances dictate. Labour under Shorten is not a small target. Why try to become one now?
So Bernard, if the Coalition hasn’t cut funding for public health, then why has the Commonwealth share of Public Hospital funding once again dropped below 50%-like it did under Howard? Also why has this government removed so many medical imaging & diagnostic services from the Medicare Schedule?
Also, if the current government are such great advocates of Public Health, then why were they having expensive Productivity Commission studies into privatising Medicare back in 2016? Why did they retain the freeze on the Medicare rebate for such an extended period of time, whilst leaving the size of PHI rebate untouched? As much as you might hate to admit it, Bernard, the Coalition is extremely vulnerable on the issue of Public Health, & Labor actually is wise to exploit that vulnerability. Contrary to your claim, it is *not* the only thing they have discussed during the election campaign.
Well Bernard, I can’t believe you’ve been typing that Kelly is right. Jelly is wrong to say that we must keep government spending low. Very high marginal tax rates- over 70%, if I recall Stiglitz correctly- do slow growth but there is no basis whatever for Kelly’s neoliberal ideology on taxes.
Hopefully, you might restore some reputation for balance, Bernard, but I think myself that is a lost cause with the Coalition. Quibbles about Shorten’s stress on health spending- and it is not a lie that the Coalition no longer maintains the 50-50 split on hospitals- is to anticipate that Shorten will end his campaign as he has begun. But I have no idea how he will end it. He may even speak on aboriginal health, which is such a deep problem that there will be no satisfactory solution so long as movies like “Samson and Delilah” reflect so truthfully the position of our First Nations in this land.