It was only six days ago that the Prime Minister took a brief moment off from posing for his birthday pics with the troops in Dili to lay the foundations for the damage control that will be necessary should the Reserve Bank actually increase interest rates before the election.

The state governments and their budget deficits, said Mr Howard, were putting the upward pressure on rates. Any rate rise would have nothing to do with his Government.

“The federal government has paid off all its debts, we don’t have any net debt now, and as a result the federal government is not out there borrowing money and therefore competing with private borrowers and putting upward pressure on interest rates, but state governments are,” he said.

Today Mr Howard flew to another island to condemn the Tasmanian Labor Government for trying to save money by downgrading the Mersey Valley Hospital at Latrobe. Without so much as a trace of irony the Prime Minister promised to fund the hospital direct from Canberra.

“The Tasmanian government has announced plans to downgrade the existing hospital which has left the local community deeply unhappy,” he said on another of his recorded video press releases.

“The Commonwealth’s true role in this case is one of direct intervention to help the local community.”

The decision by the Tasmanian Government to turn the Mersey Hospital at Latrobe, which just happens to be in the marginal federal Liberal held seat of Braddon, into an elective day surgery hospital was described by the State Health Minister Lara Giddings back in May as part of an overhaul of health services that was urgently needed, because of a escalating health costs and the shortage of skilled specialists and medical staff.

“No change,” she said, “is not an option”.

For John Howard facing a deficit in the opinion polls, change clearly is an option. As he gets more and more desperate about retaining office he moves further and further away from the traditional Liberal Party commitment to the federal system.