With so many vulnerable Australians relying on quality public health care, a government claiming to uphold Christian values would do well to contemplate the timeless question: what would Jesus do, writes Dr Benjamin T. Jones.

ON THE EVE of the 2013 election, the devoutly Christian Tony Abbott infamously declared that his government would, among other things, make no cuts to health. It was one of a string of promises audaciously and unashamedly broken almost immediately after assuming office. With a new election looming, the future of Medicare is again set to be a key campaign issue.

The prime minister may have changed since 2013, but the Liberal Party’s ideological commitment to trimming Medicare has not. With Malcolm Turnbull at the helm, the health budget is set for a $650m cut with pathology and diagnostic imaging tests particularly targeted. These cuts disproportionately hurt low-income earners who rely the most on public health. With so many calls in the Bible to help the poor and the sick, it is with no small irony that these cuts come from a government which habitually trumpets its Christian credentials.

Although criticised at times for duplication and inefficiencies, Australia’s health system is one of the best in the world. Australian men have the third highest life expectancy of any nation with women sixth highest, according to the World Health Organisation in 2014. It seems strange then that the most overtly Christian Australian Government in the last half century used its very first budget to dislodge the concept of universal healthcare.

https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/liberal-attacks-on-medicare-are-anything-but-christian,8976

 

 

Of course we all know that Jesus would perform a miracle or two — and divide the hospital beds into more hospital beds or at least stop people getting sick... Death is another matter. Lazarus was the only lucky bastard. I believe he's still alive today, hiding from the papparrazzis...

A centrepiece of Malcolm Turnbull's re-election platform, the budget's PaTH interns program, breaches current minimum wage standards and would require changes that would either blow out its cost or see it stalled in a hostile Senate, according to employment law experts commissioned by the ACTU.

Legal advice sought by the peak union body suggests the PaTH program, (Prepare, Trial, Hire) which proposes to pay under 25-year-old jobseekers a $200-a-fortnight top-up over and above the dole, would leave vulnerable interns languishing below the legally enforceable minimum wage and potentially able to sue for recovery of unpaid wages.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/coalitions-840-million-interns-plan-illegal-lawyers-20160511-gosd1e.html#ixzz48OJ1IgsE
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Now how many interns do we need? Should they make a mistake, who will carry the can? Insurance and retirement plan? Is this an innovation? What about the interns who can't cut the pace? Question: can a "young person" who has never worked and is unemployable, turns out to be prime ministership material? Do we need to train more politicians? or robots?

 

 

"Disconnected", "snoozefest" and "a disgrace".

That was how the Greens and independent senators described the performances of Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten during Sunday night's leaders' debate, broadcast during prime time.

The major party leaders squared off for an hour and barely got out of first gear, using rehearsed, scripted lines and sticking closely to pre-prepared talking points.

It was a different story on Monday night's Q&A, which featured the excitable Jacqui Lambie, Nick Xenophon, Greens leader Richard Di Natale, along with Labor's Terri Butler, and the Liberal Party's Steve Ciobo.

"It seems as though six times as many people watched a cooking show, a singing show and a home reno show than the debate and if only they used autocues half the night it would've been more animated," Senator Xenophon said on the program.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-31/turnbull-and-shorten-come-under-fire-over-snoozefest-debate/7461150

 

By bringing in that awful Steve Ciobo, once more, the Q&A program is doing a massive disservice to the nation — or whatever is left of this fair country after the little Hitler of New South Wales, Mike Baird, destroyed the democratic rights of council voters  — and after the other pollies, like Malcolm-the-Self and even those departed to become ambassadors somewhere — especially Washington — have been telling giant porkies. And Di Natale is a no more a Green or a Leader than a patch of sticky weed is eadible.

See toon at top...