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‘We’re not going to fix Medicare in one budget’
Health minister Mark Butler has spoken to ABC radio AM and told Sabra Lane that fixing Medicare won’t be something the government can do in one budget.
Some MPs, including Mike Freelander, one of the doctors in the house, have been frustrated by what they see as a lack of urgency in addressing the problems with Australia’s health system.
Butler says the government is working on it but it will take time:
There will be a delivery of the $750m package in the May budget. We’ve said that and we’re committed to that and it will reflect and be guided by advice from the Strengthening Medicare taskforce. But I want to be honest that we’re not going to fix Medicare in one budget. I’ve tried to be really clear with people this is long-term, focused work that we’re committed to as a government.
Key events
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Why are we not just saying yes?
Richard Marles:
We need to balance this obviously as all countries to do with our own capability and making sure that we maintain our own ability to operate in our own sphere here in the Indo Pacific.
But we need to be doing what we can to support Ukraine and we’ll continue to take that through and as we have and right now, we stand as one of the largest non NATO contributors to Ukraine.
There is an incredible gratitude that Ukraine has towards what Australia is doing. It is noticed across Europe, that Australia a long way from Ukraine is doing so much so strange should feel proud of the support that we’re providing a will continue that dialogue but you can’t say how that can continue to count they can continue.
Moving to the defence minister Richard Marles now, he is asked by ABC radio RN host Patricia Karvelas whether Australia is considering Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s global request for more assistance in his country’s quest to defeat the Russian invaders.
Marles says it is ongoing:
This is going to be an open question going on. I think the the answer to it is we will continue a discussion with the Ukraine for as long as it takes to make sure that they can stay in the contest.
Birmingham says taxpayer-funded pamphlets on voice ‘are enough’
A little earlier this morning Liberal senator Simon Birmingham, the de facto head of the moderate flank in the party, said he didn’t want to see taxpayer money used to fund the yes and no campaigns for the voice – which has been one of party leader Peter Dutton’s demands.
The government has relented and given in to another demand – to send out education pamphlets for the yes and no sides. But it has drawn the line at using public funds for the yes and no campaigns.
“I am not keen to see large licks of taxpayer funding spent on running campaigns,” he told ABC radio, saying he doesn’t want to see it go any further than administration.
Birmingham says the pamphlets are enough and that there are already people getting organised to run the campaigns so he doesn’t think taxpayers need to pay for it.
He says he doesn’t want to see the referendum fail but adds that the “absence of detail” is the easiest way to derail it, saying the government needs to come forward and fill in those gaps.
What is the hold-up?
Mark Butler:
We can’t just put more money into the existing Medicare system.
As you say, it was designed for a very different health profile in the country where you went to a doctor with short episodes of illness that were fixed and then you didn’t come back to your next episode.
It’s very different today with an older population with much more chronic disease, much more mental health issues in the community as well.
So we’re going remake Medicare as well as deal with some of the financial pressure on it after six years of a Medicare rebate freeze.
‘We’re not going to fix Medicare in one budget’
Health minister Mark Butler has spoken to ABC radio AM and told Sabra Lane that fixing Medicare won’t be something the government can do in one budget.
Some MPs, including Mike Freelander, one of the doctors in the house, have been frustrated by what they see as a lack of urgency in addressing the problems with Australia’s health system.
Butler says the government is working on it but it will take time:
There will be a delivery of the $750m package in the May budget. We’ve said that and we’re committed to that and it will reflect and be guided by advice from the Strengthening Medicare taskforce. But I want to be honest that we’re not going to fix Medicare in one budget. I’ve tried to be really clear with people this is long-term, focused work that we’re committed to as a government.
Call for Australian spy agencies to come out of the shadows
Daniel Hurst
Australian intelligence agencies should be more transparent with the public in response to shifting community expectations and technological change, a new paper says.
The paper, published by the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, also warns that Australia’s intelligence infrastructure – digital and physical – is “not match-fit for the present or the future”.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey, the director of the emerging technology program at the United States Studies Centre, interviewed nearly 50 senior members from all 10 agencies in the Australian intelligence community as part of her research.
Today’s paper, Secrecy, sovereignty and sharing: how data and emerging technologies are transforming intelligence, says:
A key impact of technology and data is that very little is likely to remain secret forever. There is a shift in the role secrecy plays in intelligence work. Secrecy is still vital for protecting intelligence sources and methods, but much more is knowable or inferable about the world and community expectations around transparency are changing.
In an interview with Guardian Australia, Hammond-Errey said there continued to be a “delicate equilibrium between secrecy and transparency” but the big data landscape had created “a citizen expectation of increased knowledge”.
The reality of the digital era is that it has changed people’s expectations about their access to information. I do think that the era of saying ‘that’s classified, that private, we’re not going to share that’ – I do think that’s changed. This balance between what agencies release and what they keep secret needs to be constantly re-evaluated.
Hammond-Errey said the intelligence agencies would rightly say such a re-evaluation was a role for elected members, but she believed it was important to increase those conversations. The proactive release of western intelligence in the lead-up to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine showed the need for new ways to respond to “hybrid threats or under-the-threshold actions”.
She said there had been a big increase in public statements by Australian intelligence agency leaders over the past few years, including threat assessments. These exercises had been well-intentioned but were a “largely one-way dialogue and often very much focused on potential recruitment of personnel”. She called for more two-way conversations with the broader Australian community.
The paper included a range of other recommendations, including that the government “should ensure that secret intelligence capabilities are within the bounds of reasonable community expectations of intelligence services to avoid backlash where collection or capabilities are legal but do not reflect community expectations”.
It also called on the government to fund research into ways to “improve intelligence alliances within the Five Eyes, and with other nations such as Japan and South Korea”.
Good morning from Politics Live
Amy Remeikis here – thank you to Martin for starting off the blog this morning.
It’s given me time to grab another coffee.
Katharine Murphy, Daniel Hurst, Paul Karp and Josh Butler will be with you soon to update you on all the parliamentary happenings. Mike Bowers is already out and about.
Ready?
Let’s get into it.
Early education and childcare in the spotlight
Measures for improving the quality, affordability and accessibility of early childhood education will go under the microscope, Australian Associated Press reports.
The federal government has appointed academic Deborah Brennan to lead a Productivity Commission inquiry into the early childhood and care system.
The education minister, Jason Clare, says: “A great early childhood education and care system pays a triple dividend – it sets children up for a great start in life, helps working families to get ahead and builds our economic prosperity by supporting workforce participation.”
Labor went to the election pledging increased childcare subsidies for families, which will start in July.
But the inquiry will go further in seeking solutions to workforce shortages and access and benefits for children, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Brennan is an emeritus professor at the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of New South Wales and is an international expert in the field of early education.
The inquiry will start on 1 March and provide a final report to government by 30 June 2024.
Daniel Hurst
‘I want Ausaid to take over Dfat,’ Pat Conroy says
The dedicated aid agency disbanded by the Coalition should “take over” the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, a minister has declared.
Ten years after the Coalition axed Ausaid and folded its staff into Dfat, Pat Conroy told a new podcast that “aid is not a dirty word” under Labor.
The minister for international development said it was too late to simply reverse the decision and go back to how things were pre-2013. But he signalled he wanted the issue to have a much bigger focus in the department.
In comments that will raise eyebrows within departmental ranks, Conroy told the Reimagining Development podcast series:
We’ve gone past the age of unscrambling the egg and pulling Ausaid out of Dfat. I want the opposite; I want Ausaid to take over Dfat.
The comment is a statement of intent about the increasing importance of international development within the deparmtent.
Conroy said Dfat grads should have rotations in international development but this should also be “a critical requirement for promotion” into the senior executive service levels.
He said he was also considering whether the department was relying on international contractors because it wanted that flexibility or “because we don’t have the expertise in-house”.
Conroy said development specialists in the department should “feel like they don’t have to be in hiding”:
We’re out and proud about [aid] and we’re going to sing it from the rooftops.
Conroy made the comments in a series jointly produced by the Good Will Hunters podcast and the Australian Council for International Development.
The Acfid chief executive, Marc Purcell, said the aid program was a national asset and it was “important and needed that the minister is putting development assistance on the same level as diplomacy”.
Welcome
Martin Farrer
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the day in Australian news. I’m Martin Farrer and before my colleague Amy Remeikis fires up our live politics coverage, here are the main breaking stories overnight.
Tony Abbott should be sacked as trade adviser by the UK government because of his decision to join a climate-sceptic thinktank, lobby groups and British opposition MPs are saying today. He was criticised at home for his link-up with the Global Warming Policy Foundation and now calls are mounting in the UK for him to be stood down.
The sails of the Sydney Opera House will be lit up today in a sign of solidarity with Turkey and Syria as the two countries grapple with the appalling aftermath of Monday’s huge earthquake. In Melbourne, where the Turkish community is rallying to send emergency supplies and funds to the stricken areas, buildings will be illuminated tomorrow.
The Greens appear to be in disarray after the convenors of their First Nations advisory group said they do not support the voice to parliament or a referendum on Indigenous constitutional recognition. It is a direct rebuke of their federal party room and instead backs the position of departed senator Lidia Thorpe. It also appears to flatly contradict the interpretation of the situation by party leader Adam Bandt on Tuesday.
“Numerous Greens MPs back Bandt’s account and say their First Nations advisory group told them they cannot vote no to the voice. One party room member told Guardian Australia the advisory group’s recent position on Tuesday is directly opposite to what they advised party room last week.”
With that, let’s get going for the day …
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