Don't forget to Rudd's plan for an Aussie NHS. It has slipped off the radar what with all the showmanship from the coalition. Rudd's plan to nationalise health is the true mark of an ex-mandarin turning his hand to policy. All Ministers, Prime or otherwise, should have a fundamental phobia of Sir Humphry of the Civil Service. Rudd is Sir Humphry. Be afraid.
The consolidation of all the state public health services into one body run from Canberra by Ruddite pencil-pushers compiling league tables and imposing easily evaded targets will greatly increase (I predict double) the bureaucracy of the public health system and inevitably the GST that pays for it. It will also reduce our world-class public health service to the 3rd world standard of Britain's where the staff, from medical down to clerical, lose half the blood samples that they take, screw up the tests, then blame you, and make you feel like burden on the system for getting sick in the first place. Been there. Done that. Don't want it here.
Anyone who has not been to Britain should try it for a while if they want to see what 'New Labour' is like. There really is no need to inflict it on the rest of us Down Under.
