Dingo bytes
There's some good news for the multitude out there who support Medicare, and it comes from Health Minister Tony Abbott's office. In a press release Abbott quotes recent research revealing, horror of horrors, that without the $3 billion a year rebate to the private health insurance companies, the proportion of Australians with private health cover would drop to 19 percent. The rebate was always a false economy — a taxpayer-funded incentive to prop up the insurance companies in the face of overwhelming public support for Medicare.* * * The ideological commitment to big business by the Labor and Liberal parties is nicely demonstrated in NSW where both major parties have rejected a bill that would have banned political donations from developers. The proposed legislation, put by Greens MLC Lee Rhiannon, sought to break the link between donations by property developers and the politicians who make planning decisions. "By voting against this bill Labor and the Coalition have delivered a slap in the face to communities who are sick of seeing developers get their way with councils and the State Government", said Lee Rhiannon.* * * The ongoing struggle to defend the national broadcaster is taking place in all areas of its operations. The most recent is the ABC's broadcast of local sport, with ABC management dropping local coverage. The public is expressing its anger through protests at the ABC's Southbank offices in Melbourne after ABC management replaced Victorian television coverage of sport with a national package produced in Sydney. The national broadcaster's Australia-wide support group, Friends of the ABC, warns that local news coverage is also under threat. "Importantly, it is about maintaining localism, ensuring the ABC continues to be a national broadcaster, catering for all Australians."* * * Still on the ABC, last year the then Minister for Communications, Richard Alston, carried out a vendetta against the ABC with claims that its reportage of the attack and invasion of Iraq was biased. The Independent Complaints Panel, set up as a watchdog on the national broadcaster, eventually dismissed 51 of Alston's 68 complaints and fully upheld only two. The investigation of and responses to the complaints cost the ABC $195,000. The Australian Democrats are calling on the Government to fully compensate the ABC, and for it to pay the $12 million in outstanding debts for the cost of redundancies forced on it by the Government.* * * CAPITALIST HOG OF THE WEEK: is the Cole Royal Commission into the Building Industry. Set up by the Howard Government as a means to attack building unions, the Royal Commission was itself attacked last week by a former federal industrial relations commissioner, John O'Connor, who said it had accepted "false and distorted allegations" from employers. In addition, he said the Government's proposed Building Construction Act would in practice see the Government "take over and run" the industrial relations "problems" of the employers.