Dracula in charge of the blood bank

NSW Premier Bob Carr's proposal to hand over responsibility 
for the health system of Australia to the Howard Government will 
inevitably lead to more privatisation and the introduction of 
even more elements of the chaotic US-style private, managed 
health care system. It will lead to Medicare being undermined 
further and its replacement as a universal public health system 
by ever-shrinking "safety nets".

The Federal Government is already responsible for aged-care 
services. Everyone knows that as these services have been 
privatized, it has been starved of funds while costs have jumped. 
The number of health care workers is far below what is needed for 
this service to operate efficiently for the growing number of 
elderly people in the community.

Even Bob Carr complains of the number of elderly people using the 
emergency departments of public hospitals or staying in hospital 
beds because they cannot find places in retirement villages.

He said, "Mums bring their sons with soccer injuries into 
emergency departments. These are GP style problems. At the other 
end, there is a shortage of aged-care beds." What will handing 
over control to the Commonwealth do to remedy these problems.

But Bob Carr, while recognising this state of affairs, is willing 
to hand the whole of the public hospital system over to the 
Federal Government. He fails to draw the conclusion that the 
responsibly for this state of affairs rests with the Federal 
Government, the same Government to which he proposes to hand the 
rest of the health system.

It is fairly obvious that Bob Carr's proposal springs from the 
problems that the NSW State Government is experiencing in 
administering the public hospital system. Rather than setting 
conditions of a hand-over such as the maintenance of Medicare as 
a universal system and its extension to dental and optical 
services and the full funding of the public health and hospital 
system, he meekly talks of the Howard Government now having a 
mandate and that it is necessary to accept "reality".

Assault on education

At the same time as proposing to hand over the health system, Bob 
Carr has called for the Commonwealth to give the States full 
responsibility for the education system including TAFE.

The Prime Minister immediately rejected Carr's proposal saying 
that the Commonwealth Government is adamant that any changes must 
not undercut his election promises. One such promise was to 
establish a system of mostly private technical colleges which 
would be funded directly by the Commonwealth and is clearly 
designed to compete with and destroy the existing TAFE colleges. 
Teachers would be employed on individual employment contracts and 
paid according to merit, thereby breaking down existing 
conditions of teachers employed in the public system. The union 
would be excluded.

The Howard Government will continue its assault on public 
education, including its massive support for private schools, and 
extend the privatisation process into TAFE.

The responses to the Carr Government's proposals by various 
public figures fail to recognise the inevitable consequences of 
Federal Government control of either health or education and that 
the essence of the policies of both Federal and State Governments 
is to push for more privatisation. Their aim is to turn both 
health and education into "for profit" services. The result would 
be greater inefficiencies, higher costs, and a deterioration in 
services for the majority of the community, particularly for 
those on lower incomes.

The President of the Australian Medical Association (AMA) 
described Carr's proposal as "exciting", believing that it would 
end "blame shifting and cost-shifting" and could result in a more 
effective health system. Other commentators claimed that a single 
source of funding would unify the health system.

The reality is that the difficulties facing both public health 
and public education are not as a result of bureaucracy or even 
the undoubted conflicts between Federal and State Governments. 
The real source of the present crisis is to be found in the 
policies of both and State and Federal Governments pushing for 
privatisation of the public health and public education systems 
and the starving of these services of the necessary funds. 

Putting health under the control of the Howard Government is 
tantamount to putting Dracula in charge of the blood-bank.