Beoz

I can't see where you are headed with this.

You are throwing around ideas (just like the LNP) that could help improve the system or cripple it but on the other hand, suggesting making changes is bad thing. (like the ALP)

Can't have your cake and eat it too.

And on you last line ........ What utter rubbish .

Beoz

Just curious, sounds like an interesting idea but how would you implement such a process? Where would you get the tech and resources to do such a thing?

BadgeIsBack

The SMS situation is I believe criminal. It's not often that you see lows like this.
As for the unions : Trade unions should not even get involved : they are supposed to
bargain for their members. Personally I want to see politics divorced from unionism where union members run their own hierarchies to bargain with employers and involvement in them is a bar to standing for the lower or upper house.

I want to see the end of Shorten : his whole political being is flawed :he's married into Australian 'royalty' : had a top education and yet had to resort to a union career to further himself rather than the people he claims to stand for. And people accuse Turnbull of elitism!

Ozzie : I saw no mention of penalty rates in this election : when did you lose penalty rates?

GarryP

Fair enough. Of course we also have to ban big business from interfering too. No backhanders, no lobbying, no gifts of jobs for favours, etc....

bcworld

Exactly, that's no different.

Beoz

I have no problem with that. No donations that help send lying text messages. All good.

How's your procedure going on implementing a cardless Medicare?

GarryP

I kind of ignored that comment since I assumed you were playing dumb.

If you really don't realise how a National Health Service works you probably should google it. Clue is 'free at the point of use' means no co-payments or other mucking about. You make an appointment, turn up, see doctor, walk away. Doctor gets paid an agreed national rate, etc.

ozzieeagle

There has been lot's of "noise" from the Liberals re changes to Penalty rates in the last terms. It's very high on their agenda.

The tide is turning on penalty rates, but how far will Turnbull go? - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

There are also areas of employment where people have signed away their traditional rights to Penalty rates. Although it's a sign of the times, the vast majority of people currently on award wages are not ready for this step yet.

If the Liberals had of managed to gain power in both houses, it's odds on Penalty rates would have been one of the first issues on their radar.

That issue is now at least 3-4 years away.... even more if they go into power sharing and upset their traditional vote with watered down policy and broken promises.


Even a one of pay rise of 20 pct is not enough to compensate most employees on penalty rates.... So this political momentum away from shift allowances is something that's going to have to be carefully thought through. It's an issue that is high on every single current EBA.

bcworld

Maybe whoever was responsible for the SMS could just say it was meant as a joke?

jad n rich

Son was saying a lot of unrest in the student ranks of the medical and related students over penalty rates. Thinks a lot of protesting will go on.

Messy.

Beoz

I know how the NHS works when it comes to GP's, but there are more services covered by Medicare than just GP's

In the UK, I know that trying to see a GP you are not registered with is hard work and often impossible. Trying to register with a new GP after you move house can also be riddled with closed doors.

Trying to get clarification from a GP's surgery in the UK when you are non resident but from a reciprocal country for a free service or not - well don't start me on that.

Tracking usage of the system is virtually impossible without some form of ID. If you can't track what is being used in the system and by who, how do you go about making it better?

I think you know very well all of these things can be solved by better use of technology and that technology cannot be implemented by Medicare or the NHS itself. It needs to be outsourced.

ozzieeagle

Yes understandable.... Let's put it this way.... It's extremely high on the agenda for those people receiving them. They are being chipped away under the current term with hours being mucked around with.

The fact that some people can say, there is no issue for 50 pct of the country on this, shows the lack of insight to the extent that it's almost like saying "Let the Proles get on with it" type of attitude.

We're obviously not getting the message through... Best up the Ante on on Penalty rates by the looks, especially as to how many and who it affects. The Students need to make a hell of a lot of noise about this as far as I'm concerned.


Typically Penalty rates, turn a 50K base wage into a 80K wage....not sure how the powers that be are going to get around this, without a hell of a lot of issues..... trust me it affects 100,000's of workers.

Beoz

That is pure deception and on par with the ALP campaign.

GarryP

Err, as you demonstrated above with your referenced article, its best done if its NOT outsourced.

And if you need any further evidence of that, just look at the NPfIT, where £12bn was wasted trying to get outsourcers to do something that should have been done incrementally inhouse.

knockoff nige

Whichever bits need privatising. What a cop out. The LNP's recent record of trying to privatise or deregulate is for the purpose of cutting costs. Not to improve the service. They chanted over and over how we were in a budget emergency, then donated $9 billion to the federal reserve and scrapped a source of income in the carbon tax. Their agenda wasn't to fix our economy or improve public services. It was to demolish everything the ALP built in the 6 years previous. Medicare was definitely in The Abbott governments sights. Joe Hockey preached about it enough and slammed his own electorate for a 'abusing' bulk billing. His claim was that visiting the doctor shouldn't be free. Ignoring the fact that we already pay a levy along with private health insurance (something that actually needs to be made public). A scare campaign but a very worthy one in my opinion. If it was Bill Shortens belief that the LNP would privatise it, then maybe he done no worse than Abbott accusing Gillard of managing a slush fund or Turnbull and the Yute-gate.

A real shame that some people like yourself have their priorities all wrong.