Health News at Your Fingertips

Meanwhile in Victoria, premier Daniel Andrews is doing the media rounds in the lead-up to the state budget tomorrow.

It comes as Victoria’s treasurer Tim Pallas has chosen food bank OzHarvest as his official Victorian Budget charity for 2022. He confirmed the selection with a donation made today.

Pallas:

OzHarvest is an incredible Australian success story that prevents good food from going to waste every day and puts it on the tables of families across our community.

Here’s the latest on what we can expect tomorrow from AAP:

Health spending will be a centrepiece of the Victorian budget, setting the scene for an election stoush on the issue after two pandemic-plagued years.

Andrews described the 2022/23 state budget, the eighth to be handed down by Pallas on Tuesday, as a pandemic repair plan. He told reporters on Monday:

The centrepiece will be … a massive investment in health and hospitals to repair the damage that the pandemic has done.

This is all about making sure we’ve got more staff to treat more patients to catch up on some of the care that had to be deferred for safety’s sake.

Although scant on details, Andrews alluded to changes to encourage Victorians to see a GP for specialist referral sooner, ensuring fewer end up in the public hospitals:

These are the legacies of a one-in-100-year event and the best way to deal with those is to invest. Some would urge us to cut. That’s not what we do.

The opposition has flagged health will be a key election plank, previously promising to build a $750m hospital in Mildura and fix the state’s embattled triple zero call service if it wins office in November.

Looks like they brought the weather with them!

Pyne and Emerson were also asked about tomorrow’s interest rate announcement. Earlier today, Morrison said if the RBA lifted rates to tackle inflation, it would have “nothing to do with politics”.

The last time the rates were lifted was November, 2010. They were also lifted during the election campaign in 2007, which John Howard went on to lose. Pyne said interest rates were much higher at the time than they are now.

Asked in a word which side a rate rise would hurt more, Emerson replied:

It hurts the Coalition. It’s the direction. Christopher is right about the size but it’s the direction. If it’s going up people will say it’s going to go up again and again and again.That’s probably what the Reserve Bank will say. Even if it doesn’t increase it tomorrow.

Fran Kelly:

That wasn’t exactly one word, but Christopher?

Pyne:

It hurts the Coalition.

Emerson:

That was three, four.

Pyne:

A lot less than yours.

A fun “blast from the past” on ABC News.

Campaign veterans Craig Emerson and Christopher Pyne were just up weighing in on where their former parties are placed.

Pyne said Labor was in the “box seat” but three weeks is a long time in politics (as is three years). He also said he found it “curious” Labor chose to launch their campaign in Perth.

If you had already believed you were going to win the two or three seats that you need to win to form government out of Western Australia, you wouldn’t need to have the launch in Perth. I would have thought you’d have it in Queensland or in Sydney. So I found that an interesting aspect to the launch. They obviously still feel the need to work hard in those Perth seats. They haven’t got them in their column yet that was my takeout from the launch. I thought the launch was muted. They didn’t go for a glitz or glamorous campaign launch. They usually do. That’s an interesting development. We’ll see how it plays out.

Today’s campaign catchup is up – hooray!

As we reach the halfway point of the election campaign, political editor Katharine Murphy has been following the opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, around the country. She speaks to Jane Lee from Brisbane about who Albanese is trying to convince to vote for his party and where Labor needs to win to form government.

Crossbenchers back call for royal commission into robodebt scandal

Luke Henriques-Gomes

Labor’s call for a royal commission into the robodebt scandal has won the support of two lower house independents.

Indi MP Helen Haines and Clark MP Andrew Wilkie told Guardian Australia they supported a royal commission into the fiasco which saw the Coalition government forced to reach a $1.8bn settlement over the unlawful Centrelink program.

Haines said:

I support a royal commission into the robodebt scheme, which has caused harm to hundreds of thousands of Australians.

I support transparency and good governance, and from everything we have seen in the past seven years, this program has not had either of those things.

While there have been a number of inquiries and court processes surrounding robodebt, an independent, thorough investigation with the powers of a royal commission would provide the level of scrutiny needed to ensure future governments learn lessons from this program.

Wilkie, who was one of the first MPs to raise concerns about the robodebt scheme back in 2016, said:

I support the ALP’s commitment to a robodebt royal commission should they win government. Too many people were hurt, some even taking their own lives, for this matter to be consigned to history.

There is also the worrying element that robodebt is a symptom of a bigger and still ongoing systemic problem. Centrelink debt notices are still being raised which are accompanied by no explanation and in many cases seem to be unfounded.

Other lower house crossbenchers were more circumspect when quizzed about the royal commission proposal by Guardian Australia.

Mayo MP Rebekha Sharkie said she supported the “creation of an enquiry into robodebt. I believe there are major lessons to be learnt from this failed scheme that can applied to other areas of public administration”.

“However, I have concerns about any incoming government politicising royal commissions,” she said:

We are still implementing recommendations from previous royal commissions, including on aged care and youth detention, which the community is waiting to be seen through.

Zali Steggall, who holds the seat of Warringah, said only that repeated calls for royal commissions into questions of government integrity reinforced the need for a federal Icac.

Zoe Daniel, who is running a high-profile campaign against Liberal Tim Wilson in Goldstein, said:

This was a shocking episode and should never be repeated. If I’m elected, I would want to see the exact terms of reference being proposed before making a decision.

The Greens were the first to call for a royal commission in June 2020, a few months after Guardian Australia revealed the government had privately accepted the scheme was unlawful.

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, said on Saturday he believed the saga had been “addressed”.

But Labor’s government services spokesman, Bill Shorten, who helped organise a class action into the scandal, said the royal commission was needed to get to the bottom of how the fiasco had occurred and who was responsible.

Q:

There were a few grumbles within the Victorian Liberal Party last time around that Josh Frydenberg might have drawn a few resources or a few too many resources into the protection of Kooyong to try and save him, given his seniority. Would that equally apply that criticism this time around, given the struggle seems even more intense for him?

Paterson:

I think that’s an unfair criticism if anyone has made it. I haven’t heard it directly. Josh Frydenberg funds and resources his own campaign and then some. He’s one of our most compelling supporters of any candidates in Victoria, whether that’s through fundraising, or volunteering. He’s very highly regarded by the Victorian people. He remembers how he stood up for them during the pandemic and they recognise him on the national platform.

Paterson is asked how much trouble Josh Frydenberg is in at the moment in Kooyong, who is “pedalling particularly hard” while facing off against Independent Monique Ryan.

He says Frydenberg has “never taken the people of Kooyong for granted”.

I live in Kooyong and I’m a constituent of Josh’s and a colleague. It’s amazing how he’s been able to maintain a very high level of commitment and work in the local electorate while balancing the incredibly important job of being treasurer of Australia, particularly during the pandemic when he was called upon so much to design policies like jobkeeper and others.

He’s working very hard to earn the support of the people of Kooyong and I think he’s got a very compelling offering because if they vote for him they’ll continue to be represented at the highest levels in Canberra and have influence over the direction of the country.

Liberal senator and chair of parliament’s Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, James Paterson is appearing on ABC News, in the wake of reassurance from the Solomon Islands high commissioner that Australia remains the security of partner of choice for the pacific nation.

Paterson says he “welcomes” the comments and statements about the two nations’ shared values.

I welcome his commitment the government of the Solomon Islands will release their security agreement with China. I think that’s important. I welcome him restating Australia is the Solomon Islands partner of choice when it comes to security matters. That’s how we’ve regarded the relationship and it’s good to have that official confirmation.

When the Solomon Islands needs assistance it is Australia that steps in and provides it, whether it’s the Ramsay intervention over many years which successfully brought stability and security to people of Solomon Islands or more recent assistance provided by the Australian federal police and their armed forces when we were called upon to do so.