An election on health will make Abbott happy

Straight to the heart of the matter. If there’s one subject where Tony Abbott does know what he’s talking about it is health. He served in the job of Health Minister, with some distinction while making no noticeable mistakes, under John Howard. He went through first hand the sometimes agonising business of dealing with eight state and territory health administrations. At one stage he even publicly flirted with the idea of a complete federal takeover of the public hospital system as a way of ending his frustration at the difficulty of getting changes made. He abandoned that notion after some more mature reflection because of the difficulty of actually running such a thing centrally.

Now the Liberal Leader finds himself in the position where his political opponent has made the policy he rejected as impractical the central issue in the forthcoming election campaign. Tony Abbott, I am sure, could not be happier about that choice. He is perfectly equipped to debate with Kevin Rudd over this issue.

His opening salvo, delivered from the desert outside Alice Springs, got straight to the heart of the matter. “Mr Rudd,” he said, “made another promise on health today, but we know it is just more talk.”

This all-talk, no-action theme is one the Liberals clearly find is hitting home with the public and the long-term nature of the Labor health changes makes it very appropriate to keep trotting out.

Normal interest rates. As the economy returns to normal growth, interest rates, the Reserve Bank tells us, will return to normal levels. And that, predict most pundits, means Australians will soon be paying much more for their home mortgages. Economists seem to take a positive delight in forecasting another half, three-quarters, one or even one and a half a percent more in rates before the end of the year.

But perhaps things are not really as grim as all that. I have done a rough-and-ready update of a Reserve Bank graph showing the official cash rate it sets and the read cash rate calculating after allowing for the quarterly weighted-median inflation rate. The green lines show the difference after this week’s rise and that adjusted inflation figure from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. You can see for yourself that we are not far away from a normal position.

The one variable to come, of course, is the future inflation rate but there are no signs yet that it is accelerating greatly with the weighted-median in the last four quarters going down from 1.2 percentage points to 0.8, 0.8 and 0.7.

Hoping the romantic distraction goes away. South Australian Premier Mike Rann will be hoping that a guilty plea in the Adelaide Magistrates Court this morning will mark the end of his relationship with a former Parliament House waitress as an election issue. Richard Wayne Phillips, 56, was charged with hitting Rann with a rolled-up magazine up to four times at a chance meeting at the Wine Centre last October. The ABC reports that Magistrate Cathy Deland accepted that Phillips was frustrated after unsuccessfully trying to contact Rann about the Premier’s relationship with his estranged wife.

She said she took account of factors including Phillips’ long-term psychological treatment over the relationship and the effect a conviction could have on his overseas business travel. The magistrate said Rann’s position was not particularly relevant to the case.

No conviction was recorded and she imposed a $1000, two-year good behaviour bond.