A matter of life, and death

HEALTH, WEALTH AND UNHAPPINESS

Women living in remote Australia die nearly two decades before their city counterparts, a landmark report from the Royal Flying Doctor Service has concluded. It found about 44,930 people in remote areas have no healthcare within an hour’s drive, a recommendation from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. “About 118,943 Australians live further than an hour away from a dentist, 208,247 have no nurse and 134,851 are not near any general mental health services,” The Courier-Mail ($) continues. On average, women die 19 years before those in major cities, and men die 13.9 years earlier. So what to do? Attracting more foreign doctors to our shores could help, Health Minister Mark Butler told Sky News yesterday. It comes as the government unveiled its Strengthening Medicare report on Friday — but the AMA president Steve Robson said there was “absolutely nothing” in the report which would improve GP care and wait times.

From essential to cosmetic medicine, and it may disturb you to hear that anyone with a basic medical degree can call themselves a cosmetic surgeon and perform tummy tucks, face lifts and liposuction. A 2022 review into the cosmetic industry resulted in the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) putting forward a new model, but the SMH says it falls woefully short and would “effectively allow non-surgeons to do operations”. Former president of the Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons Mark Ashton was also dismayed about the proposal. He said a royal commission into botched procedures is needed ASAP, arguing the regulator had “misread public concern about surgical safety”.

[free_worm]

CASHING OUT, CASHING IN

All NSW pokie machines could be cash-free in five years after Premier Dominic Perrottet’s sweeping reform passed a snap meeting of cabinet late last night, the SMH reports. It’d be the biggest overhaul since the first machine was turned on in 1956 — and includes interest-free loans for small and medium venues to buy cashless machines and $50,000 loans so they can bolster their revenue with live music and food, The Daily Telegraph adds. The legislation for the 2028 cashless machine deadline would go before Parliament after the March election, should Perrottet hold on to his Coalition reign.

Meanwhile booze and gambling companies gave $2.165 million to Australia’s major federal political parties, Michael West Media reports, which is an eyewatering 40% more than the year before. It was pretty much 50-50 across Labor ($1.12 million) and the Coalition ($1.05 million), with the total including lobbyist companies. But it isn’t the full picture. Any donations under $14,500 didn’t have to be reported to the AEC, with the total so-called “dark donations” thought to total over $100 million more. That threshold has indexed to $15,200 this financial year. It’s one of the many revelations in the AEC’s disclosure data dump — check out my coverage of the fossil fuels influence if you’re interested — and many, including the Greens, are calling for the federal government to slash the above threshold (it’s $1000 in several states) for better transparency.

WINNERS ARE GRINNERS

Labor has a convincing 10-point lead over the Coalition on a two-party preferred basis, according to the latest Newspoll in The Australian ($), and PM Anthony Albanese has record high approval ratings. The paper somewhat optimistically describes Opposition Leader Peter Dutton as having “made ground” on Albanese when it comes to who would make a better PM, which is a funny way to refer to Dutton increasing two points to 24%, compared with Albanese at more than double that (56%).

Meanwhile, Treasurer Jim Chalmers says people who don’t like his new essay about values-based capitalism are probably just out of step with the latest international economic policy analysis. Chalmers wrote a sprawling 6000-word think piece in The Monthly spruiking “impact investing” and a “new taxonomy” so investors can choose greener options, as Guardian Australia writes, but some detractors say it’s a far cry from Labor’s Hawke-Keating policy in the ’80s and ’90s. Of course it is, Chalmers countered, arguing our challenges now are very different. He spoke yesterday about his policy agenda for the new parliamentary year — highlights are a tax expenditure statement in February, a Reserve Bank review in March, as well as an intergenerational report and well-being framework later this year.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

A bloke named Kingsley Burnett was done with the icy snow storms and bitter temperatures in New York. It was time for sun, sand, and icy-cold beers instead, Burnett thought, googling flights to Sydney. He was stunned to come across a remarkably cheap flight — no easy feat in this over-inflated world — and snapped it up without hesitation. Finally the day came, and as Burnett sat back in his aeroplane seat, he breathed the sigh of both relief and anticipation often heard on a flight destined for a tropical paradise. When he looked out the small circular window from his seat, however, he saw snow-capped mountains. Hmm, he thought. That ain’t good. The plane landed in Sidney, Montana, as local news KTVQ tells it, where daily temperatures are hovering around zero degrees.

Burnett, whose bags were stuffed with his summer best, realised his mistake: the airport codes. “It’s a matter of acronyms. The S-Y-D [Sydney] as opposed to S-D-Y [Sidney]. Somebody has to fix that,” he said. Laughing, Burnett took himself to the American Airlines desk where he met Carol Castellano — who he said quickly became his “angel”. She promptly booked him in for a return flight to New York and an overnight stay at the local Boothill Inn. Incredibly, the hotel manager Shelli Mann said it was actually the second time they’d had a guest who was trying to get to Sydney, Australia. Burnett’s trip Down Under was rescheduled for June (I hope it’s not a cold winter?!) when he looks forward to seeing kangaroos for the first time. But the whole debacle wasn’t a total loss. “Montana didn’t have kangaroos. It had Carol. And that was good enough for me,” Burnett said.

Hoping you can make the best of your situation today.

SAY WHAT?

Most Australians don’t even know this because it doesn’t make the news [in Australia]. But in New Zealand, it’s seen as racist, it’s seen as hateful, and New Zealanders resent being treated this way — especially because it’s in no way reciprocated by the New Zealand government.

Joanne Cox

Stop shipping your criminals to New Zealand, the chair of the Oz Kiwi Association says. Changes under the Abbott government meant non-citizens who have a brush with the law here can be deported across the ditch, as Crikey explains, even if they have lived in Australia almost their entire life.

CRIKEY RECAP

Tony Abbott’s eulogy for George Pell is a masterclass in sycophancy

Charlie Lewis

Feb 03, 2023

78

“On a day for reflection, Abbott could summon no thoughts as to why survivors of abuse at the hands of the Catholic Church might not want to send their well-wishes to the departed cardinal — who a royal commission in 2017 found was ‘conscious of child sexual abuse by clergy’ as early as 1973 and had failed to act on complaints about priests.

“Abbott’s gag at their expense called to mind his wink to ABC presenter Jon Faine when talking to a pensioner who identified herself as a sex worker, or his wish that Julia Gillard would ‘make an honest woman of herself’. And so, to great applause, Abbott saw off his spiritual guide with a mixture of sycophancy and strange, cruel humour …”

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Christian Porter’s robodebt evidence offers rare glimpse into how politicians use talking points

Anton Nilsson

Feb 03, 2023

43

“The robodebt royal commission has provided rare insight into how Australian politicians seek to avoid accountability by using talking points to spin media coverage. Christian Porter admitted at a hearing on Thursday he had little personal insight into robodebt and relied heavily on talking points supplied by others when he responded to media criticism in a series of interviews in late 2016 and early 2017.

“At the time, Porter — who was the social services minister in Malcolm Turnbull’s ministry — was filling in for Alan Tudge as human services minister while Tudge was on leave. Criticism of the robodebt program was escalating in the press at the time.”

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Rachelle Miller’s robodebt evidence is an indictment of the government’s media collaborators

David Hardaker

Feb 03, 2023

111

“Her rise from graphic designer to media adviser was typical of the Coalition government and a firm pointer to its low regard for the media. When journalists made inquiries they more often than not dealt with a party operative.

“Miller’s evidence this week showed that for the Coalition the media was something to be manipulated for the government’s own ends. It also showed very clearly the transactional nature of its relationship with the Murdoch media in particular. Miller gave chapter and verse on how this was done.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

At least 23 dead as dozens of wildfires torch forests in Chile (Reuters)

Putin promised not to kill Zelenskyy: ex-Israeli PM (Al Jazeera)

Monaco goes to the polls: explore the principality’s unique political system (EuroNews)

Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s ex-president, dies aged 79 (BBC)

Iran’s supreme leader pardons ‘tens of thousands’ of prisoners [including protesters] (The Guardian)

US Navy divers work to recover debris from Chinese spy balloon (The New York Times)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Rates and recession: why the RBA is playing with fire with mortgage repayments set to keep rising in 2023 — Ian Verrender (ABC): “Even if we do somehow avoid the technical definition of recession — two consecutive quarters of economic contraction — that will be little consolation for those who can no longer meet the repayments on their homes. The pain is never equally spread and, this time around, it will be younger Australians who cop it in the neck. The betting is that our central bank will deliver another 0.25 percentage point rise. But it’s not a given. At the most recent meeting in December, the RBA board considered three alternatives: keeping rates on hold, a 0.25 hike and a double hike.

“Most highly paid bank economists are pushing the RBA to maintain the war against inflation and jack up borrowing costs after the December quarter inflation figures showed solid price rises in the services sector of the economy … From the middle of this year, however, a large number of fixed rate loans — many of which were taken out when the official cash rate was 0.1% — will be converting to variable rates and a huge jump in repayments. It’s been dubbed the mortgage cliff. As the pandemic lending boom gathered pace and home prices headed for the stars, new lending for housing hit record levels.”

Cynical politics left fire victims abandoned. Never again — Serena Joyner (The SMH) ($): “Living on Darug and Gundungurra country in the Blue Mountains is a privilege and one that we know comes with the ever-present need to plan and prepare for bushfires. With fires threatening the mountains on three sides for months that summer, I left early on several occasions, seeking refuge with family in the city — the kids and me with our pets; hubby staying to protect the house. There’s nothing special about our experiences. Many people were part of the emergency response, many were affected directly — some catastrophically. I still see evidence of the trauma in my community today: in the rapid flip to level-10 anxiety when a small fire breaks out; in the persisting rifts in small communities still struggling with the fallout; in the people still struggling to put their lives back together, to rebuild their homes or businesses.

“On a personal level, it’s a period of our lives that can still bring up powerful emotions, and sometimes tears. I still feel appalled that during that period our then prime minister left the country for a holiday. That sense of abandonment was reignited last week following the findings of an investigation by the NSW auditor-general into the delivery of a $108 million program meant to help communities such as ours devastated by those fires. The investigation found the office of the then NSW deputy premier, John Barilaro, altered its guidelines, resulting in Labor electorates missing out on much-needed emergency funding.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)

• NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet is among the speakers from politics, business, industry and academia at the Sydney Summit at the ICC.

Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)

• Managing editor of the Lowy Institute’s The Interpreter’s Daniel Flitton, with institute experts Meg Keen, Richard McGregor, Sam Roggeveen and Lydia Khalil will speak about what 2023 holds for Australia in the world, in an event at the National Gallery of Victoria.

Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)

• Australia’s ambassador for Climate Change Kristin Tilley, ANU Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions’ Mark Howden, and the University of Sydney’s Deanna D’Alessandro are among the speakers at ANU’s Climate Change update, to be held at the uni. You can also catch this one online.