Yes, Medicare is under attack

David Arthur writes: Re. “On Campaign Scorecard” (yesterday).  Hear-hear to Geoff Edwards yesterday and his critique of the piece “Crikey Campaign Scorecard: Scare campaigning sets the tone”. I gave up reading Crikey’s daily Election Wrap some weeks ago because it’s such a frivolous waste of my time.  And particularly disappointing lately is Bernard Keane, once a regular source of enlightenment and a must read, but now very ho-hum.

I would have thought Labor’s Medicare privatisation campaign is not just justifiable as an election tactic but essential, one to be drawn to the voter’s attention. Can you really trust the Malcolm (but actually his back-screen puppet masters) with his hand on heart, ‘we won’t touch it’ stuff? Medical care and education should be the two pillars of our Australian society. But look at the demise of our education system over the last ten or so years and the Lib’s re-emphasis from public to private schooling. The shifting of financial resources to the latter is clandestine but deliberate. And the decline of our educational ranking compared to other comparable counties speaks volumes. The voter should not forget it was all carefully championed by John Howard and his likeminded travellers because exclusivity, private ownership and the profit motive are in their genes. The demise of the tax payer owned vocational TAFE system, once acknowledged as the best in the world, is criminal in its destruction. But, of course for some, these changes brought with them opportunities for incredible wealth. Do Bernard and some of the Crikey Scorecard cohort really think that the Neocons and their supporters don’t see Medicare as the next Golden Goose?