It’s hard to imagine what was going through the mind of the federal Opposition leader when he decided to leverage the memory of his dead mother to launch “Mediscare 2.0“.
Anthony Albanese today posted on Facebook a picture of his dead mum along with a long commentary describing how she suffered needlessly at the hands of greedy politicians like Scott Morrison who “is trying to cut Medicare funding right now.”
He was probably thinking how wonderfully Bill Shorten’s Mediscare scandal worked in 2016 when voters got fraudulent text messages purporting to be from Medicare warning of the Coalition’s plans to “privatise Medicare”. Of course, only voting for Labor could save Australia.
Anyone else get a text from Medicare today? @abcnews #ausvotes pic.twitter.com/kLv4zf5WKy
— Monique Ross (@rossmonique) July 2, 2016
Likewise today, he claimed, “Scott Morrison wants to cut Medicare funding for surgeries that Australians need.”
That’s a lie, a claim he can’t possibly provide any source for and one which holds zero credibility in the mind of any but the most cynical of rusted on Labor-voters.
It’s appalling that the Opposition Leader would exploit his dead mother’s memory for such deceitful, cheap political point-scoring. It doesn’t say much for the voters it elicits support from either.
The perfect test as always is to put the shoe on the other foot and imagine if Scott Morrison posted a picture of himself with his dead mother and claimed she suffered unreasonably at the hands of Labor policies twenty years ago. Hashtag “Scotty from photo op’s” would be the least of the howls of indignation at the transparent exploitation. Editorials on ScoMo’s desperate strategies to repair his “problem with women” would litter the Lying Harlot Media.
Families are traditionally out of bounds for media and politicians. You don’t bring them into the arena. You talk about the electorate and find anecdotes of the people you represent, and never parade the people you’d object being brought into any debate by your political enemies.
What Albo’s shamelessly cynical sermonising says loudest to anyone with even half an inclination to look beneath his surface emotionalism is that there is nothing in the more recent twenty years more reliable upon which to build his criticism.
Indeed, even the Lying Harlot Media couldn’t find too much to hang their hat on when reporting on the changes to Medicare rebates.
A taskforce of independent medical experts consulting with patients and GPs for the last five years has reviewed the Medicare Benefits Scheme (MBS) and more than 5,700 rebate items. It was launched because healthcare professionals and the broader community were complaining the MBS didn’t always reflect best medical practice.
For example, the MBS Review Taskforce recommended cutting rebates for outdated procedures no longer in wide use by surgeons or superseded by newer procedures. Why subsidise invasive, open surgery with all its risks and expenses when safer, equally effective keyhole surgeries could be covered more economically?
Albo’s Facebook post implies this would prolong his mother’s suffering, but says Labor will “protect Medicare”.
Private Healthcare Australia CEO Rachel David said funding has actually gone up for most orthopaedic surgery procedures.
The biggest genuine concern of most people, apart from Albo’s mum, is that implementation of the changes is being rushed. The Australian Medical Association is fully behind the changes, but is concerned it’s happening a bit too fast for the sector to adapt its accounting processes.
Perhaps Scott Morrison should take a leaf out of Labor’s book on winning elections with dead voters, or committing election fraud via text messages the night before voting day.
Or perhaps voters should be less gullible and easily manipulated by cynical politicians.
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Dave Pellowe is a Christian writer & commentator, founder of The Good Sauce, convener of the annual Australian Church And State Summit and host of Good Sauce's weekly The Church And State Show, also syndicated on ADH TV. Since 2016 Dave has undertaken the mission of arming Christians to influence culture through events from Perth to Auckland, videos, podcasts and articles published in multiple journals across Australia and New Zealand. [more]
