Tony Abbott didn’t say it, but his Medicare co-payment backdown is a belated admission that a centrepiece of his May budget was unfair to the elderly, to families with young children and the vulnerable.
Just like the promise that his signature parental leave scheme will be better targeted and that modest entitlements for defence personnel facing a pay cut will be restored. In each case, the unfairness of the original decision is the common denominator.
But will Abbott be given a tick by voters for removing his third “barnacle” in little more than one week, or punished for the “raggedness” that preceded the cave-in and the questions that remain unanswered?
Will voters accept that “a good policy” has been improved after the cabinet took on board the “principal concerns” of the community, or judge that a bad policy (which broke a promise) has simply been modified?
Will they accept Abbott’s characterisation of “an intelligent and sophisticated response” from government to the “quite reasonable observations” of the backbench and the community”? Or will they see the retreat as a sign of panic?
Once again, Abbott cannot bring himself to say he got it wrong, but instead chooses to blame Labor for leaving a budget mess that forced the government to make tough decisions. It matters not that revenue raised goes to a medical research fund, not the budget bottom line.
As he described it, this was a best practice example of how the system should work. “The glory of our system is you get proposals, you get reactions, you get improvements, and you get solutions” is how he put it.
Really? Less than a week ago, after government insiders leaked that the co-payment would he scrapped, Treasurer Joe Hockey insisted it was still government policy and Abbott and his Health Minister were defending it.
Now, there is only an “optional” $5 co-payment that will not apply to pensioners, concession card-holders, children, veterans and pathology and diagnostic imaging services.
But the Parliament has risen and the changes will require legislation when it returns next year as well as regulations that can be disallowed.
Moreover, Labor will still argue that Abbott has a GP tax that is a broken promise – and one he intends to extend as soon as the opportunity presents itself.
Abbott insists the revised package will still raise as much as the original package ($3.5 billion over four years), but will the limited and optional co-payment send the same price signal that was considered essential to secure the future of the health system? He believes it will.
The reaction from doctors is cautious: welcoming the concessions, but apprehensive that general practice will be weakened and that they must decide whether to charge the co-payment or take a pay cut.
Though Abbott cannot bring himself to say it, the penny has dropped that he squandered way too much political capital by doing what he promised voters he would not do before the election.
This is implicit in Abbott’s declaration that his government is “determined to be better and better in the weeks and months ahead”.
Now, the mantra is that the government is capable of “listening, learning and improving” and it will be best received by MPs who return to their electorates bruised and bewildered by the position they find themselves in.
Will there be more backdowns and tweaks to address the fairness deficit? You bet. As Abbott put it: “Watch this space.”