ANALYSIS
New Health Minister Sussan Ley: “I’ve heard, I’ve listened and I’m deciding to take this action now.” Photo: Eddie Jim
Call it vacation interruptus. Squared.
Ley’s problem is that the task is unchanged.
One day after Tony Abbott interrupted his holiday to defend his government’s revamped Medicare rebate, his new health minister has terminated her holiday to dump it altogether.
If you think this a very bad look – and it is – just contemplate the alternative. “It was going to be carnage,” is how one insider described what awaited the federal government next week if it had held firm.
With patients facing the prospect of paying an extra $20 to see their GP from Monday, every doctor’s surgery loomed as a baseball bat to be wielded against the government.
And to what end? With opposition and crossbench senators committed to disallowing the rebate changes when Parliament resumes next month, the government was submitting itself to a huge dose of pain without a purpose.
So why did the Prime Minister give no hint of the backdown when he spoke to Fairfax radio on Wednesday, instead challenging Labor and other critics to come up with an alternative to make the health system sustainable?
Maybe he just needed more time to think it through. Maybe he needed new Health Minister Sussan Ley to deliver her blunt verdict on the mess she inherited.
Either way, after the two spoke on Wednesday, the government’s second major Medicare retreat was ticked off by the leadership group in a conference call on Thursday morning, with Abbott addressing his colleagues from his vacation spot on the New South Wales south coast.
The impression conveyed by an assured Ley was that this was a “government” decision that carried “her” stamp.
“People often think you send the health minister an email (and) she never reads it,” Ley told reporters. “In fact, I’ve read an awful lot over the last fortnight and… I’ve heard, I’ve listened and I’m deciding to take this action now.”
If the conclusion is that the government has started the new year in the same chaotic manner it finished the old one, with one of the biggest barnacles still attached, the Ley template for engaging, listening and acting could provide a “new way”. It might even put some pressure on Labor to offer its alternative to protect Medicare.
Ley’s problem is that the task is unchanged. It includes addressing the rising cost of Medicare and the challenge of “six-minute medicine” by introducing a price signal in the form of a “modest co-payment” for those with a capacity to pay.
No wonder the new minister has cut short her leave.