Update 9:15PM: Appearing on Sky News this evening the crucial three independents Bob Katter, Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor say they still have not made up their minds over which party to support. It continues.
Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie’s decision to side with Julia Gillard’s Labor Government is not surprising.
The intelligence officer turned Iraq war whistler blower was basically labelled a clear and present danger to national security by the Howard Government, formally had a fling with The Greens and now holds what is usually a safe Labor seat – hardly paints the picture of someone who would hand Government to the Coalition. Like the laughable attempt by Bob Brown to tell us the day after the election the Greens could side with any party, Wilkie’s decision ended what was a series of false flirtations with Tony Abbott.
But by revealing that Tony Abbott, like Dr Evil making an ambit claim, was willing to write a $1 billion cheque for Royal Hobart Hospital, Wilkie could have done more damage to Abbott than anything Treasury can come up with.
With the debate over the Coalition’s costings blowout sounding like an argument between quantum physicists in complexity and rhetoric (Do black holes exist? How are they made? What’s Joe Hockey doing there?), the hospital promise crystallises the attack on Abbott and would raise all sorts of questions in the minds of the other independents.
If the problems with the costing form the backbone of a complex attack on the Abbott’s economic credentials, then the Royal Hobart promise is a nice picture book that everyone will understand: the guy was willing to give me billion dollars just like that.
Wilkie went on to label the promise as generous, but felt it “unethical” to accept it. This criticism is somewhat disingenuous from someone who had the hospital number one on his list of pork barrel demands in his negotiations.
Abbott gave in to a demand while attempting to outbid the competition. It may have been an irresponsible promise, but then again, going around with a list of expensive demands because you hold the balance of power could be viewed as irresponsible as well.
At any rate it will stick to Abbott, as well it should.
For her part the Prime Minister will cough up $100 million immediately and $565 million eventually for the hospital, 60 per cent of which would be covered by the Commonwealth.
Gillard has also promised to bring forward $1.8 billion worth of funds for rural hospitals around Australia, but it’s unclear exactly when this would happen.
Wilkie’s big win was to get a promise on the introduction of uniform “pre-commitment” smart card technology, allowing gamblers to control the amount they spent before starting. Once again it’s unclear how Gillard will actually provide this, given the states are addicted to the revenues of these stupid shiny machines and her Government already ignored the recommendations of the Productivity Commission on this issue.
But that will be a problem for another day, because right now Gillard only needs to offer up a few more cherries to get her own jackpot.
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