Remember that thing you said about hospitals, PM?

Victoria would not stop crowing about how great its hospitals were for years, telling anyone who would listen how quickly and cheerfully those who ended up in Melbourne emergency wards were treated. This was until it turned out the great figures were a big scam being pulled by a series of hospitals to attract more money from the Federal Government. The Victorian Minister Daniel Andrews initially denied the claims, but then recently had to not only accept they were true but admit the problem was worse than any of the initial reports suggested.

Things have been made doubly awkward for the Rudd Government by the fact that two of the three options by its own health commission, released in its draft paper, advocated a federal takeover. Word out of the commission is that the majority want to see a federal takeover but know it’s not what the Government wants to hear, so will probably have to settle for recommending the status quo in its final report.

If Rudd or Roxon wanted to be really tricky they could quibble with the wording of the promise which was actually: “if - and only if - state and territory governments had not begun implementing an agreed national plan by mid-2009” would Labor take over hospitals.

But splitting hairs on committing to a plan to improve and actually improving by mid-2009 would be a shocking look. What people gleaned from the statements from Rudd at the time was that he would force them to actually improve by mid-2009. This was the impression the Government has been happy to run with in the press. It would be particularly bad in the context of Rudd also claiming to put an end to “the blame game” around hospitals.

It is obvious that Rudd and Roxon don’t want anything to do with running hospitals. Every waiting room tragedy, every zombie plague would be in their lap. The fact that they’ve added the unnecessary qualification of a referendum on the issue is further evidence of this. As a senior official in the Victorian Health Minister’s office told me: “The Feds don’t want to run hospitals in a month of Sundays”. 

Nonetheless June 1st is next Monday.