Nicola Roxon

Our government has been trying to ensure that the generous rebate to millions of Australians who take out private health insurance remains in place, and remains sustainable into the future.

To do this, we’ve tried to introduce a means test that stops support for a family earning more than a quarter of a millions dollars - but retains it for nearly 8 million low and middle income Australians, with a scale down for those in between.

Our last changes were met with predictions from the Liberals and insurers that the sky would fall in and that millions would drop out of insurance.

Continue reading "Let’s debate the rebate with some nice healthy facts" »

The Government has sealed the deal on health reforms, declaring them the biggest thing since Medicare - see the story here. But then, they would talk them up, wouldn’t they? The Punch decided to get Australian Medical Association President Dr Steve Hambleton’s verdict.

What’s your overall impression of the deal?

Hospitals definitely needed improved funding and the good signal is that the Prime Minister is actually taking notice of medical experts - so I guess (we should see) improved transparency and meaningful clinical engagement.

Continue reading "Punch Q & A: What’s all this health stuff?" »

The latest move by the Federal Government to make smoking a habit of the past is the latest salvo in the rapid expansion of the nanny state.

Recently the Health Minister Nicola Roxon re‑announced the government’s intention to force tobacco companies to adopt plain packaging for all cigarette brands.

From next year, smokers will be greeted with a standard olive‑green packet emblazoned with graphic health warnings screaming that “every cigarette is doing you damage”.

Continue reading "Nanny state’s thriving on tax harvested from smokers" »

Smoking inside will be banned in enclosed public spaces in China as of May 1 this year.

So that leaves at least 300 million people just five weeks to break the habit of a lifetime.

Given that China is the world’s largest producer of cigarettes and that one in three smokers worldwide are Chinese, this is a social undertaking of epic proportions.

Continue reading "Why China’s May 1 smoking ban won’t work" »

Just how Nicola Roxon took her seat at the head of the Health Ministers’ meeting in Hobart last week beggars belief.

Ms Roxon’s position as Federal Health Minister is now untenable.

Her strident and consistent advocacy for the Rudd health ‘reforms’ leave her now embarrassed, discredited and renders her impotent and therefore unable to remain in the health portfolio. Just as Peter Garrett had to be separated from the disastrous pink batts scandal and other wasteful green energy schemes (he should have been sacked), so too Nicola Roxon must be dispatched from health.

Continue reading "Roxon promises, but she doesn’t deliver" »

There’s an odd kind of acquiescence to broken political promises. It’s considered almost narky to politely point out to politicians that they have in fact broken a promise that helped have them elected.

Following the big sell the Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Health Minister Nicola Roxon are embarking on after the COAG health agreement, its worth remembering what we were actually promised in back in Kevin07 days.

Despite the celebrations that Gillard and Roxon are asking us to partake in, the ‘deal’ it represents is a failure of Rudd, Gillard and Roxon to implement what was supposed to be a revolutionary health agenda. It’s symptomatic of the kind of inertia Labor has encountered across its policy agenda and, consequently, its support base.

Continue reading "Health: Labor’s dead canary in the hospital hall" »

It being Melbourne Cup day yesterday you probably started drinking at about 10 am and missed this story, but in another shock horror study researchers have found that we as Australians are drinking more than ever.

Contrary to some studies that began to indicate a decline in our habit, the National Drug Research Institute has found we’re apparently putting it away like Brendan Fevola at Brownlow night. This increase has been attributed to the amount of wine that we’re drinking, because apparently we’ve just worked out how much alcohol the stuff has in it.

One might think that such a finding would elicit some kind of response from the Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon. Like an abusive PE teacher she frequently reminds us that we’ve been drinking too much, eating too much and we’re slob of a nation who will never make the athletics squad. It might even be an opportunity to look a bit further into something that every major health body in the nation and the Henry Review has championed: that is a volumetric tax on alcohol.

Continue reading "One tax you won’t hear the Government wine about" »

Never work with children, animals or the NSW Government. Nicola Roxon should consider adopting this updated truism of showbiz, as it might shield her from embarrassment the next time she’s tempted to hit the hustings with a member of the outfit which recorded a 25 per cent primary vote in a once-safe State Labor seat last month.

The federal Health Minister went to western Sydney this week, along with NSW Deputy Premier Carmel Tebbutt, and paid a visit to Westmead Hospital where she announced that the Gillard Government would spend $11.3 million to provide 44 new acute, sub-acute and intensive care beds.

A noble initiative but one which was overshadowed by a well-mannered woman who politely inquired as to whether her bed-ridden elderly father could perhaps be given a room with a toilet during his convalescence at Westmead.

Continue reading "The updated rules of showbiz and political campaigning" »

Sectarianism is back in Parliament, well according to Kevin Andrews it is anyway. It was an odd accusation that, on the face of it, didn’t make a great deal of sense.

Kevin Andrews jumped up at the end of question time and accused Health Minister Nicola Roxon of a sectarian attack on the leader of the opposition: “Mr Speaker, there should be no place for this foul sectarian attack we get from this minister in this place.”

It wasn’t initially clear what Andrews got so fired up about, but if you rewind a moment you can see Roxon’s backhander when answering a question about a new mother’s support help line.

Continue reading "Labor’s looking shaky on its home ground - health" »

This morning David Penberthy wrote about how worryingly effective health minister Nicola Roxon has been in office. He argued the preventative health agenda has taken hold of public policy, with millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money being directed towards stopping people doing some things that are generally seen as pleasurable, like eating bacon, sitting on the couch or having four middies of beer.

As part of this program the government will take a snapshot of the nation’s health by surveying 50,000 people about their lifestyle. Today it’s reported the survey will be compulsory. If you are selected and don’t answer the questions, you will be fined, $110 a day, until you agree to surrender information about your personal lifestyle choices to the government. You may also get a knock on the door at 3am from clipboard-wielding statisticians.

Here’s an excerpt from today’s story:

Continue reading "It’s the ABS: Come out with your urine sample in the air" »

The Rudd Government believes universal access to top quality health care and medicines is a right for every Australian, regardless of where they live or how much money they have. 

Most Australians feel the same. It’s part of our “fair go” tradition, something that is I believe is one of the greatest things about Australia. However, tradition isn’t going to help our struggling health system.  We know that left unchecked, health costs were set to eclipse entire state budgets by the middle of the century.

That is why the Rudd Government embarked upon the most significant reforms to the health system since the introduction of Medicare.  Only a Labor Government – the founders of Medicare - would make such an undertaking.

Continue reading "The unhealthy opposition to our prescription for reform" »

While the world is held ransom by a volcano that looks like its name was invented by a process of fist mashing the keyboard, the future of the country’s health system is being held ransom to a similarly incomprehensible force of nature in Canberra: a meeting between state premiers and the Prime Minister.

In fact, to give volcanos credit they only erupt every 20 years or so, are relatively easy to understand and haven’t inconvenienced anyone on this level for quite a while. There seems to be a COAG meeting every three weeks under Kevin Rudd and this health debate has been the most torturous so far.

To say this is an important issue is an understatement - it is probably the most important policy issue for the Government to get right before the election, because of both the desire for action in the electorate and yet unfulfilled promises for that change.

Continue reading "Will we see an eruption out of Canberra today?" »

IT’S not just that Health Minister, Nicola Roxon has acknowledged that taxes may need to increase to fund Labor’s health policy in the longer-run. Or, that Treasurer Wayne Swan has admitted a full federal take-over of the nation’s 764 public hospitals could yet be pursued.

Such frankness should be welcomed in our political leaders. It’s just that in both cases, the comments underscore the fact that in complex reforms, there is many a slip `twixt policy cup and delivery lip.

Put another way, there is a huge distance and many hurdles between Kevin Rudd’s radical health reform promise, and the tangle of changes needed to make things better for patients. Those ``slips’’ are already apparent.

Continue reading "How the health overhaul became a big stink over tax" »

Sometimes you wonder whether you’re living in a parallel universe.

Like that South Park episode where Cartman is nice all the time, or in Seinfeld when Elaine meets Bizarro Jerry.

Or when the Federal Health Minister – who’s also the mother of a small child – won’t ban a toxic chemical that’s making babies sick.

Continue reading "The cost of inaction? Babies exposed to toxins" »

For those who might have been pondering the issue, I can today tell you that Health and Ageing Minister Nicola Roxon has great breasts.

This is not my personal rating. I have taken the advice of an expert. Two Fridays ago mother-of-one Roxon gave a speech and then took questions from an audience in Canberra. A woman rose to compliment Roxon on the number of ministerial tasks she was managing. Slightly embarrassed by the praise she replied, “I have broad shoulders.”

“Yes,’’ continued the voice in the audience, “you do have broad shoulders. And great breasts.”

Continue reading "Women help give Labor breast chance of victory" »

A new preventative health agency is set to be established in the coming months that will tell people what they can eat, drink and certainly not smoke.

It will also attempt to monitor how much of this bad behaviour we are indulging in by working out how fat we’re getting. It’s also likely going to aim to get us fit and exercising as “communities”. 

So be prepared to be awoken by a megaphone wielding Nicola Roxon who will no doubt lecture you on why you shouldn’t be hung-over as she accompanies you to the local common for some invigorating star jumps.

The fat patrol are no longer vigilantes, they’ve been given their own agency.

Continue reading "Open up, it’s the fat police" »

Before the advent of swine flu, Nicola Roxon’s most notable public outing was during the 2007 election campaign when Health Minister Tony Abbott failed to show up for a televised debate at the National Press Club.

Finding herself in the middle of a politician’s fantasy – a forum on national television to herself – Roxon showed a good combination of humility and pugnacity by addressing the audience herself, and making the point to Abbott that he should have organised his time better.

Her quiet sledging drew the above, infamous response from Abbott: “That’s bullshit.”

Continue reading "Quiet toughness of woman made famous by swine flu" »

In the heady days of the 2007 election campaign the Australian people were given a promise. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and the Health Minister Nicola Roxon said if public hospitals did not get their act together by mid-2009 the Commonwealth would take control of 750 hospitals nation-wide from state governments. With June 2009 approaching, it appears state hospitals aren’t looking much better. A lot of them are looking worse, and this may force to the Government to face up to what was a disingenuous election promise because everybody knows this was never going to happen.

Between babies being miscarried in toilets and doctors being forced to pay for their own supplies, the NSW hospital system only needs some kind of zombie virus to complete the entire set of next week’s episode of 20 to 1: World’s Greatest PR Disasters. In fact the NSW Health Minister John Della Bosca might welcome the zombie plague as the ravenous hordes would be likely to reduce the number of patients on elective surgery waiting lists.

Continue reading "Remember that thing you said about hospitals, PM?" »