Finally we’re in sight of the finish line. Celebrate with the social media comic stylings of the ALP and the Greens. The Coalition apparently has no sense of humour.
We survived. It hasn’t been easy, but we have made it to election day unscathed, but also pretty uninspired.
Thank goodness for TikTok and the social media mavens in the ALP’s and Greens’ backrooms who have created a mad world of Dental Daddy and Medicare Calamare.
So, in between telling you what happened on the last day of campaigning, we’re going to show you what’s been keeping us sane in the TMR newsroom. Turn your volume up.
Here’s the first:
PM Anthony Albanese kicked things off in Brisbane this morning, with his usual Medicare card-holding in front of a Medicare logo, this time in Coalition leader Peter Dutton’s electorate of Dickson, a seat Labor thinks it can win.
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Mr Albanese said something sure to put GPs’ teeth on edge when he was asked if he felt urgent care clinics represented the best value for taxpayers’ money, implying that UCCs can do more than GPs can.
“What urgent care clinics have done isn’t just stop people going to a GP for more acute care,” he said.
“Here, [as in the UCC he was standing in at the time] there are X-ray services, there are the full suite of services here that people get when they come in.
“What they do, importantly, is to take pressure of emergency departments of hospitals … tens of thousands of people who have been to this clinic say that they would have gone to a hospital.”
Perhaps someone should remind the PM that not all UCCs are open for extended hours he promised, and not all of them can provide imaging services.
Here’s another piece of TikTok genius. Volume up:
Watch on TikTok
Back on the public service cuts merry-go-round, shadow treasurer Angus Taylor was back on Radio National this morning talking about “natural attrition”.
When asked if the cuts would be restricted to Canberra-based positions, he said:
“No natural attrition happens everywhere, but we’ll move people around appropriately to meet the needs of regional areas and frontline services. We’ve been clear about that from the start.
“We’ll make appropriate moves to make sure those frontline services out in regional areas are served as they have been in the past.
“But the point here is this, the Public Service has got so big now, natural attrition is a big number, and we are confident that the 41,000 can be achieved through that. I can tell you, the Canberra economy will remain very strong.”
The Canberra Times interpreted that to mean an elected Coalition government would relocate public servants from Canberra to regional areas in order to meet their attrition targets.
Finance and public service minister Katy Gallagher called Mr Taylor’s interview a “train wreck”.
“The public service in Canberra is the big employer in town, and if you cut 75% of the jobs, then that’s absolutely going to affect it,” she said.
Sanity break, number three:
Late on Thursday, the Coalition announced it would relax vaping restrictions, allowing vapes to be sold at retail stories, while taxing the products and regulating the industry.
According to the Coalition’s costings that measure would add $3.6 billion to the budget.
“There’s already a big vaping tax on Australians by criminal organisations, criminal gangs,” said Angus Taylor.
“We would rather have a properly regulated sector with a tax on it from the government which benefits tax payers.”
He said the higher price of vapes would discourage young Australians from taking up vaping and said it was “not something we want young people adopting”.
“We want to make sure people think very hard before they do it.”
The Public Health Association of Australia said it was “deeply disappointed” by the Coalition’s policy, saying the $3.5 billion budget windfall was a “false hope”.
“The most disappointing aspect of such a policy proposal is that it would resume the marketing of vaping products to Australian children and young people,” said the PHAA statement.
“That will fuel new waves of nicotine addiction, expose millions to serious short- and long-term harms and suffering, and add more pressure on our already overstretched health system.
“The proposal has no credible evidence behind it. It would fly in the face of years of research and carefully constructed policy about the best way to protect the community, especially young people, from nicotine.
“The public health community calls on the Coalition parties to apologise for this policy shift, and for the way it has been presented so late, and without transparency.”
Related
No apologies for this:
Watch on TikTok
Nurses in the electorate of Richmond, in northern NSW, are out in their scrubs campaigning for Greens candidate Mandy Nolan, against incumbent Labor member Justine Elliot who has a 1.8% margin.
Why?
Because pay conditions for nurses are so bad that Richmond is bleeding nurses into next-door Queensland where they can earn a living wage.
“When I graduated as a nurse 22 years ago, NSW nurses were some of the highest-paid nurses in the country — now we are the lowest,” nurse Kim Stanhope told the ABC.
“Particularly in border towns like here, we cannot hold on to our qualified nurses.”
Nursing in hospitals is a state issue, of course, but the campaigning nurses are taking out the failures of the Labor state government on the federal party.
And just to send you on your way to the polling booth – assuming you’re not one of the almost six million Australians who have already cast their ballot – here’s a beautiful love story:
We made it!
