Joe Hockey’s Acme Inflatable Hostage
by Jacinta Reid
So now the Abbott government is all about medical research? After getting rid of the Science Minister, after ensuring that an education in medicine (or any other discipline) will cost vastly more, after throwing hospital funding under a bus, after closing down a whole bunch of government departments and offices and stripping enough money from scientific organisations to fund … well, to fund moderate levels of scientific advancement in a nation of 22 million people, now they are keen for medical research to be well funded into the future?
Nah. Sorry. Not buying it.
The “Medical Research Future Fund” is a prop. It’s a common plot device in so many crime movies; the bad guy holding a gun to a hostage’s head and saying “give me what I want or the blonde gets it”. A pretty, innocent hostage with sympathetic appeal and pleading eyes. The kind of hostage that the audience would think that any hero worth their salt would be heartless and unethical not to choose to protect at any cost.
The Medical Research Future Fund is that hostage. Straight from Central Casting. Nobody is going to say that medical research funding isn’t a good thing. And anyone arguing against the GP Co-payment will run up against the hostage situation, and find that members of the Coalition will jump up and down shouting “Why do you hate medical research funding!!?” Oh the irony. And more irony, in case you were irony deficient; much medical research shows that preventive medicine and picking up ailments for early treatment not only leads to better health outcomes, it costs the nation less. So the Coalition wants to kill off universal healthcare for idealogical reasons, and it says it’s doing it because the rising cost of healthcare is unsustainable. And it’s planning to achieve this sustainable healthcare by implementing a user-pays system that demostrably, where it is implemented around the world, costs taxpayers more than universal healthcare. (And results in lots of preventable deaths, to boot.)
But whenever anyone points out the absurdity of adopting a failed strategy, Hockey whips out a pack labelled “Medical Research Future Fund” pulls the auto-inflate rip-cord and presto! The perfect hostage! Then he says “Give me what I want or I’ll kill Bambi!” or, in other words “Let me end Universal Health Care or you will be responsible for the loss of the Medical Research Future Fund!”
It’s a cruel and transparent ruse, your Acme inflatable hostage. I’m pretty sure if I read the fine print on the box it would say “Not to be used as a lifesaving device, always use under adult supervision.” And every bit of new information that comes out about it inflicts another puncture. Science advisor wasn’t consulted? Pffft. Not planned until a few weeks before the budget? Fffffft! No idea how the funds willl be allocated? Pthbthbthtt!
Sorry, Mr Hockey, but as nice as it would be to have a twenty billion dollar fund to support medical research into the future, I would prefer to maintain medical and science funding more broadly, and keep the existing healthcare system that lets Australian people, whatever their income, put to use the fruits of the good, well established research we already have.
