Fed: Brumby accuses Rudd of ransom as sides stand firm

AAP General News (Australia)
04-13-2010
Fed: Brumby accuses Rudd of ransom as sides stand firm

By Sandra O'Malley, Senior Political Writer

CANBERRA, April 13 AAP - Victorian Premier John Brumby is accusing Kevin Rudd of holding
the states to ransom, refusing to bow to pressure to sign up to the prime minister's health
reform plan.

Mr Brumby is the fiercest critic of Mr Rudd's proposal for the commonwealth to take
majority control of public hospital funding and has signalled he won't sign up to the
commonwealth offer in its current form.

Mr Rudd will officially put his ambitious plan to a leaders' meeting next Monday -
and they have to sign up or lose $3 billion in additional health funding he's offering.

As the countdown continued to the crucial Council of Australian Governments (CoAG)
meeting, both Victoria and Canberra further entrenched their opposing positions.

Mr Brumby, who will outline his argument to a national audience in Canberra on Wednesday,
believes his state will go backwards under what's being proposed by federal Labor.

"(It's possible) the system would be more confused not less confusing ... and it would
mean that in a variety of circumstances our state could go backwards," he told Fairfax
Radio Network.

"They are risks I am not prepared to take for the state."

Health Minister Nicola Roxon made it clear the government meant business.

"We say to Mr Brumby and to any other premier, we are not prepared to put extra investments
in the system without reform," she told reporters.

"We won't be putting extra money on the table for business as usual.

"This is the crunch time. If an agreement isn't reached at this meeting, there will
be a referendum."

Mr Brumby doesn't believe the all or nothing rhetoric.

"You've got to go back - a long way probably to the Bjelke-Petersen government in the
'70s - for the last time I can remember that a government held the states to ransom and
said if you don't do things the way I tell you I am going to take the money off you,"

he said.

Mr Rudd appealed to premiers to act on behalf of the nation rather than their vested
state interests.

"I would ask all the premiers to rise to the occasion and to grasp this opportunity
to forge a national agreement, in the national interest," he told reporters.

If Victoria and the commonwealth found little to agree on, Mr Brumby - who advocates
a single funding model as part of his alternative proposal - had an unusual ally.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott indicated the coalition would be willing to consider the idea.

"A single funder is worth looking at ... in the longer term," he told ABC Radio.

The coalition also wants the government to explain what it claims is $18 billion in
unfunded spending contained in the final blueprint Mr Rudd handed to the states.

As he set off for the seventh day of his Pollie Pedal on a bitterly cold Canberra morning,
Mr Abbott showed he was fazed by little, including the prospect of an early election.

There is increasing speculation the government may be "clearing the decks" to set itself
up for an early poll by dealing with a myriad of problematic issues.

"This is a government increasingly caught in a pattern of failure and waste and if
the prime minister wants an early election in this kind of disarray (then) fair enough,
let's have it," Mr Abbott said.

AAP so/sb/apm

KEYWORD: ELECTION WRAP

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