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A must-read: Roxon on Rudd and health reform

Melissa Sweet
Friday, February 24, 2012

Public health

(Update, 27 February: More on Rudd and health reform from mental health reform advocate John Mendoza in today’s Crikey bulletin.)

Now this is a must-read: the former Health Minister Nicola Roxon on Kevin Rudd’s efforts in health reform.

An excerpt from a transcript of her interview on Sky News:

…he wanted with four days notice on one occasion that I can recollect, to take over the entire health system. Didn’t have any materials for Cabinet, didn’t have legal advice, thought – I think it was on the Wednesday or Thursday – that we could prepare something that he’d take to Cabinet on Monday to announce on Tuesday.

Now this is just a ludicrous way to run a Government. We didn’t do that.

…

On another occasion he suggested, us actually having a referendum about taking over the health system, having it at the same time as the 2010 election, knowing full well and agreeing that that referendum would be lost but thought it would be a good tool to be able to win the election.

So he was prepared to have such a cynical approach to this. I think that would have been a disaster. I used to have to work with Julia and Wayne in particular to call together meetings with Kevin to explain that we didn’t agree with that.

(Thanks to @ben_hr and @jason_a_w for the link)

Note from Croakey (25 Feb): I was having difficulty uploading this post on Friday afternoon due to IT glitches. Multiple copies of the post ended up being posted. I have deleted the extra versions.

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Comments 5

moneypenny says:

13 years ago

John Mendoza’s take on things also interesting.

Says Rudd likely deposed in 2010 as much for concerns for Rudd’s personal wellbeing as for dysfunctional governance.

Sounds like Rudd completely unhinged. And that leopard’s spots don’t change:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-24/john-mendoza-interview/3850764

Reply
shepherdmarilyn says:

13 years ago

Mendoza is just another spiv hunting more money for McGorry’s now dead program.

Roxon was the minister, it was up to her to develop and deliver policy so why is she blaming Rudd.

Perhaps people do not understand that ministers are supposed to do their own work while the PM does theirs.

Reply
ron batagol says:

13 years ago

What frustrates me is that the journos don’t ask, or are too afraid to ask, the two questions of Gillard (who’s in charge at this time), that are obvious to everyone else in the country.

1. Why weren’ the electorate good enough to tell the truth to about the June 2010 overthrow of Rudd for the last year and a half, and did you fudge the truth then or are you fudging it now, when you now say that all his personal faults were the reason for getting rid of him? In other words, how can we ever believe anything you say?

2. Shouldn’t the Labor caucus say to Cabinet ” You guys seem to have nothing more or less than a high-profile industrial workplace dispute on your hands-senior managers don’t like the way the boss conducts his business! You’d expect others to sort these issues out within ” the executive management workplace”, so why don’t you stop bad-mouthing each other, sytart to act like mature senior exectutives and do just that, instead of expecting all of us to do it for you!

I mean, really, are we supposed to feel sorry for, or indeed, respect these poor petals? How can they run the country if they can’t even get their internal business relations right after all this time in a way that any other large business organisation would!!

Reply
shepherdmarilyn says:

13 years ago

You got that right Ron. Ministers are paid the big bucks to do their own frigging jobs. I mean how many underlings in business ever meet the CEO.

They are behaving like a pack of spoilt brats over nothing much at all.

If Roxon did not like it she has a big enough mouth to handle Abbott, I feel sure she could have handled Rudd.

Reply
shepherdmarilyn says:

13 years ago

And has everyone forgotten that the referendum was party policy at the 2007 election and Roxon simply lied about him making it up.

Reply

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A must-read: Roxon on Rudd and health reform

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