The Australian federal government may raise taxes to pay for an ambitious takeover of the nation’s ailing public heathcare system, local media reported yesterday.
Earlier this week, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd proposed a US$45 billion funding takeover, aimed at reviving flagging support for his Labor government, by cutting long waiting lists for surgery in public hospitals that have long struggled for funds.
Rudd said the plan would be budget neutral, effectively moving to a centralized funding model from the current method of allowing the states to decide how federal health funds are spent.
However, the Sydney Morning Herald quoted federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon as agreeing tax hikes may be needed to meet “a significant extra burden” on federal health spending over the latter half of this decade.
Asked if there may be tax increases, Roxon said: “Well, it certainly means that there may be. We have to be able to fund the delivery of services in the future.”
The Australian newspaper also reported that Rudd could face opposition from within his own Cabinet on any new tax measures.
It said Rudd faced a backlash from government lawmakers over his plan to tie 30 percent of national consumption tax revenues to health spending. Currently, Canberra hands that 30 percent over to state governments for them to spend how they wish.
Rudd has said Canberra would take control of 60 percent of public hospital funding under his plan, which is also likely to run into opposition from state governments.
The prime minister’s opinion poll ratings have been on the slide against a resurgent opposition and the Australian newspaper said lawmakers from Rudd’s center-left Labor Party has begun questioning his handling of major reform challenges.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
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