IT’S heartening to hear Federal Health Minister Tanya Plibersek will meet Victorian health leaders in Melbourne today to discuss hospital funding cuts.
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Finally, someone appears willing to put some effort into moving this issue forward.
Whether this meeting leads to any kind of solution remains unclear, but it’s a start.
Federal Member for Bendigo Steve Gibbons gave the media another serve this week for being “lazy” on this story.
Mr Gibbons issued the following statement: “Currently the media prefer to take the easy or lazy option of running the time honoured tired old cliché of politicians ‘playing the blame game’. This will no doubt turn into the equally time honoured and tired old cliché of ‘a pox on both their houses’ when and if they finally realise that it’s the state government that is equally if not mostly responsible for the current situation in our hospitals.”
We gave all sides of politics the opportunity to state their case on the issue and if that’s “lazy” then we’re not sure what Mr Gibbons expects.
It was the politicians who decided to use the opportunity provided to score points. Would anyone, except Mr Gibbons it seems, disagree the energy wasted on point-scoring would have been far better spent working on a solution?
If Mr Gibbons thinks the “blame game” is merely a cliché, should we remind him of the Calder Highway fiasco?
That political “blame game” dragged on for decades before common sense prevailed and now look at the magnificent freeway we have.
Far from being a tired old cliché, the political “blame game” is one of the great frustrations for the general public when it comes to politics.
If only that energy was utilised properly.