My Manifesto: The Incoherent Ramblings of a Madman

I do not understand why the timber industry has so much support for John Howards's "Tasmanian Old Growth Forest" plan. Essentially all John Howard is doing is proposing to do is keep the current agreement in place, which locks up around 170,000 hectares of old growth forest compared to Mark Latham's plan to lock up to 240,000 hectares of old growth forests based on scientific analysis to determine which sections of the forest will be of most benefit to business and the environment for logging/preserving. If nothing else - at least Mark Latham is honest enough to admit there WILL be job losses.

The volumetric differences in proposed forestry regions being preserved are so very little that there is very little difference at all in that regard. It seems to me the major difference is in the employment sector. John Howard is suggesting there will be no loss of jobs with the current agreement and increase in preserved sections of forestry, however, Mark Latham has proposed methods for addressing any employment issues that may arise from "locking-up" more forests and is basing it on scientifcic method as to what sections are and aren't "locked". Mark Latham's methodology purely from a scientific and sustainability perspective seems far better than John Howards'.

With respect to the Medicare Gold issue. The longest waiting lists are for the elderly as they need the most operations, this is also compounded by the fact that most doctors choose younger patients over older patients if given the chance to operate on them purely for safety reasons and the ability of the younger patients to recover.

The private healthcare sector supports the plan. The private healthcare sector has stated that there are the doctors and the beds waiting to be used.

It is the public system that has all of the strain on it because the majority of people cannot afford to pay for private healthcare and suffer because of this. The passing of the elderly patients from the state health system to the federally funded private sector is a great idea.

Is it financially viable for the long-term? Hell-no! Is it any more or less financially viable for the long-term than the current status quo? Hell-no!

Either the current or the proposed system are both equally non-sustainable for the long-term, however, the medicare gold plan should prove to be a far more efficient system than the current system which has all of the patients in the public sector and all of the doctors and resources in the private. If we share and share alike we will streamline the process and get the elderly through the system much quicker - sure most of them may die because they will be getting procedures that would previously not be undertaken for health and safety concerns - but in the end most of them will be much better off for having medicare gold.

Penultimate Federal Election: Lower House - Labor; Upper House - Democrats
Last Federal Election: Lower House - Labor; Upper House - Greens
This Federal Election: Lower House - Undecided but leaning towards Independent, Greens, or Labor; Upper House - Greens or Democrats.

p.s
I do not want to hear any complaining from anyone ever again about how stupid the upper and lower house is and how the states should be abolished and how we should get rid of parties altogether.

1) If we abolish the states we abolish Australia. Australia is made up of the states - the states actually own our country and palm off certain aspects of it to the Federal Government.

2) If we abolish the upperhouse we lose our only direct line of voting that makes us a weak form of a democracy. In practice the upperhouse is more often than not ruled by the minority parties - which is undemocratic - but if we abolish the upperhouse we put ourselves into a different form of government altogether.

The best aspect of having an upperhouse in practice is that it gives the opportunity for bargaining, reasoning, and debating about policies rather than the monkey-see-monkey-do lets-follow-party-lines-like-sheep result that we would have without it.

3) If we get rid of parties altogether we get organised chaos. It is like in anarchy, everyone forms alliances, forms "parties" and the like "survivor"-style. Mob rule comes into play. Organised Chaos - essentially we end up with parties whether we like it or not.