Labor’s litany of lies

With time running out in the countdown to the May 3 Federal election, Australia's future may well depend on how many voters believe Labor's repetitive litany of lies.

There's a long list as revealed in the site Labor Lies but for me there are a couple of standouts - Medicare, which for Labor is a repeat of "Mediscare" and the Opposition's nuclear energy plan, where costings are blown out of the ballpark to a highly inflated $600 billion. "Where will the money come from, they'll have to cut Medicare, just like they did in the past" is the catchcry from Government Ministers and Labor acolytes from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese down to election hopefuls on the hustings.

The lie has been clearly exposed during debates between Albanese and Opposition leader Peter Dutton, Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Opposition Spokesman Angus Taylor as well as an excellent but largely overlooked National Press Club speech by Nationals leader David Littleproud. But it persists and goes largely unchallenged in the legacy media or by the press pack accompanying Albbanese on his election whistlestops.

According to independent experts Frontier Economics - which Labor has also relied on for cost studies:

The cost difference over the modelling period between AEMO's preferred Step Change system of $594 billion with a Progressive future including nuclear power costing $331 billion is $263 billion, or about $10 billion per annum on average over the modelling period, or 44% cheaper …

As well as nuclear being cheaper than a power system made up almost entirely of renewables and energy storages, it is also likely to be as economic, or even more economic, as replacing the fleet of existing coal generators that must retire between now and 2050 with new coal generators.

Including nuclear power could also help lower the economic costs imposed on rural and regional Australians by avoiding the loss of amenity from having so many wind and solar farms and new and augmented transmission networks on their land."

Regarding "Mediscare Mark 2", the Coalition has pledged to match Labor's funding and will invest $8.5 billion to boost bulk billing, which it points out has fallen under Labor by 11 percent nationally. But that doesn't stop the lies, or the PM from waving his Medicare card in the air and proclaiming that for medical treatment, "All you need is this little green card."

Well, I literally have skin in this game and can shoot Albo's claims down in flames following a recent medical procedure involving an operation on my right hand. This saw me reduced to typing with two fingers of my left hand and performing a whole range of other tasks with one hand for several weeks.

I'm happy to say I'm back to two hands and a few more fingers these days but the wallet is much lighter to the tune of about $1500 thanks to gap charges by the surgeon, anaesthetist, a hand therapist and a one off hospital excess charge, on top of the thousands of dollars recently paid to our health insurance fund.

A trip to our busy GP clinic also left me about $50 out of pocket, so yes, Albo, we really do need more than that "little green card" as many Australians are well aware.

It is obvious he also obfuscated about falling off a campaign stage when the video is there for all to see, then more recently telling a reporter "That was just a joke. Chill out!"

We can forgive the stumble, but the aftermath seems to fit a pattern which some commentators have likened to a line from George Costanza's character in the hugely popular '90s sitcom, Seinfeld:

It's not a lie if you believe it, Gerry!