Australian public opinion is very right wing.

Australian press has been tightly controlled by Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer for 50 years and the media moguls have thought it was their right to only publish articles that promoted their world view. There is the famous story of termination of the first editor of The Australian - the newspaper started out with liberal views. The editor was called into to see Rupert and his resignation was announced - the former editor went to see every member of staff individually and told them "I did not resign, I was sacked".

Although most farmers are paid up members of the National Party they may not be aware of it, they only pay $2.10 or $4.20 or $10.50 or rarely $21 per year. Most of the party funds are provided by lobbyists. Many of the stated farm policies only benefit large farms not the family farm that has managed to double in size every generation, or worse stagnated and become less viable.

The current government has shown itself to be particularly devoid of equitable social policy - hell bent as it is on selling off everything of value, especially if it generates revenue. If health insurance wasn't a profitable business then the established large health funds wouldn't have been bought up by overseas concerns. I can remember when my wealthy grandparents became frail, the standard of health care available was considerably poorer than it is now because health providers, being very mindful of recouping the costs of their services, didn't offer expensive or lengthy treatments. And because most patients didn't have money to pay, when a patient with the wherewithall to pay came along the practitioners didn't have the experience to use the better practices. Hmmm maybe this is the solution to the aging population problem.

Billie “Australian press has been tightly controlled by Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer for 50 years”

I would like you to give me a single example of how, today, Kerry Packer controls anything, tightly or otherwise.

As for National party members, what in earth does someone else’s political party membership costs have to do with you or me?

I vote Liberal (no surprises there) but I don’t pay a thing in membership or anything else for the privilege.
Conversely, I have never voted labor but any time those idiots get power, it costs me heaps.

The current government recognizes the following facts

“Social ownership”, invariably instituted through government monopolies (regardless of the method of incorporation) is as corrupting as any other form of monopoly.

The reason sports events have umpires instead of leaving the scoring and rulings to the players is simple, no one can do both jobs at the same time.
As business operator and business regulator, Government can perform either one role well or both roles badly.

Whilst the arrogance of socialists politicians allows them to pretend they know what is best for the rest of us, the practical humility of the incumbent Liberal government recognizes that “Social Ownership” leaves the government in that impossible dual role of regulator as well as operator.

Business requires access to growth funds. Whilst a government enterprise rely on funding from the public purse and the issues of, for instance, should new Boeings for Qantas be deferred and the money used for hospitals or do them both on borrowed funds and leave the problem for the future (the preferred socialist answer), such strategies create inflation (expenditure exceeding income) and lead to recession.

Social Ownership creates social corruption, as Margaret Thatcher famously said

“We want a society where people are free to make choices, to make mistakes, to be generous and compassionate. This is what we mean by a moral society; not a society where the state is responsible for everything, and no one is responsible for the state.”

Excuse the subtlety Col, but Bushbred might recognise the membership costs for the Nationals are one guinea, two guneas - indicating that farmers were joined up in 1958 and because farms run the same bank accounts their memberships are still being withdrawn, after the wheat cheque, irrespective of their current political allegiance. This allows the Nationals to say they represent rural Australia when their leaders clearly do not. McGauran lives in the red light and homosexual corner of St Kilda and names women who have had abortions in parliament and Ryan has a weasel face and talks spitefully.

You might be happy with federal funding to private schools, paying to see the dentist, optometrist or doctor but the 50% Australian adults whose income is less than $26,000 per annum expect a safety net. Remember Col that if the great Australian public is screwed too far into the ground you will lose your domestic market and be forced to export and maybe like the English capitalists of the 18th century try to persuade the country to embark on imperial adventures to find willing customers.

Not all Australian businesses are microbusinesses that require limited capitalisation. Businesses like farms, enginerring works, manufacturing require high levels of capitalisation and they need some boundaries within which to work. At the moment the personal cronies of LJH are dictating the terms to the detriment of microbusiness.

I believe that a society where users pays inevitably has lower standards. EG Indonesia has some very wealthy people and when they become serviously ill they travel to Australia for health care. And I can't see why something that was started by the Australian public should be sold to overseas corporations. An insider view is that Medibank Private is the biggest health insurer because it is more efficient than HBA or AXA.