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Showing posts from September, 2007

2004 Federal Election Diary One for the Golden Oldies

29th September, 2004    - Richard Farmer   Certainly one for the golden oldies. Not just Medicare but Medicare Gold! Labor's policy launch was cleverly designed to stress one of its strengths and blunt one of its negatives. The strength is Medicare itself. If Mark Latham can make this election a referendum about Medicare he will win it hands down. Health is the one issue that every poll by a margin well out of the range of three standard deviations of error has Labor trusted far more than the Coalition. Every day that Labor can make some aspect of Medicare the issue of the day the greater its chances of victory. The negative is that older Australians seem less impressed by the young Opposition Leader than they are by the pension age Prime Minister. Hence the choice of linking Medicare with Australians 75 and over. There is a danger, of course, that things will not work out as planned. Promising immediate and free hospital access to those 75 and over raises the fear that t