FED:Gillard gets runs on board

AAP General News (Australia)
02-13-2011
FED:Gillard gets runs on board

By Paul Osborne, AAP Senior Political Writer

CANBERRA, Feb 13 AAP - In sporting parlance, Julia Gillard desperately needs some runs
on the board.

It's too early to say whether the deal she's struck at the Council of Australian Governments
meeting is a six into the stands, or a quickly stolen single.

A Newspoll taken at the start of last week had Labor's primary vote at 32 per cent
- the party's worst standing since Kevin Rudd was removed as prime minister.

At the same time the coalition is polling its best since Tony Abbott took over as opposition
leader.

Ahead of the meeting with state premiers and chief ministers at Parliament House on
Sunday, Gillard ditched Rudd's much-vaunted plan to seize GST revenue in exchange for
majority federal control of the health system.

She replaced it with a move to evenly split growth funding and place all the money
into a more accountable national pool.

The decision, she said, was necessary because of the changing political hue of state governments.

But the move was risky. While it showed she's willing to compromise to deliver policy
which she believes is good for patients, it also reminded voters the reason she sent Rudd
to the sheds was because "a good government had lost its way".

Rudd trumpeted his April 2010 COAG agreement as an historic triumph of federal-state
relations, but like his plan for an emissions trading scheme and a mining profits tax,
it ended in him being clean-bowled.

Gillard brought into her first COAG meeting as prime minister a reputation for being
a solid negotiator - having put mining tax discussions with industry leaders back on track,
sealed a deal with independents and the Greens to form government and progressed talks
on a carbon pricing mechanism.

She has also raised expectations by declaring 2011 a year of decision and delivery.

The coalition has been quick to paint the deal as a victory of politics over policy,
and could still run out the prime minister by blocking the two pieces of legislation required
in parliament.

The prime minister can take heart in getting the Victorian and WA Liberal premiers
in particular on board.

Gillard has declared the heads of agreement - signed after an hour-and-a-half lunch
and a marathon COAG meeting in Canberra - as a significant achievement.

On the face of it, the deal achieves a number of important steps: a simple way to track
every health dollar, a boost in funding to cover the expected growth in demand for hospitals
and greater responsibility closer to the coalface.

But the real test will be whether health officials can flesh out an acceptable final
deal for the next COAG meeting due mid-year.

Gillard shouldn't count her runs until she's safely in the crease.

AAP pjo/sb/was

KEYWORD: HOSPITALS GILLARD (NEWS ANALYSIS)

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