Six Dollars Doctor Visits: Mister Abbott's Ridiculous Plan

Lesley Russell, senior research fellow at ANU in the College of Medicine, Biology and Environment, is an expert on health care reform and the impact of cost on patients' compliance with treatment and medication regimes. She has just one word for any proposed co-payment. Ridiculous.

Russell says that there is no evidence to say co-payments reduce inappropriate use of medical services, any more than they reduce appropriate use of medical services. She also says that there is much data to show that the lower the co-payment, the higher the compliance with medical treatment.

Which is the whole point really. What would co-payments do? They'd flood our already overburdened emergency rooms. Unless Terry Barnes's genius extra idea is implemented. Barnes was the author of the ACHR report and on Monday he told ABC News Breakfast that there was a way to ensure that didn't happen.

''In terms of emergency departments, I think the simple way to deal with it is to allow the states to charge a matching co-payment for people who do go to an emergency department.''

Read more

Corporate Culture: SPC Sackings- Santa's Claws

Fruit giant SPC has sacked the entire maintenance workforce at its cannery in north Victoria two days after Christmas.

The 73 Shepparton maintenance workers were told on Friday they would be replaced by contract workers before May 2014, the Electrical Trades Union says.

SPC Ardmona issued a statement saying the employees were aware of the critical need for the company to transform its business.

The company, a subsidiary of Coca-Cola Amatil, is seeking government assistance.

It wants $25m from the federal government and a matching contribution from the Victorian government.

Electrical Trade Union branch officer Damian King said the union had been in discussion with SPC for months seeking productivity gains as part of an enterprise bargaining agreement renegotiation.

He said the union had offered a two-year wage freeze in an effort to preserve jobs.

"They've basically said times are tough for them," King said.

He said the union was due to meet company representatives early in 2014 and workers had been blindsided by the job cuts.

"In 20 years as a union official I've never heard of mass sackings between Christmas and New Year's," King said. "It's disgusting."

UNITE: How We Won at Crown Melbourne

This is the story of how staff at Crown Melbourne joined together and won world-class pay and conditions.

Harvey Wasserman - Fukushima Petition

Corporate Culture - Abbott's Vested Interests

Removing Best Interests Protections from Financial Advice Laws Will Hurt Australian Workers

The Federal Government’s removal of the best interests test from financial advice laws will place working people at risk of receiving conflicted financial advice and having their super eroded.

In more bad news released five days before Christmas, the Abbott Government has announced it will reverse almost all of the reforms to financial advice laws—laws that banned ongoing commissions and conflicted advice.

Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) National Secretary Michael O’Connor said today that the Government’s announcement was a capitulation to the very worst elements of the financial advice industry.

“In public policy terms this announcement is a national disgrace.”

“These changes will expose working people to conflicted advice. An adviser or planner will be free to recommend products they receive a commission for and the customer has no way of knowing.”

“The reforms to financial advice of last year brought integrity and basic consumer protections back to an industry that was living in the past. In what other industry are hidden, ongoing commissions allowed?”

“Removal of the best interests protection means that clients of financial advisers will have no way of knowing that the advice they are receiving is actually right for them; or if it’s just been recommended because their adviser will receive a kickback.”

“Commissions erode people’s super without them even knowing it, and can result in tens of thousands of dollars less in people’s retirement balances.”

“The Government has caved-in to pressure from vested interests. They know this is bad news for Australian workers, which is why they are announcing it on a Friday—five days before Christmas.”