This blog is totally independent, unpaid and has only three major objectives.
The first is to inform readers of news and happenings in the e-Health domain, both here in Australia and world-wide.
The second is to provide commentary on e-Health in Australia and to foster improvement where I can.
The third is to encourage discussion of the matters raised in the blog so hopefully readers can get a balanced view of what is really happening and what successes are being achieved.
Quote Of The Year
Timeless Quotes - Sadly The Late Paul Shetler - "Its not Your Health Record it's a Government Record Of Your Health Information"
or
H. L. Mencken - "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."
Sunday, November 22, 2020
Sometimes Some Claims Are Made That Leave You Open-Mouthed In Disbelief!
The Morrison
government used the best and worst practices to put in place key pieces of
legislation, two ideologically opposed think tanks have found in a wide-ranging
analysis that shows shortcomings in the way states invoked emergency powers to
deal with the coronavirus pandemic.
The annual
review of the way laws were developed, debated and put in place, commissioned
by the non-partisan newDemocracy Foundation, found the federal government's legislative handling of its My Health
Record was almost perfect.
Ideologically
opposite think tanks the IPA and Per Capita have ranked the Morrison government's
legislation around the My Heath Record system almost perfect. Credit:Alamy
But it faltered
with its contentious repeal of the so-called medevac laws,
which restored the full discretion of federal ministers to accept or reject
medical transfers to Australia from overseas detention centres.
The analysis was
done by the right-leaning Institute of Public Affairs and the progressive Per
Capita Australia think tanks. In almost all cases, they were agreed on their
findings.
The two organisations examined 20 separate case studies
of laws put in place through the federal, NSW, Victorian and Queensland
parliaments over the past year. Each piece of legislation was marked against a
set of criteria including its justification, whether the government established
a need for the law, if other options were examined and public consultation to
ensure a proper process had been used.
Chair of the steering committee that oversaw the project,
Percy Allan, said governments repeatedly ran into trouble because of faulty
decision-making processes that undermined the public's trust.
"Good process leads to good policy, which in turn
makes for good politics," he said.
Both Per Capita and IPA gave their highest marks to the
Morrison government's My Health Record bill and to the Queensland government
for the creation of an ombudsman to deal with complaints about personalised
transport systems like Uber.
The IPA said the ombudsman policy had gone through an
independent review process, other options had been explored and the government
had used a cost-benefit analysis to help guide its policy position.
Per Capita said the Morrison government had gone through
an extensive consultation process with its My Health Record plan while setting
out clear objectives for what it was proposing.
Scott
Morrison’s $100 billion JobKeeper scheme has been judged the best prepared
“emergency” measure by any Australian government dealing with the COVID-19
pandemic but the Coalition’s new early access to superannuation and HomeBuilder
grants have been deemed the worst.
An
independent assessment of 20 major government decisions in 2020 has also found
that the Andrews’ Victorian Labor Government’s preparation for adopting emergency
powers during the pandemic was better than the process in both Queensland and
NSW.
But
the researchers heavily emphasised that the aim of the assessment is to look at
policy development not implementation and that the study did not assess the
Victorian Government decision to hire private security guards instead of police
or defence personnel to guard quarantine hotels.
The
Federal COVIDSafe App for mobile phone tracing of coronavirus contacts was also
rated at the top of the urgent decisions taken to deal with the pandemic.
The
best non-urgent Government policies named in 2020 were the Queensland State
Government’s introduction of a Queensland Transport Ombudsman the Federal
Government’s My Health Record scheme.
Medevac repeal rated ‘unacceptable’
The worst non-urgent Government policies in 2020, rated as
“unacceptable” were the Morrison Government’s repeal of the Medevac laws,
designed to give doctors a great person say in transfer of asylum seekers from
offshore detention to Australia, and the Victorian Government’s Free TAFE
courses which cost $172m to provide 42 courses free to students.
None of the eight government emergency decisions were rated as
“unacceptable” but neither were any deemed “excellent” and many, despite sound
processes and legislation under duress, had failures or unexpected consequences.
These included the Victorian emergency powers, with a quarantine
failure that cost more than 800 lives, and the early superannuation access
which had double the estimate of applicants and payouts.
With the aim of improving government decision making and policy
development the newDemocracy Foundation uses the Institute of Public Affairs
and Per Capita Australia think tanks, respectively “free-market” and
“progressive”, to annually assess a selection of major Federal and State
Government decisions using independent business criteria.
The annual survey combines the scores of the two research groups
to give a point score and a rating from excellent, through solid, mediocre and
down to unacceptable.
The 2020 study shows of the 20 policy decisions nine cases
received solid scores (between 7.0 and 9.5), two got unacceptable scores (below
5.0) and the remaining 9 received mediocre scores (between 5.0 and 6.5).
Former NSW Education Minister, Verity Firth, executive director
Social Justice at University of Technology Sydney, a member of the project
steering committee, the policy project was particularly relevant in the
pandemic year and demonstrated the strength of strong, independent public service
policy advice.
“This project is particularly relevant in a year when Australians
are watching the American government’s response to the COVID crisis and the hyper-partisanship
of the US election,” Ms Firth said.
Well a quick look on the organisation’s LinkedIn page. There is more weight in a helium ballon. Reminds me of that Utopia episode when they want an independent review - “and what would you like us to say in the review minister?”
2 comments:
Well a quick look on the organisation’s LinkedIn page. There is more weight in a helium ballon. Reminds me of that Utopia episode when they want an independent review - “and what would you like us to say in the review minister?”
We live in a post-truth, if not a post-reality age.
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