Rudd battling for better health at polls

CANBERRA - Prime Minister Kevin Rudd late yesterday remained locked in negotiations with state premiers in a bare-knuckle battle to force through reforms that would hand control of the nation's hospitals to Canberra.

The reforms, promised by Rudd when he won power in 2007, follow years of mounting crisis in the health system, marked by overcrowded emergency rooms and lengthening surgery waiting lists.

Rudd has been determined to hammer out an agreement before this year's election amid mounting criticism of his failure to deliver not only on health, but on a number of other key policy areas.

He is also struggling to manage the fallout from the huge economic stimulus package launched to steer Australia through the global financial crisis, but now under attack for its scale and the failure to adequately implement and oversee a number of high-profile programmes.

These included the scandal-ridden scheme to subsidise home insulation and solar energy, and the row over allegations of waste and corruption in a hugely expensive programme to provide new school facilities.

Rudd's problems have been further deepened by the rising flood of asylum seekers intercepted in the Indian Ocean and now overloading the Christmas Island detention centre.

The Government's response has included the controversial suspension of the processing of Sri Lankan and Afghan refugees, the transfer of an increasing number of asylum seekers from Christmas Island to the mainland and the reopening of a detention centre on the remote Curtin Air Force base near Derby in Western Australia.

Human rights and refugee advocates have attacked the moves - especially the reopening of Curtin and the transfer of some young refugees to Port Augusta in South Australia - as a return to the discredited policies of former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard.

So far the move to Port Augusta has been confined to secure housing outside the grim Baxter detention centre, purpose-built near an army camp by the Howard Government at the height of its clampdown on boat people.

But the renewed use of Curtin has alarmed critics who pointed to the decision to close the centre in 2002 after a series of riots, hunger strikes, allegations of abuse by guards, and violence among detainees.

Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul told ABC radio the decision was disgraceful and designed to put asylum seekers "out of sight, out of mind".

Professor Richard Harding, WA's former inspector of custodial services who inspected the centre during its earlier period of use, said the buildings were in poor repair, and basic health services were lacking.

"It fell well short of any acceptable standard of decency," he told the ABC. "It was a human rights abuse. It was actually a type of gulag."

But polls show that many voters back a tough line on asylum seekers.

A Nielsen poll in Fairfax newspapers yesterday said 54 per cent thought immigration was too high, and 58 per cent supported the suspension of processing for Afghan and Sri Lankan asylum seekers.

Nielsen pollster John Stirling told the Sydney Morning Herald that a 3 per cent fall in Labor's primary vote, to 39 per cent, probably reflected anger at the tougher line. Labor's two-party preferred lead has contracted to just two points: 51 per cent to 49 per cent.

But Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's popularity has plunged, and Rudd leads as preferred Prime Minister by 59 per cent to 34 per cent.

The immediate problem now facing Rudd is the stonewalling by Victoria, WA and New South Wales over the Government's insistence on taking 30 per cent of the states' GST revenue to fund 60 per cent of the nation's hospital system. At present hospitals are administered by state governments.

Rudd wants to directly fund regional hospital boards to avoid duplication, boost efficiency and end the buck-passing that has marked the system for decades.

If he does not get his way he has threatened to put the plan to a referendum.

Few referendums have succeeded in the past, but yesterday's Nielsen poll showed 62 per cent of voters wanted Rudd's plan implemented.

Hopes hung yesterday on a potential compromise.

With the other states prepared to support Rudd's plan and agreement on its shape, NSW, Victoria and WA were pushing for the funding to be held in a pool to which all would contribute, rather than have Canberra claw back GST revenue.