THE Coalition has walked away from a promise to scrap means testing of the private health insurance rebate, with Joe Hockey confirming it will have to stand in the face of the budget “emergency”.

And Now For Something Completely Different:

Mr Dutton said one of the Coalition government’s important tasks was ”to grow the opportunity for those Australians who can afford to do to contribute to their own health care costs”.

There ya go! Remember the “Hope, Reward, Opportunity” badge that appeared on all that pre-election stuff from the Liberals that was shoved in your letterbox prior to the election? (No, not Amway’s “Freedom, Family, Hope, Reward”) See, they haven’t forgotten about their slogan.

I’m sure some of you thought that the OPPORTUNITY thing was just some empty rhetoric, but no. People on the dole are being given the OPPORTUNITY to develop much needed skills in picking up rubbish. And many manufacturing workers are being given a tremendous OPPORTUNITY – to quote Mr Abbott, “many of them will probably be liberated to pursue new opportunities and to get on with their lives”.

And now they’re planning to grow the OPPORTUNITY for people to contribute to their own health care costs. This is exactly the sort of opportunity I’ve been waiting for. When I had a recent test, I was bulk-billed, I asked the person doing it if there was some way I could contribute to the cost, but they said no. I asked if, perhaps, I could empty their bin or mop their floor. Again no. Because of some ridiculously complicated system, they apparently had cleaners who were paid money to do such things. But, soon, I may have the opportunity to contribute to my own health care costs. Opportunities like that don’t come along under every government.

I certainly HOPE that the opportunity doesn’t stop there. After all, there are so many other ways Australians who can afford it could be given “opportunities to contribute”. For example, perhaps, when people wish to report a crime, they could be asked for a small co-contribution to cover the police time in writing out the report. For a slightly larger co-contribution, the police will investigate the crime and – in the event of it being solved – you could pay them a REWARD.

And let’s not forget Parliament. At the moment, politicians pass legislation for free. Maybe there should be some form of co-contribution – from those who can afford it – to pass the sort of legislation that they require. After all, not all taxpayers benefit from certains laws, so why should we all pay? Yes, I’m sure that some will say that this happens with parties REWARDING people and organisations who contribute to it, but that’s a very inefficient system. There’s no guarantee that the party won’t take money from almost everyone, then just make up its own mind when in government. In my proposal, it would be totally based on individual Bills – a “user pays” system.

No, I can see that OPPORTUNITY will continue to grow under this government. REWARD will go to those who deserve it. And as for HOPE, well, that’s the entire basis for our economic policies.