Ok, just to be clear here, I’m not writing about the lack of action on unemployment benefits. I’m saving any comments on that until after the Budget because, well, I can sort of guess how that’s going to play out. Either Labor will do nothing to raise the rate and be widely criticised for it, or they’ll raise the rate by a certain amount and be widely criticised for it. If they were to lift it by say $8 a day, many people would say that’s nothing. And while it probably isn’t enough, $8 is a lot of money to someone who doesn’t have it. If you suddenly have enough money to buy a loaf of bread, it’s a lot better than when you didn’t.
There is, of course, no Goldilocks figure, because if they were to raise it by as much as the inquiry suggested, then we’d have a plethora of cafe owners complaining that this will make it impossible for them to get workers owing to the “generous” unemployment payments.
And speaking of cafe owners, I find it surprising that none of them have been asked about the recent change that makes it possible for some people to get two months’ supply of prescription medicine at a time when it used to only be one month.
While they didn’t ask cafe owners, I did see a really interesting clip of Trent Twomey who was the Pharmacy Guild President, and he was responsible for the quote I used as a headline. The full quote was:
“And you know, it’s just been a really tough week. I’ve had Labor Party Senators and MPs take their phones of the hook because they don’t give a shit, right… I’m sorry I’m a North Queenslander and I don’t mean to swear.”
Of course, he may have very high standards of what makes a caring government. After all, the previous government generously found $2,415,000 for a pharmacy company to expand, and while this company was a third owned by Twomey’s wife, there was no conflict of interest as Mr Twomey was merely on the board that set out the criteria for the awarding of the grants, and not on the one that made the final decisions. That was a completely different group of people that just gave it to the groups that fitted the criteria that he helped create and the fact that his wife’s company did was just one of those lucky happenstances.
However, it wasn’t this, or even the fact that this LNP member was once a staffer for Warren Entsch, who just yesterday suggested that Mr Twomey should stand for the Senate rather than his seat of Leichhardt. It wasn’t even the fact he’s a North Queenslander and apparently swears without meaning to.
No, it was simply what he said in the interview that I found perplexing and I don’t just mean that idea that Labor Party people had taken their phones off the hook, which is pretty hard with a mobile phone, but would render the landlines in their offices unable to take calls from anyone.
Apparently, one single mum had got “her dad to put her house up as equity”, which raises all sorts of questions. For example, is she so poor at financial affairs that she didn’t know how to do that herself, which would suggest that her impending bankruptcy may be the result of factors other than the changes to the collection of scripts? Or does her father own her own house and if that’s the equity which enabled her to buy a pharmacy, doesn’t that mean that he’s the one who’ll be bankrupt? Or will she be homeless after the bank repossesses the house? Or… I mean the comment leads to more questions than it answers.
And then there was the 28 year old Victorian and his girlfriend who saved up for a house. They just got married and the house went up in value and “he put that up to buy his first pharmacy”. North Queenslander Twomey told us: “He’s in Victoria, he’s now bankrupt!” which is lucky because he’s gone broke he’s rung up too much debt and before the changes come in so he can sell our before the tsunami of bankrupt pharmacies put their houses on the market driving down prices… And given they managed to save up for a house before he’d even hit thirty, I’d suggest that he and wife must have good jobs which they can go back to.
Ok, it’s true that we may be talking about potential bankruptcies here, but I’d have to say that this is a strange idea coming from a potential LNP candidate. After all, we’re constantly told how people in business are taking risks and putting themselves on the line and it’s hard and that’s why they deserve a great reward when it pays off. Surely then we can’t worry when a government decision that reduces costs for a handful of people leads to the end of inefficient businesses who can’t make ends meet. Isn’t that the way capitalism’s meant to work?
Now this doesn’t mean that I don’t understand the tears of this North Queenslander who didn’t mean to swear this time, unlike a few months ago when he told us that being able “to prescribe, dispense, administer and review medicines” didn’t constitute specialities and that ‘no one gives a shit’. He didn’t say that he didn’t mean to swear that time, so I presume that he did. He also told us:
‘Currently, I can dispense all things. And I can review all things. But I cannot prescribe all things, and I cannot administer all things. I need to be able to do all four of those for all medicines for all people.’
This led to a number of medical professionals suggesting – rather unkindly – that pharmacists might have a conflict of interest in prescribing a drug when it would be better to suggest something like a specialist appointment or exercise or something non-medicinal, but that seems very cynical. Rather like when Murray Watt – a Labor senator – rudely suggested that Twomey may have had a conflict of interest when setting out the criteria that lead to a company with links to his wife getting a grant.
In my opinion, Watt was the one with the conflict of interest because he didn’t make it clear that Twomey was an LNP member and probable future candidate!
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