Sunday, May 18, 2008

Headlines Sunday 18th May

Dental care is rotten
Piers Akerman
DURING the run-up to the last federal election, the then Rudd Labor opposition made a meal out of the then Howard Liberal government’s dental policies - or the claimed lack of them.
Now, six months on, with probably 20 per cent of its term in office behind it, the Rudd Labor government has not only removed the services the Howard government installed, it has reduced the level of dental care to less than it was before the last government’s eleventh hour initiatives.

As associate professor Hans Zoellner, the chairman of the Association for the Promotion of Oral Health, says, this is a truly appalling situation, a national tragedy.

Since the Rudd Labor government came to office, the state of dental care in Australia has gone backwards and last week’s federal Budget clearly demonstrated that, for all its claimed compassion, the Labor Party doesn’t have a clue about the problem or how to address it.
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Build that dam before it’s too damn late
Andrew Bolt
Victoria’s Brumby Government has, for religious reasons, refused to build the cheap new dam that was planned long ago for the flood-prone Mitchell River.

Now its hugely expensive alternatives - a $3 billion desalination plant and a pipeline from Goulburn to bring down water “saved” by fixing irrigation losses - are springing leaks
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Political poison
Andrew Bolt
Magnus Linklater:
Do we live in an age of hatred? Or has the language of political insult simply become more extreme? ... -Strange how the conservative attack, which is mild is compared with the over the top gratuitous assault of the lefty liberals. Were they reversed, the lefty insults would not have been published, such is their strength. - ed
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Rudd’s $1.76 billion blue
Andrew Bolt
An even bigger bungle than than we suspected:

THE Federal Government appears to have grossly underestimated the number of people set to abandon private health insurance following its controversial Medicare changes.
Mugabe's Thugs
How Memory was pulped
Andrew Bolt
London’s Daily Mail describes how Robert Mugabe’s thugs bashed Opposition supporters to death, and beat others to a literal pulp. It showed one of the survivors - a picture too grizzly to show of her wounds is linked to her flickr photo. Mugabe should not be allowed to retain power. - ed
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Shut up
Andrew Bolt
Even to Age sports writers, a narrow election win ends all argument about culture and politics - or should
Junta says no
China’s Potemkin rescue
Andrew Bolt
I’ve pointed out China’s unusual openness in dealing with its earthquake catastrophe. John Garnaut sees it’s not an accident that we notice - and not always what it seems, either
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Swan's huge Medicare budget slip-up revealed
Treasury has reportedly underestimated the cost of changes to the Medicare levy by more than half a billion dollars, leaving a massive hole in the federal budget.
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Bystanders foil would-be massacre
Courageous bystanders have tackled and held a man who opened fire on a crowd of fifty people at a church festival in Los Angeles.
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Shannon Noll admits drink and drug problems
Shannon Noll has confirmed the Australian music industry's worst kept secret, admitting he was addicted to drugs and alcohol.
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Violent pubs told shape up or shut down
The most violent pubs and clubs in New South Wales have been ordered to show why they should not be shut down.
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Horrific stabbings end two Sydney weddings
A wedding video might hold vital clues as to who is responsible for the stabbing of three guests at a wedding reception in Sydney's west.
Chinese Government
Aftershocks cause panic in China
Thousands of Chinese have fled their homes as strong aftershocks rattle the nation's south west.

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