Mark Butler decisions on RATs, telehealth, COVID highlight Labor's childlike excuses testing public's patience

We are applauding, wildly, the actions of Penny Wong as she tries to repair the damage done by a decade of Coalition ineptitude. Mark Dreyfus, similarly, as he removes the yoke from Bernard Collaery. Tanya Plibersek is doing her goddam best to reset the Australian attitude to renewables. So much goodwill.

But what happens when the government itself decides it will make some utterly idiotic decisions because it thinks it's still protected by our joy?

Here we are, not yet two months after the election, and the stupidity has begun. It's made made worse because it's happening in the very portfolio which troubled the Coalition since the beginning of the pandemic. Remember that utter buffoon saying: "It's not a race."

As we discovered, it is a race. It's not a sprint, that we now know. It's not even the 800 metres. It's a freaking marathon, going beyond 42 kilometres. Beyond 42 days. If we are very very lucky, it might be done in 42 months.

The new Minister for Health Mark Butler seems like a nice person. He doesn't bark or berate - at least not in public - but he must accept that we are not at the end stage of the marathon yet and the Australian public still needs help to manage COVID. We need drinks along the way. We need propping up.

And it is not too late to offer those supports to those still struggling to get to the other end.

Butler has defended the decision to dump pandemic leave payments.

"There's no easy time to end emergency payments ... but this payment was designed and budgeted by the former government and all state governments to come to an end on June 30."

Which is the kind of excuse small children use when trying to avoid responsibility.

I'll tell you when it's not an easy time to end emergency payments. When Omicron BA subvariant XX is upon us, and every second person has bloody COVID, and you are still a casual, despite record low unemployment so not able to access any kind of sick pay. That's when it's especially not an easy time to end emergency payments.

Every morning I wake up and, if I'm well, I thank AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna. I thank the team which invented FluVax. I'm desperate to avoid yet another round of that fourth, unnamed lurgy, the one where you sniffle while you work but definitely don't have any of the big scaries. It's not even early spring but I'm sneezing.

And I'd like to thank the inventors of the rapid antigen test which has made it possible for me to avoid hanging out with the scarily unwell in queues for PCR tests at our local hospitals. Now it turns out that concession card holders will no longer have access to free RATs because the former government had already set the date to end access (but please, pensioners, stuff your pockets with free ones while you can).

I'm struggling here. The federal government pursued Collaery, ignored the Solomons and shagged coal interests. Why follow its lead on these actions which affect the nation's health?

Now here's the other thing which the Minister for Health is trying to do and using the excuse of "my predecessor made me do it". Dramatic changes to telehealth, telehealth which has been an absolute godsend during the pandemic and should continue to be as accessible to everyone as long as possible.

As of July 1, long telehealth consultations can only be conducted through the use of video calls. Shorter consultations are fine on the phone but longer, more expensive, sessions must use video. Might be fine, so long as you are comfortable with technology, have a hefty data plan and live somewhere the internet is extremely reliable (not that great just a few kilometres from the CBD and dreadful in regional, rural and remote areas). Can't be somewhere you have to sit in the dunny on the hill to FaceTime your grandkids. And technically, there are a whole range of people in aged care, those living with disability and others, for whom video would never be the answer.

Legions of medical experts are waiting to have a serious conversation with the new Minister for Health. Karen Price, the president of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, is perplexed. Jacqueline Small, the president of the Royal Australian College of Physicians, the same.

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Neither of these two senior leaders can understand why the minister has made this decision without consulting people who actually understand what is going on in medical consultations across the country.

So I asked the minister's office on what basis this decision was made? Would the minister consider reverting to allowing longer consults over the phone? What was the research/evidence which resulted in this decision? Is the minister aware that several peak medical bodies including the AMA, the RACGP and the RACP all think this move to insist on video (for longer consultations) impacts negatively on the health of Australians and actively excludes some patients from extended consultations?

And of course the response from the minister's office didn't really answer a single bloody question. At least it didn't say, "my brother made me do it".

If there was any evidence to say this is a good time to disrupt the magic of telehealth consultations, I'm sure we would all know by now.

As Karen Price of the RACGP says, the minister has been poorly advised. I fear the reason is money. If that's the case, let's think of other ways to cut costs while we are still running our race.

It's not too late to talk to the doctors and the patients about what we need to get to the end of this marathon.