Abbott was rolled on the Medicare cuts

Seems pretty clear to me. Just a day after Abbott interrupted his holidays to support the Medicare cuts, his new health minister Susan Ley ditched them spectacularly. It was a humiliating egg on the Abbott face. He'd not have backed down unless he was starred down. I smell Lieberal discontent with their glorious leader :)

Surely they must be looking at this whole Medicare debacle and scratching their heads at the shear stupidity of it, not only in policy but politically. Doctors went to war with the gov. Voters were horrified. Queensland Lieberals shit themselves. The senate announced the cuts would be disallowed. Honestly, what the fuck was Abbott thinking? Does he honestly think that nobody was going to notice suddenly having to pay $20 to see a doctor? Did he think there'd be no opposition? Like I've said, he seems to think that just by saying something then it becomes so. 

Politically this was a disaster of biblical proportions. I keep asking, how much longer can this gov go on like this with such a completely inept fool at the helm? But they just keep going on and on with this nut. Surely the numbers must be lining up by now in the gov to finally do us all a favour and kick him to the back bench?

First, it was a policy decision that could not be implemented, and merely exposes the Government to well-earned ridicule; second, it alienated powerful and vocal groups like the AMA without finding compensatory friends; third, it will do nothing to arrest the Government's slide after 14 months of dismal poll results; and finally it raises crucial questions about leadership. 

The Government is now approaching the half-way mark of its term, and a nervous group of backbenchers who came in on the anti-Labor swing in 2013 will surely be looking towards 2016 with mounting anxiety. To compound their concerns, the looming election in Queensland on January 31 will see, whatever the outcome, a big loss of LNP-held seats from the landslide election win in 2012, and a similarly large conservative majority in New South Wales is also certain to be trimmed in the state election at the end of March. 

And it is not only backbenchers who are looking at events with increasingly furrowed brows. The rapidity of the reversal of the Medicare decision smacks strongly of serious intervention; in effect, the Prime Minister was faced down and a new minister was sent out to save his face. more