Remembering fifteen.

I think of her poster: butterfly-like

patches in pastel colours, the heads

of The Cure emerging from black.

Her nimbleness rising in my fingers,

twenty-one years later for no reason

other than I caught today

some similar smell, of cold dust

on grass matting, of her

bare shoulders freshly showered,

of the underside of a new clean pillow,

of the short black hair on the back of her head

where she had had it shaved a month ago –

such a mod, all blacks and purples

and yellow stitched Docs.

Winnie Reds at the end

of platform 2, out of the rain,

and her blue school bag black texta-ed with the names

of bands, symbols.

She wore my grey school jumper in front of her friends

and wrote

an Anarchy sign in blue biro on my wrist,

the first girl I kissed

bought hip flasks of vodka.

And the silver train at night,

swaying to the city;

her legs in black stockings,

her feet crossed confidently on the seats, she's smiling

and her green eyes

right at me.

‘Echuca Soldier’s Wonderful Experience: Taken Prisoner and escapes’

London, 28^th August, 1917. Frank on left. On right is most likely his cousin Lt. Arthur Alder, of II ANZAC Mounted Corps.

Frank Leslie Alder was a 28 year old drover from Echuca when he enlisted in the AIF on 3^rd August, 1915. He was sent to France with the 15^th reinforcements for the 6^th Battalion and taken on strength in the field on 17^th December, 1916.

He served with the 6^th Battalion until the 6^th of April 1917, when he was sent to hospital with trench fever. He spent the rest of the war in England, finally setting sail for Australia on the 14^th January, 1919.

From information in the 6^th Battalion diary and the Official War History I believe the incident described in the letter below happened on the 2^nd of March, 1917 while the Battalion was occupying BARLEY Trench in the FLERS sector. The incident occurred between BARLEY and PORK trenches.

Article appeared in May 1917 in Echuca-Moama newspaper.

'Echuca Soldier's Wonderful Experience: Taken Prisoner and escapes'

In a letter to his father, Mr. James Alder, Pakenham St, Echuca, Alder writing from France March 7 says:

"Since writing my last letter to you I have had a marvellous experience, and must consider myself one of the luckiest men alive. As I told you before, I have joined a Lewis gun section. One night the team I am attached to was sent out to an advanced post, with instructions to come back to the front line by daylight. Well just about half an hour before then two of us were sent back so that we could get the early morning tea for the rest of the boys. We had just got into the front line when Fritz opened up with a very heavy barrage, so we had to keep down. However, a strong patrol party of the enemy took my mate and I prisoners. The first thing we knew was that about thirty Germans were right on us and calling us to surrender, and waving bombs in their hands ready to throw them into our position. Where they came from I don't know where, and as there was a very heavy fog it was impossible to see forty yards ahead. We gave ourselves up and were being taken away in the direction of the enemy lines when our captors ran right into the advanced post we had just left, and where our mates were, and before the boys knew what the enemy was about there were four or five bombs thrown at them. With that they turned the gun onto the Germans, and then there was some yelling. Three or four of the huns dropped, but fortunately me and my mate escaped being hit. Four of our boys were wounded, one of them having his right foot blown clear off. The enemy then turned and ran back in the direction they had come. By this time I was fairly knocked up, but had to keep going with them. Then they turned to the right and almost ran into the 5^th battalion lines. Before they knew where they were the 5^th were firing on them, so we all got into shell holes. We remained there for a few minutes. I made up my mind to take my chance, and bolted for my life about 50 yards into the 5^th battalion lines. The rifle fire was heavy and Fritz had a shot at me while I was on the run, however he missed, and I reached our lines safely. When I was running in I dropped, and I thought I was a 'goner', but when I reached the 5^th btn and looked around Fritz and my mates were going in the opposite direction. By this time there were only about 17 of the enemy left, the others having been killed or wounded. Ten men of the 5^th btn went out to try and turn them and succeeded. Half an hour later Fritz was again in sight and the enemy had to put up their hands. There was only my mate and one of them who were not wounded. How my mate and I escaped being hit is simply marvellous. We were through the barrage twice, missed being hit by machine gun and rifle fire, while all the time the huns were dropping and yelling one after the other. I was fairly settled. I suppose I must have cut out that 50 yard sprint in record time. My mate must have had a more trying time than I did, and I think he was lucky that the huns did not settle him when they saw me doing a 'get'. It was an experience which neither of us wish to go through again, and we have to thank our mates on the machine gun for saving us. Only for their prompt action I might have been in Berlin today. I believe the boy who fired the gun has been recommended and he deserves it. He turned what looked like a successful raid into a failure. His name is Tweedie, and he comes from Ballarat and is only 19 years of age."

COAG, Health Reform, the Henry Tax Review and why this is not really about health.

It's really about money and power, of course.

The trick is in the two promises sitting side by side, to wit, that:

1. The Feds will kick in 2/3^rd of the cost of Hospitals and some Health related activities, and
   
2. The States will give up 1/3^rd of GST revenue in return.
   

The problem is one of these numbers is going up and the other is not. Say you're a Premier. Say you get $10 a year from GST to run the State, which really means Hospitals, Schools and Cops. So now the feds are saying that for Health they will take about $3 of that, and you will put in about $2, which leaves you with $5 for Schools and Cops.

But the cost of Health is rising by about 3% per annum, while tax revenue will remain steady or fall, or will do something we don't yet know about (Henry Tax Review comment coming below). So in a few years' time the PM rocks up and says that Health is now going to cost $5, which means you're going to have to put in about $2.50. Where's the extra 50c to come from? It's got to come out of Schools or Cops. Now as Premier you are in a very pretty position. You can go to the electorate saying you won't put in more money for Hospitals, or you can go to the electorate saying you're going to cut funding to Schools and Cops. Your choice. But oh wait, there's a third option, that is, you can give Schools or Cops to the Feds! That this would happen if the Rudd model went through is an absolute certainty.

Make no mistake, this is what this debate is about. Lurking behind it like a pale kid who's just spewed behind the couch and is hoping no one will smell the vapours rising, is the Henry Tax Review.

We paid our most trusted employees, ie Kevin Rudd and Cabinet, to conduct a review of the Australian Taxation system with an eye to the long term. They then spent our money hiring some very smart people to do this review. The review has come back and now our employees are refusing to show it to us. Instead, they have come back asking us to entirely reorganise the whole shop. Why? Because they say we have to. Where's the Report? Someplace, they say. They'll show it to us later. Don't worry, they say.

Were these people actually employees they would be sacked, and quite possibly we would bring in the police to try to get access to the report we paid them to produce and which they now refuse to give us.

But like most reports we already know the gist of what it's going to say. That is, that the ageing population is going to mean rising costs and stable or falling tax revenues. This will happen across the spectrum of spending, but most acutely in Health. Most of the rising costs in health are about old people living longer. And these people are the baby boomers, a generation that has never been shy about funding its own lifestyles at the cost of other generations, and that still holds the key to political power.

We have to keep in mind the Normal Moronic Notion at the base of our votes. That is, that people would most like to pay less tax and also have better Hospitals and Schools and more Cops. These contradictory wishes segue nicely in our Federation in that the Feds raise income tax (which we want low), while the States provide Hospitals, Schools, and Cops (which we want lots of, and which cost heaps). The introduction of the GST was a neat way of side-stepping this issue when it was dedicated in its entirety to the States. It was in effect a way of raising taxes without seeming to do so, and at the same time chucking more money at Hospitals, Schools and Cops.

If the Feds now want to take control of Health they have a simple way of raising the money to do so at hand, ie raise income taxes. But as that would contradict the first tenet of our Normal Moronic Notion it just can't be done. Option 2 is therefore raid the GST money. But once the States allow the Feds to play the number trick they will be doomed to the inevitable and electorally unacceptable policy positions mentioned above which contradict the second tenet of the Normal Moronic Notion.

As an aside, if this were actually about Health Reform and not about a grab for power the Feds would agree to a pool funding model as suggested by Brumby, one that would protect the real money numbers and prevent the Feds from capturing the States in this policy pincer.

Who will win?
Obviously not us, whatever happens. But in a political sense the States can win this. Firstly, they have the original agreement on the GST, which means if they can force nothing to happen they will win. Secondly, Rudd's threat to take it to a referendum is just stupid. It won't win. The States would simply run against it by showing the people the number trick the Feds are trying to pull. If the States get traction on that we have a situation where a Fed Labor gov't is going against all Labor States and at the same time trying to win a Federal election as a Labor gov't. This would be a disaster for Labor. In the minds of the electorate it would mean that if the Feds are right, then State Labor is bad, and if the States are right, then Fed Labor is bad. Either way, it transforms into 'Labor is bad'. This is why Abbott has been smilingly quiet lately. He's giggling so hard his bike must be wobbling.

At COAG everyone knows this, and it is merely a matter of who blinks first. But overall the States have both the whip hand, and the absolute need to prevent falling into the trap the Feds have set. In the end we will probably get some new bank account. It will be called a 'pool' or something, and they will then fight over control of it.

Lastly, they seem to have forgotten that it is eminently possibly for a State to individually cede power to the Commonwealth, as VIC did with its industrial relations powers under Kennett. If South Australia loves this new model so much why not just independently cede the powers? Or do so in partnership with Queensland? The Commonwealth has not shown that cost savings are to be found in economies of scale that necessarily require all the States to cede at once. So why aren't they ceding these powers individually? Perhaps these States believe they would be relatively better off if they could access money raised in VIC/NSW? No, they can already do that. The real reason is they understand the political implications.