A Victorian Liberal Nationals Coalition Government will cut the cost of Ambulance Victoria membership by half to help Victorian families struggling with rising living costs, Coalition Leader Ted Baillieu said today.

Launching the Coalition’s $241.9 million plan for cheaper ambulance membership in Ballarat today, Mr Baillieu said Victorian families deserved cheaper access to vital ambulance services.

“Victorian families are struggling with day to day living costs that are increasing at an alarming rate,” Mr Baillieu said.

“Under John Brumby, the cost of living keeps rising but basic services are going backwards.

“Victorians are paying more but getting less because of Labor's incompetence and waste.

“A Coalition Government will fix these problems with cheaper access to vital ambulance services by increasing funding to Ambulance Victoria from the start of the 2011-12 financial year to cover the cost of a 50 per cent reduction in membership fees.”

Under the Coalition’s plan, the cost of an annual family membership of Ambulance Victoria will be reduced from $150 to $75 and singles will pay $37.50 per year instead of $75.

The plan will cover both new memberships and renewals of existing memberships.

“The Coalition’s plan will reduce costs for more than one million members of Ambulance Victoria and make ambulance membership more attractive for new members,” Mr Baillieu said.

“Cheaper ambulance membership means more Victorians can get covered so they can call for an ambulance for a family member without worrying about the cost, including children who may need emergency transport while at kindergarten or school,” Mr Baillieu said.

Ambulance membership protects families from the high cost of ambulance treatment and transport, covering all emergency ambulance transport, Mobile Intensive Care Ambulance attendance, air ambulance transport and Newborn Emergency Transport Services.

As at June this year, there were 562,075 family memberships and 429,782 single memberships of Ambulance Victoria, with more than 1 million members in total including life and other members.

All funds generated from Ambulance Victoria memberships are directed back into operating and improving the ambulance service, including the education and equipping of Victoria’s paramedics.

Holders of Victorian Health Care Cards and Pensioner Concession Cards and their listed dependents are entitled to free ambulance and air ambulance transport anywhere in Australia.

The Coalition’s plan for cheaper ambulance membership builds on its previous commitments to fund an additional 340 ambulance staff across Melbourne and regional Victoria, as well as ten new MICA Single Responder Units across regional Victoria, to fix the problems created by 11 years of Labor’s neglect of ambulance services.

buzzanddidj wrote on Dec 11^th, 2010 at 10:52pm:

Gillard managed a backflip on the carbon tax outstrips them all.

There will be no Carbon Tax on the party I lead.

They dont get much bigger than a brand new tax

What BETTER reason to change stable government in a state that has seen the GREATEST growth and the LOWEST unemployment

A discount on ambulance insurance - and some pork-barrelling to the electorates of Ballarat East and West ...

Two rural seats they DESPERATELY want back




Meanwhile ...


Baillieu seen as powerless on bills
Melissa Fyfe
December 12, 2010

THE energy industry has warned new Premier Ted Baillieu that he has little control over rising power bills and is wrong to imply to Victorian voters that he does have control.

Meanwhile, concerns have been raised over two of the new government's policies - its commitment to reducing bushfire risk from electricity wires, and a better tariff for rooftop solar panel owners, which may push up prices further.

Mr Baillieu took the reins from Labor promising to ease cost-of-living pressures. But only days after the change of government, two of the state's biggest power companies, AGL and Origin Energy, foreshadowed further bill rises of up to $150 for gas and electricity next year, prompting the new Premier to demand an explanation from the industry.

Cameron O'Reilly, executive director of the Energy Retailers Association of Australia, said that while voters traditionally looked to the state government to control prices, the Victorian market was privatised and mostly deregulated, and many factors pushing up prices were beyond state government control.

"It's creating a rod for your own back to pretend that you can control electricity prices, because you can't. It's a long term, no-win proposition for state governments [because the] factors driving up prices will continue," Mr O'Reilly said. Governments that implied they controlled these forces did so at their own peril, he said.

The Coalition also faces a challenge in keeping its vow to implement all recommendations of the Bushfires Royal Commission. In contrast to the former Brumby government, which said such a move would put too much pressure on bills, Mr Baillieu committed to a program of insulating, burying or bundling single-wire earth return power lines in bushfire-prone areas.



http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/baillieu-seen-as-powerless-on-bills-20101211-1...



Electricty and gas were PRIVATISED and DEREGULATED under the PREVIOUS Liberal governmenti

buzzanddidj wrote on Dec 12^th, 2010 at 1:49am:



Oh dear, did I read that correctly.
I'll try again.
Yes, I did read that correctly.
It is sad when a champagne socialist has forgotten his ALP's founding fathers who instigated privitisation isn't it.
Such a sad waste of champagne being sloshed around everywhere.
Let's all hope he realises that Hawke held a special national conference to undertake privitisation.

Verge wrote on Dec 11^th, 2010 at 10:40pm:



The champagne socialist strikes again!

Miss Anne Dryst wrote on Dec 12^th, 2010 at 7:36am:





"Champagne socialist" is a new English vernacular the "political blonde" has just learnt from Andrei

She has NO idea of its application, but assummes it must be offensive

I think that he won, because class warefare worked.  Here is a good left-wing alternative to social democracy.

Whig Party (modeled after UK)
centrism, pragmatism, syncretic politics, transpartisanship, States' rights, Fiscal responsibility

Political position      Fiscal: Centrist, Syncretic
Social: Centrist, Syncretic

The symbol for the Whig Party is an Owl.

Will Baillieu halt crime in it's tracks?

He said he would remove suspended sentences.

http://www.vic.liberal.org.au/News/MediaReleases/tabid/159/articleType/ArticleVi...

I spoke to a lawyer who said that without suspended sentences
hundreds of people would be sent to prison every day.
There is simply not enough room in our prisons to do that.

There are about 250 working days in the year.
Lets say 200 people a day are sent to jail.
If they were sent for an average of one year then we would need
50,000 new prison beds.
Lets say the average is a 1 month stay then  we would still need
over 4,000 prison beds.
I heard he was going to make a new prison with only 2,000 beds
so it seems he hasn't done his sums.

I am a bit worried that Ted can't do basic arithmetic.