Tony Abbott Confident Of Australia’s Vote For Performance Not Promise

Australians will recognize performance over promise and reward the federal government with their vote at the next election, Health and Ageing Minister Tony Abbott avers.

Australians will recognize performance over promise and reward the federal government with their vote at the next election, Health and Ageing Minister Tony Abbott avers. At the same time he concedes that two bad post-budget polls for the government recently, were "a bit discouraging".

"I'm confident that come Election Day, people will reward the good performance that they have had from this government,” Abbott was quoted. He said he was confident voters had good sense and would recognize the government's strong economic management and sensible policies in health and education.

According to Abbott, Labor has given up on the health portfolio. He opines that since Nicola Roxon became the opposition spokeswoman for health at the end of last year, Labor has taken a conscious decision to de-emphasize health.

"The previous two shadows both actually went on to become deputy leader of the Labor party. Jenny Macklin and Julia Gillard,” Abbott was quoted.” But I don't think that's likely to happen with the current shadow."

He braced his statements noting that Ms Roxon did not ask many questions relating to health during parliamentary question time.

"All the things they (Labor) have criticized the government for, the government has actually delivered on and it seems to have left them with pretty well nowhere to go," Abbott said.

"We've got a health system which is already moving from just treating sickness to promoting wellness also and yet Labor acts as if they have just discovered this, well where have they been for the last few years?"

On the other side of the fence, Ms Roxon says Mr. Abbott is concentrating his attack on individuals instead of being accountable for his own policies.

"It's interesting to me that Mr. Abbott has chosen this week to go on the attack, the week after he's just launched a totally dismal dental policy, millions of dollars, but that's actually not going to be able to fix the range of problems in our national dental crisis," Ms Roxon was reported saying.

"I think Mr. Abbott should concentrate more on his portfolio rather than worrying about attacking us", she added.

Ms Roxon claims that Labor will release further detail on health policies closer to the election.

Source-Medindia
ANN/B