Of grumps and gripes

Policy moles are popping up all over the place and being whacked down just as quickly.

- Michele Hewitson

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Let's all play WhacA-Mole. Do we have any choice? Nope. You can't go anywhere at the moment without a pesky policy mole popping out of its hole to offer you stuff, only for it to be whacked down by a rival mole popping up from its hole. National would spend $24.8 billion over 10 years on its transport plan. Whack goes Labour, saying its costings are, er, out of whack.

Up pops the Labour mole and thwack! - GST will come off fruit and veges. Then it pops back up and adds more tax on fuel. This is known among moles as a self-whacking.

National then joined it with double whack. It said it will dump Labour's policy of giving every citizen free prescriptions. Instead, free scripts will go only to those on low incomes or the pension. With the savings, National would fund 13 cancer drugs currently available in Australia but not here. The scrapping of the free-for-all prescriptions - saving an estimated $316 million over four years - would fund the required $280m for the cancer drugs over four years.

It's quite canny. It looks good. Who wouldn't want people with cancer to have access to better treatment? The catch: the new drugs would treat about 1000 people a year, which is hardly up there with Jesus and his miracle of the loaves and fishes. But if you are unlucky enough to get lung, bowel, kidney, melanoma, or head and neck cancer, you'd be grateful for any chance at a slice of a loaf or a fillet of fish, wouldn't you?

Labour's prescription plan is for all five million of us, should the entire country get crook and need some pills.

This is as much an ethical dilemma as it is a medical one. Free medicine for the masses versus specialised medicine for a few? What would Jesus do?

GRUMPY FACED