PM is looking for a fight with the states

IN 2005, Kevin Rudd delivered a speech to the Queensland branch of the Don Dunstan Foundation entitled The Case for Co-operative Federalism.

In it, he lampooned then prime minister John Howard for a "coercive federalist model" that created "coercive centralism".

Fast-forward five years and the Prime Minister has issued an ultimatum to the states: agree with my health reform package of putting Canberra in charge of public hospitals or else -- the "else" being a referendum on a federal takeover.

In the 2005 speech, Rudd said: "We would have a much better guarantee of reforms remaining on the statute books into the future through a culture of national political co-operation and collaboration as opposed to confrontation and coercion."

Last week, Rudd told ABC radio: "I would suggest that those that are out there just whingeing and moaning about (the health package), they should basically get with the program."

In 2005, Rudd said: "It is important to recognise that if the commonwealth at any stage is serious about delivering an enduring national policy reform agenda, it is far better to obtain long-term political purchase on such a program by negotiating it with . . . state governments."

Now Rudd is giving state health ministers just one month to consider a package that took two years to put together.

Far from moving on from the regular standoffs between Howard and state Labor administrations, Rudd is moving us into a phase of continued disagreements between the commonwealth and the states.

Far from "ending the blame game", he is looking for a fight with state Labor governments, in particular NSW.

What Rudd is really after is a national stoush over a policy area Labor is traditionally regarded by voters as better able to manage than the Coalition.

It might turn out to be good politics but it is hardly going to deliver policy outcomes. And it is certainly no way to run a country.