From da3c9c9cc2500debec096dc806b9013d61e305ed Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: armistace Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2026 11:37:43 +1000 Subject: [PATCH] Update src/content/how_bureaucratic_systems_interact_to_create_bad_outcomes.md --- ...cratic_systems_interact_to_create_bad_outcomes.md | 12 ++++++------ 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-) diff --git a/src/content/how_bureaucratic_systems_interact_to_create_bad_outcomes.md b/src/content/how_bureaucratic_systems_interact_to_create_bad_outcomes.md index 4792c81..25d757c 100644 --- a/src/content/how_bureaucratic_systems_interact_to_create_bad_outcomes.md +++ b/src/content/how_bureaucratic_systems_interact_to_create_bad_outcomes.md @@ -1,10 +1,10 @@ Title: How Bureaucratic Systems Interact To Create Bad Outcomes -Date: 2026-07-28 01:22 -Modified: 2026-07-28 01:22 +Date: 2026-07-28 07:22 +Modified: 2026-07-28 07:22 Category: Policy Tags: bureaucracy, healthcare, superannuation, child-care-subsidy, australia Slug: bureaucratic-systems-bad-outcomes -Authors: glm-5.2.ai, nemotron-3-nano.ai, gpt-oss.ai, deepseek-v4-flash.ai +Authors: Andrew Ridgway... and Friends: glm-5.2.ai, nemotron-3-nano.ai, gpt-oss.ai, deepseek-v4-flash.ai Summary: A parent's account of how Australia's health, tax and welfare systems interact to penalise families who access their superannuation for essential medical treatment for their children. This is going to be a long blog post. I do not normally like to generate public facing complaints of such a specific nature, but in this day and age it seems to be the only way to get people to stand back from their own processes and rules and sit down and actually listen to how a system works in reality. The long and short of it is that we have a compassionate release of superannuation system that is neither compassionate nor understanding, and is actively generating worse outcomes than the failure it was designed to address. I will outline my case below, but I am very concerned about what this means for the people who access this system for things like cosmetic dental. @@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ The three systems in question are private and public health, the ATO and superan This blog post is accompanied by emails to the respective Ministers, my local representative, and reach outs to news outlets. It will serve as the last gasp of hope that someone will actually listen, rather than send canned emails that treat me like a child who did not do any prior research. Yes, Jacqualine Myint, I am referring to the response to my previous enquiry which completely missed the point that I had already outlined how the systems were interacting. -I would like to note that Ali France, my local MP, has reached out to me to ask for my story to assist with her work in the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability on improving access to specialty doctors. If that committee work is something that matters to you, they are accepting submissions at the Department of Health and Aged Care consultation page on specialist affordability and access. +I would like to note that Ali France, my local MP, has reached out to me to ask for my story to assist with her work in the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability on improving access to specialty doctors. If that committee work is something that matters to you, they are accepting submissions at the Department of Health and Aged Care consultation page on specialist affordability and access. You can see it [here.](https://www.health.gov.au/our-work/consultation-on-specialist-affordability-and-access?language=en) To work through this, I am going to put together a timeline. I have also uploaded copies of the relevant correspondence so that you can read just how condescending our bureaucracy can be. This post has three sections. The first covers the timeline of the initial event and the health care received. The second covers the timeline of the tax event and its fallout. The third is an analysis of how the three systems interact to create a terrible outcome. @@ -53,7 +53,7 @@ I did the 2023-24 tax return with my accountant. Superannuation was not yet incl **April 2025** -My daughter started the 2024 rugby season. She was unfortunately not able to play, but she participated in training. That was only possible because she had the surgery in the private health system. Had we gone down the public path, we would still have been waiting for surgery at this point. +My daughter started the 2025 rugby season. She was unfortunately not able to play, but she participated in training. That was only possible because she had the surgery in the private health system. Had we gone down the public path, we would still have been waiting for surgery at this point. ## Section 2: Timeline of the tax event and its fallout @@ -79,7 +79,7 @@ I put this question to the respective Ministers. Why come up with a compassionat The outcomes here cannot be sustainable. I do not necessarily think that giving people access to their own super in times of acute stress is a bad idea in principle. But if the policy is going to be called compassionate, then it needs to actually be compassionate. It should provide appropriate tax treatment for amounts used for essential medical treatment, and it should not flow through to reduce income tested family payments. At the moment, every agency involved gets to claim that the problem belongs to another agency, and the family wears the cost. -Tanya Plibersek, your lack of communication is telling. To the Health Minister's office, why would you send me a response that simply repackages research I have already done and then wash your hands of the matter? To the Treasurer's office, you need to get someone with genuine training in how these systems interact to write your letters, because the response I received was the most aggregious and insulting of all. It defended a design choice without ever addressing the interaction effect that I had specifically written to raise. +Tanya Plibersek, the lack of communication from your office is telling. To the Health Minister's office, why would you send me a response that simply repackages research I have already done and then wash your hands of the matter? To the Treasurer's office, you need to get someone with genuine training in how these systems interact to write your letters, because the response I received was the most egregious and insulting of all. It defended a design choice without ever addressing the interaction effect that I had specifically written to raise. This whole sorry saga belies a complete failure of joined up thinking across all of these systems. I am rapidly coming to the point where I ask what the point of our "world class health system" is when it thinks a better outcome is to stop a girl from playing sport, or to force her parents to use a mechanism that they have to dig into their own pockets for, after paying into the system a rather massive amount via tax. If we had gone with the public option, I can guarantee you that the comorbidities it would have caused would have made it much more expensive down the road, both for my daughter and for the system.