Take two on Melbourne’s next tunnel, GST tussle gets personal, and did Carrspace run for cover over Woolworth’s Anzac blunder?

Woolworths sticks its logo on a digger’s face, Barnett throws a Black Saturday cheap shot, while Andrews burns $339 million. Mojonews.com.au business editor ARON LEWIN looks at this week’s news, which was nothing personal, just business. 

A tale of two tunnels: East West Link dead, Government trumpets Melbourne Metro tunnel

The Victorian Government finalised on Wednesday what appears to be a $339 million deal not to build the East West Link tunnel.

The Victorian Government will also provide an additional $81 million to help fund the next large-scale Melbourne infrastructure project – a 9km Melbourne Metro rail tunnel from South Yarra to South Kensington

The payment will reimburse the East West Connect Consortium of Lend Lease – which includes France’s Bouygues and Spain's Acciona – for the costs incurred developing the project since it officially began last September.

Premier Daniel Andrews said honouring the contract was a “good faith agreement” with the  consortium and was consistent with his pre-election promise not to build the East West Link. The Government also highlighted that – under the Coalition’s own analysis – the project would have returned just 45c for every dollar spent.

But Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said taxpayers might pay an extra $480 million for “the cost of design-work, geo-technical planning and land acquisition”.

Mr Guy also said cancelling the contract indicated that “we’re no better off than Zimbabwe, no better than Venezuela at dealing with international companies”.

With the previous Coalition Government forecasting that compensation would cost taxpayers $1.1 billion, Independent Contractors Australia executive director Ken Phillips questioned whether the “real compensation for the cancelled East West Link could then be hidden within the financing costs of the Metro Link project”.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the Victorian Government’s decision “would cost 7000 jobs” and the “Andrews Government might be dead”.

He also denied that the 16-year East West Link project was dead.

Crikey reporter Stephen Mayne wrote that the Herald Sun was “absolutely feral” in its coverage of the settlement and that Victoria retaining its AAA credit rating meant that the deal was “reasonable for all concerned”.

But in The Conversation, Monash Centre for Privatisation and Public Accountability director Graeme Hodge wrote that the entire project was built on “opportunistic behaviour on all sides fanned along by a bunch of voracious bankers and eager businesses” and a decision not to build the road is “the lesser of two evils”.

In a letter to the Government, the Health Workers Union criticised how it handled the East West Link contract cancellation, declaring the $420 million would be better spent on improving health workers’ pay.

“This $420 million could have and should have gone towards funding better wages for over 55,000 low-paid public sector health workers,” Health Workers Union Secretary Diana Asma wrote.

GST gets personal: Barnett’s after his fair share

Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett left the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) “angry” over the distribution of GST revenue.

The meeting was centred around devising a plan to combat the alarming domestic violence rates and the endemic use of ice in Australia, but discussion was reportedly dominated by quarrels over GST allocation and funding cuts to schools and hospitals.

Mr Barnett was disappointed in the division of GST proceeds – which Crikey intern and Monash journalism student Sophie Thomas explained – because Western Australia was set to have its share of the GST revenue reduced from 37c in each dollar to just 30c.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten proposed a $300 million one-off loan to WA to help aid its economic recovery after a sharp fall in the iron ore price in the past year. But Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey rejected the proposal, insisting that the Government wouldn’t act as a “magic pudding” for fixing WA’s economic woes.

Mr Barnett said WA would be “a little bit more selfish” in the future after it provided financial support to Queensland during the 2010-2011 floods and Victoria after the Black Saturday bushfires.

The Victorian and Queensland premiers strongly condemned the comment, with Mr Andrews demanding that Mr Barnett apologise for the remark.

“One hundred and seventy-three people died, for heaven’s sake. These comments are disgusting, they are disgraceful, and Mr Barnett should apologise in full and immediately,” Mr Andrews said.

The premiers also lashed out at last year’s Federal Budget decision to cut $80 billion from hospitals and schools across Australia over the next decade.

NSW Premier Mike Baird described the hospital cuts as “the biggest challenge we’re facing”, while Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the cuts would cost Queensland’s State Budget $18 billion over 10 years.

Mental health system underfunded: “rob Peter to pay Paul”

ABC’s 7.30 Report obtained a leaked Federal Government report on mental health that recommended it redirect $1 billion from acute hospital care to community-based mental health services.

The report also included a further 25 recommendations, including a stronger focus on Indigenous social and mental wellbeing, implementing a national suicide prevention plan, and more clarity about National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) eligibility.

Former chair of the National Advisory Council on Mental Health Professor John Mendoza discussed the suicide of his nephew Jeff Mendoza to highlight the need for “urgent reform” in the mental health system.

“A dog hit by a car gets a better standard of care than what he did,” Prof Mendoza said.

“If he was afforded better care than what he was back on that occasion back in November 2014, he’d be here today.”

Health Minister Sussan Ley said the report painted a “disturbing picture” of Australia’s mental health system.

“There is enough mental health funding but it’s not being well spent,” Ms Ley said.

In the Sydney Morning Herald, Adjunct Associate Professor at the Menzies Centre for Health Policy Dr Lesley Russell wrote that the report showed the mental health system was plagued by “a collection of services and programs with little evidence of value and with no clarity of roles and responsibilities … [and that] patients, families, carers and healthcare professionals have consistently been ignored, misheard and under-valued”.

The head of the School of Psychiatry at UNSW Phillip Mitchell also wrote in The Conversation that Australia’s mental health system needed more funding rather than redistributing it so as to “rob Peter to pay Paul”.

Dull Budget: is Hockey playing it safe?

According to Mr Abbott, Australia is forecast to lose $30 billion in revenue over the next four years because of the dramatic fall in the iron ore price.

With consumer confidence falling and the International Monetary Fund declaring that Australia had the “worlds worst debt trajectory”, it will be interesting to see if Hockey will keep his promise for a dull Budget with no major cuts or increased taxes.

Woolworths under fire for Fresh in Our Memories campaign 

Woolworths has been lambasted for commercialising the Battle of Gallipoli and the Anzacs.

Woolworths launched the Fresh in Our Memories website, enabling users to upload a photo of a person affected by war.  The site would then automatically embed the caption “Lest We Forget, Anzac 1915-2015” at the top of the photo and “Fresh in our Memories” – accompanied by the Woolworths logo – below the picture. But the website was taken down late Tuesday evening after sparking a Twitter storm.

Woolworths avoided a $50,000 fine for using the word "Anzac" without consent from the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, contravening the Protection ofWord “Anzac” Act 1920.

Carrspace director – the advertising agency that created the Fresh in our Memories website – Madeleine Preece denied allegations that she hid, claiming the company’s Twitter account was shutdown to protect its staff from abuse.

The backlash has put the spotlight on other brands that have used Anzac Day in a promotional context.

Target withdrew its Camp Gallipoli product range after Department of Veterans’ Affairs spokesman Mark Lee said it was “inappropriate”.

In The Conversation, Australian Defence Force Academy PhD candidate Emily Robertson wrote that branding had been historically important in preserving the Anzac spirit, while Helen Razer wrote in Crikey that people had always filled the Battle of Gallipoli with meaning to “define ourselves”.

Ben Eltham wrote in New Matilda that public outcry on the Fresh in our Memories campaign overshadowed an announcement that 300 more soldiers would be deployed to Iraq this week, indicating “we’ve simply become inured to it, so common have Australian deployments to the Middle East become”.