Australian Federal Election 2016: spot Amanda Vanstone's attempts at political deception in The Age newspaper

This was former Liberal Senator for South Australia and former minister in the Howard Government, Amanda Vanstone writing in The Age on 9 May 2016 in an article titled Turnbull or Shorten? The choice seems clear:

Let’s break that down a little.

Schooling

Yes, Malcolm Turnbull went to a public primary school at Vaucluse in Sydney’s affluent Eastern Suburbs for about three years and, yes he went to Sydney Grammar School from the age of eight with the assistance of a scholarship for at least part of that period. He graduated from university during the years when undergraduate and post-graduate tertiary education was free of course fees in Australia. He was the child of divorced parents. All this is on the public record.

Bill Shorten went to a local Catholic primary school before attending Xavier College’s junior & senior schools in the Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne – his mother taught at Xavier and presumably there was some degree of discount on his school fees. So yes, he also had a private education in affluent suburbs. He graduated from university during the years when tertiary education was free of course fees and undertook a post-graduate degree during a period when course fees were re-instituted. His parents divorced when he was about 20 years of age. All of which is also on the public record.

Wealth

Malcolm Turnbull inherited assets worth an est. $2 million from his hotel-broker father before he turned 29 years of age according to one of his biographers Paddy Manning and, he and his wife independently and jointly went on to garner considerably greater wealth which was last estimated to be in the vicinity of $200 million. His last Statement of Registrable Interests lists a veritable slew of financial investments and an expensive property portfolio shared between he and his wife. It is not known if he inherited any money from his mother.

It is not known to the writer if Bill Shorten inherited any money to speak of from his dry-dock manager father or his mother, however his last Statement of Registrable Interests lists very little in assets held by either he or his wife beyond their mortgaged family home.

What essentially separates these two men are the differences in their personal and political philosophies and the wide gap between their different levels of personal wealth.

Although this is something Amanda Vanstone is trying hard to distort in this federal election campaign and something The Age appears to be so indifferent to that its editor is not reigning in her excesses.  

THE NATIONALS SAY THEY WANT TO HEAR FROM ELECTORS

Some weeks ago people in the Northern Rivers – and presumably other parts of the country – received an email from Fiona Nash, the Nationals’ Deputy Leader.  Ms Nash stated that she was committed to giving regional Australians a proper voice at the top table and wanted help in representing us.

She continued with:  “The new Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce and I are renewing our commitment to people in small towns, on family farms and small communities. Those on our pristine coast, and deep in the bush. We will fight every day for the hospitals, roads and essential services regional people deserve. Our party, uniquely, has never forgotten who we represent – and who we work for. This is your chance to tell us what YOU think we should be prioritising in 2016.”

The person who told me about the email was rather bemused that she had received such a communication from the Nationals.  However, she decided that, since she had emailed the local federal MP about an issue some time ago, that must have been how her email address was obtained.

A MESSAGE TO FIONA NASH  - SOME VIEWS ON THREE OF THE ISSUES THE NATIONALS SHOULD PRIORITISE

EDUCATION

Gonski should be fully funded until 2020. The Gonski education reforms which provide needs-based funding are about fairness and equal opportunity in education – of vital importance to our national future – particularly a future in which we have been told innovation will be important.

Needs-based resourcing for education is extremely important in rural areas which often suffer from socio-economic disadvantage. 

Before the 2013 election there was a bipartisan commitment to full Gonski  funding – something the Government has since reneged on.  This is one of a number of promises broken by the Coalition following that election.

Some time ago the Prime Minister suggested public schools funding could become the sole responsibility of the states.  This justifiably angered many community members who support public schools and believe they perform a vital role in our society. The Commonwealth must continue to share responsibility for public school funding.

HEALTH

There is considerable room for improvement in dealing with health issues in regional areas.  For example hospitals are often poorly equipped and funded; mental health services are lacking in many areas; and specialist services are minimal except in the larger regional centres.  It is often difficult to attract and keep GPs in rural areas – let alone specialists.

The Medical Research and Rural Health Garvan Report 2015 pointed out that people living in rural and remote areas  make up 30% of the population but do not receive anywhere near 30% of health funding.

A recent article in The Daily Examiner, the Clarence Valley’s daily newspaper, discussed  the major health issues in the Clarence and the fact that local residents are disadvantaged in relation to preventative health care as well as in obtaining medical assistance for health emergencies. (Saturday April 30^th)

CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate change is a major and urgent issue which has been woefully neglected by the Coalition Government.  It’s not surprising that the Nationals have been dragging their heels when Deputy Leader Fiona Nash claims the science isn’t settled – and she obviously isn’t the only climate sceptic in the party. 

Despite these views, the Nationals need to realize that an increasing number of Australians – including those in regional areas – are very concerned about climate change and the impact it is already having in Australia and elsewhere.  And that number is going to rise.  There will be an increasing demand from the electorate for effective measures to limit carbon emissions and to transition to renewable energy.  This transition has huge benefits for our economy and for jobs – benefits that the Government is recklessly ignoring.

Just how much do the Nationals know about the potential benefits that renewable energy can bring – and is already bringing – to rural areas?   Are the National aware of moves towards setting up community energy projects?  Are they aware of Enova, the new energy retailer being established in the Northern Rivers?  As well as knowing about these developments, they should be enthusiastically supporting them.  These are examples of important innovations and ones the Government as a whole should be supporting.

SO, FIONA  NASH,  RURAL  PEOPLE DESERVE  ACTION  ON  THESE  MATTERS.  ARE  YOU  AND  YOUR  COLLEAGUES  GOING  TO  FIGHT  FOR  THEM ?

Hildegard

Northern Rivers

6^th May 2016

GuestSpeak is a feature of North Coast Voices allowing Northern Rivers residents to make satirical or serious comment on issues that concern them. Posts of 250-300 words or less can be submitted to ncvguestspeak AT gmail.com.au for consideration. Longer posts will be considered on topical subjects.

Australian Federal Election 2016: the face of private education

A report card on private education in Australia......

The New Daily, 25 March 2015:

More than 40 per cent of Australian secondary children now attend private schools – either so-called independent or religious schools. Australia has one of the most privatised school systems in the OECD….

New figures from the Productivity Commission show that government funding increases between 2008-09 and 2012-13 massively favoured private schools over public schools.

Funding for private schools in Victoria, for example, increased by 18.5 per cent per student, or eight times that of public schools.

Across Australia, the dollar increase for private schools was nearly five times that for public schools. The average increase for private schools was A$1,181 per student compared to only A$247 for public schools.

Other research indicates clearly that the equity gap between our school systems has continued to grow since the Gonski review in 2011.

Each private school pupil now receives, on average, a non-means-tested public subsidy of over A$8000 per year at the expense of the less privileged public school student. So much for the end of the age of entitlement.

In addition, pupils with disabilities in public schools receive A$12,000 of extra support while those in private schools get over A$30,000.

The Conversation, 24 April 2015:

PISA results from 2012 show that independent schools do better than Catholic schools, which in turn do better than government schools. However, when school-level socioeconomic background is taken into account, the differences in performance across school sectors are not significant.

A recent study by researchers at UQ, Curtin and USQ has allowed the simmering educational debate to come to the boil again. Drawing on data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, it finds that sending children to Catholic or other independent primary schools has no significant effect on cognitive or non-cognitive outcomes.

What is interesting is that researchers aligned this study with evidence from the US and UK and were able to draw the same conclusions. That is, for students attending non-government schools the returns are no different to public schools.

The Australian, 6 July 2015:

Taxpayer funding for private schools has grown twice as fast as for government schools, official data reveals.

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Author­ity statistics show that federal, state and territory government funding for independent and Catholic schools grew by 23 per cent, on a per-student basis, betwee­n 2009 and 2013.

Taxpayer funding to government schools grew by just 12.5 per cent over the same period.

Taxpayers contributed $11,864 for each student in government schools, $9547 for those in Catholic schools and $7790 for other private school students in 2013.

Private school fees and donations boosted the total net recurrent income per student to $12,548 per government school student, $12,177 per Catholic student and $16,601 per private student, on ­average, in 2013.

The Conversation, 9 July 2015:

The Advertiser,11 November 2015:

ELITE Adelaide private school Prince Alfred College has been found liable for the sexual abuse of one of its students by a boarding master in the 1960s.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 6 January 2016:

A Sydney private school has been accused of underpaying its employees by the Independent Education Union. 

Reddam House, headquartered in Sydney's eastern suburbs, faced the Fair Work Commission in December over allegations that it had not paid some of its early learning staff overtime, penalties or provided them with pay slips.

The allegations relate to a "state of the art early learning centre" that the 800-student school established on the north shore, last year.  

The Reddam ELS centre for children aged between one and six years features "interactive piazza spaces, critical thinking studios and breakout areas", the Reddam House website says. 

Despite Reddam's promotion of the early learning centre based in St Leonards as "one of the highlights of 2015", the school said the early learning staff were never employed by Reddam itself, a K-12 institution that earned $18 million in student fees last year. 

Reddam's barrister, Christopher Parkin, told the commission that the staff were employed by Crawford Education Pty Ltd and were therefore not subject to the award agreements negotiated between Reddam House and the IEU.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 February 2016:

Thousands of students of at least four colleges have been left in limbo with huge debts following the collapse of one of the country's largest vocational education companies.

At least 500 administration and teaching staff have also been affected by the collapse.

Aspire College of Education, The Design Works College of Design, RTO Services Group and the Australian Indigenous College were placed in voluntary administration on Tuesday. Aspire alone has about 20 campuses around Australia. 

All of the colleges are owned by Global Intellectual Holdings, which is also in administration with debt owing to ANZ Bank.

The fallout follows a federal government crackdown on the scandal-plagued vocational education sector, which included bans on inducements like free laptops and freezing funds to private colleges accessing VET FEE-HELP to 2015 levels.

There has been widespread rorting of VET FEE-HELP, a HECS-style loans system for vocational training students…..

Global Intellectual Holdings made $83 million in revenue in the year to June 2015, making it one of the largest vocational education companies in Australia.

The group's collapse comes despite Global Intellectual Holdings making a profit of $17.95 million in 2015. During the year it paid $14 million in dividends to its directors Roger Williams and Aloi Burgess. The accounts show the company held $19 million in debt.

News.com.au, 31 March 2016:

The Prime Minister said there was “a very powerful case” for giving state governments total responsibility for payments to state schools from income tax revenue, while the Commonwealth funded private education, such as Catholic schools….

Mr Turnbull’s proposal was among suggestions made in the Reforming the Federation white paper delivered to the Federal Government last year.

It’s options included give states and territories complete funding responsibility for education; and limiting federal spending to independent schools while states and territories fully fund public schools.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 April 2016:

On Monday, the Malek Fahd Islamic school in Greenacre lost an appeal to have $19 million in federal government funding reinstated. 

The decision came after a Federal Department of Education investigation found the private school was operating for profit following allegations of six-figure loans to board members while basic services went unfunded…..

The decision from the Federal Department of Education means funding will dry up by Friday, the last day of term. Despite being a private institution, the school and five others operated by AFIC rely on public funding for 75 per cent of their income. 

ABC News, 5 April 2016:

Some of Australia's most prestigious private schools are being sued for millions of dollars by men who allege they were sexually abused by teachers and staff.

Sydney lawyer Ross Koffel is bringing multiple claims for damages in the NSW Supreme Court against schools including The Scots College, Knox Grammar, Waverley College and De La Salle, Revesby Heights.

Mr Koffel told the ABC he had been approached by a large number of men who allege they were abused at private schools around the country.

"It just seemed to me to be the same problem in school after school after school and it surprised us how many schools, how many students are affected," Mr Koffel said.

"It is a systemic problem in the institutions, in the schools. We're alleging sexual abuse of the students during school hours in most cases and on the school premises, and it just really couldn't be worse."

Ten separate claims against The Scots College, Knox Grammar, Waverley College and De La Salle College, Revesby Heights have been lodged and another two claims will be lodged in coming months.

Mr Koffel said he is investigating another eight claims against other schools.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 April 2016:

Twenty of Sydney's wealthiest private schools received $111 million in taxpayer funding last year, new data has revealed, allowing the institutions to subsidise plans for tennis courts, flyover theatre towers, and Olympic pools with underwater cameras. 

The schools, including The King's School, Trinity Grammar and SCECGS Redlands, have offset parents investments through the public purse courtesy of an $11 million increase in combined state and federal funding since 2012, according to MySchool data. 

On Friday, Fairfax Media revealed that the oldest girls school in Australia, St Catherine's in Waverley, had won a battle to build a $63 million auditorium complete with an orchestra pit, a water polo pool, and a flyover tower for state-of-the-art theatre productions…..

It is illegal for private schools to invest recurrent funding in building works, but the public injections allow schools to produce savings in their recurrent staff budgets, and direct school fees and donations towards capital projects, where they can also receive separate dedicated capital funding from the government. 

The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 April 2016:

More than 20 federal police officers raided Australian Careers Network last week after 16,000 students were left in limbo and hundreds of jobs were lost at the company. The action came after the ACCC launched action in the Federal Court in November against one of ACN's colleges to recover $106 million in taxpayer funding,

The ACCC has alleged the college acted unconscionably in enrolling students with intellectual disabilities and preying on people in Aboriginal communities while enrolling them in up to $18,000 in public debt. It also allegedly signed them up to online courses despite not having access to the internet.

The allegations could help to explain why Boston Consulting found ACN to be 224 per cent more efficient than TAFE in its use of physical assets.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 April 2016:

The multi-millionaire chief executive of an embattled private training empire has been accused of running a bizarre harassment campaign against a senior police officer during his former career as a cop on the Bass Coast. Ivan Brown co-founded the Australian Careers Network..... Before Mr Brown was propelled onto the BRW Young Rich List in 2014 with a stake in an estimated $177 million fortune, he worked as policeman in Wonthaggi. But the extraordinary circumstances of his departure from the force have never been made public. Fairfax Media can reveal Mr Brown was the subject of an internal investigation by the former Ethical Standards Department over claims he launched a vindictive bullying campaign against Senior Sergeant Steve Gibson in 2009…..

Australian Federal Election 2016: genes are destiny excuse

Journalist Jennifer Oriel in The Australian on 11 April 2016, putting the case for a two-tiered national education system where public schools and their 'dumb' students living in comparative poverty are offered less opportunity because genetics are allegedly destiny:

More punitive taxes and big spender social programs in education and health are central pillars of ALP plans for fiscal repair. The former is aimed at reducing the deficit Labor increased by squandering the proceeds of the mining boom. It wasted billions on cash splashes and social programs that have failed to achieve stated policy goals in improving educational and social outcomes. Now the party needs a scapegoat. The politics of envy provides an endless supply…..

Whether the object of envy is intelligence, talent, beauty, status or wealth, there is always a group that feels entitled to what nature or nurture did not provide. If they cannot take the envied trait or property by force, the envious seek to deride those who bear it.

As a unifying political device, the emotion of envy has few equals. In Australia, it finds social form in the tall poppy syndrome. Visitors to Australia long have remarked upon the darker side envy amplifies in our national character.….

Modern Labor began its campaign against Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull by sowing envy about his wealth and international investments. But the collective envy required to justify a circular regimen of Keynesian redistribution demands a collective target and policy goals that are always just out of reach, either because they are unattainable or conveniently unquantifiable. Equality of outcome is the substantive socialist solution.

While liberals support equal opportunity and formal equality, socialists engineer equality of outcome through policy prescriptions increasingly at odds with science. Labor’s education policy is a case in point. In a letter to school principals last week, Bill Shorten committed to redressing inequality by promising money the government doesn’t have to fund Gonski education reforms. Despite the sound aim of improving the educational outcomes of all children, at a cost of $37.3 billion, delivering the Gonksi policy through government inflicts a heavy toll on the taxpayer with doubtful return on investment. Numerous private companies provide high efficacy literacy and numeracy programs while decades of government-run interventions have had little impact in levelling educational outcomes. And recent research indicates the Gonski reform package, like numerous social programs before it, is unlikely to succeed.

Despite Labor’s education revolution and promises of substantive equality, vast differences in educational outcomes continue. The most recent research suggests a reason for inequality of educational attainment that should provoke a rethink of social and economic policy. Speaking on SBS’s Insight program, Brian Byrne of the University of New England revealed findings of soon to be published research with colleagues at the Centre of Excellence for Cognition and its Disorders. It indicates that genes are the most important determinant of maths and reading skills among schoolchildren. Their study of twins’ NAPLAN performance apparently found that maths, reading and spelling skills are up to 75 per cent genetic and writing skills are about 50 per cent genetic. The influence of schools and teachers, the focus of Labor’s policies, accounts for only about 5 per cent of performance.

Social psychologist Richard Nisbett was more hopeful in his assessment of the nature versus nurture debate in education. In Intelligence and How to Get It, he analyses research on various interventions to improve the educational outcomes of children from poor backgrounds. Some appeared promising, but many had only a modest impact whose effect diminished.

Recent research suggesting academic performance is substantially heritable challenges existing literature in which academics and politicians extol the benefits of government interventions to redress educational inequality. But it could be used constructively to drive policy reforms that provide greater choice in school and university education to cater to inborn differences…… [my red bolding]

There we have it in a nutshell - genes are destiny, a second-tier education system is advisable and anyone who suggests otherwise is suffering from pathological envy.

However, the journalist wasn't being as honest as possible concerning the views of Emeritus Professor Brian Byrne.

Here are two quotes from the answers he gave the Insight program moderator when questioned about that international twin study, which included twins from the Sydney area:

JENNY BROCKIE: This is what's genetic, what's inherited? 

PROFESSOR BRYAN BYRNE: What's genetic, for the NAPLAN varies between about 50 and 75 percent of the differences amongst children's performance can be traced back to genetic differences which leaves a fair bit for the environment…..

JENNY BROCKIE: And genes aren't destiny Bryan we need to make that very clear? 

PROFESSOR BRYAN BYRNE: That's right. 

Nor does the journalist specifically mention that Professor Dr. Richard Nisbett has formed a view that genetics matters less than differences in family environment and culture when it comes to intelligence and educational outcomes.

Homophobia rules in the Christensen universe

Photograph from The Sydney Morning Herald, 26 February 2016

George Christensen (Dawson, Liberal Party) Australian House of Representatives Hansard, 25 February 2016  via Open Australia:

I rise as a voice for the thousands of parents who have been shocked when they discovered how the ironically named Safe Schools program is indoctrinating their children. When those parents consider just how unsafe this program is, they will wonder why the federal government is allowing it to be implemented in schools, much less spending $8 million of taxpayer money to fund it.

The things that the Safe Schools Coalition Australia are recommending to school students include pornographic web content, sex shops, adult online communities and sex clubs. The Safe Schools 'All of Us' teaching resource directs students to the LGBT organisation Twenty10. On 19 January this year, Twenty10 hosted a hands-on workshop for youth on sex toys and sadomasochistic practices. All of Us also directs students to the website of the LGBT youth organisation Minus18, which produced most of the Safe Schools resources. Minus18 advised the students on chest binding, penis tucking, sex toys and sex advice such as 'penis-in-vagina sex is not the only sex and certainly not the ultimate sex'.

Minus18 links to The Tool Shed—an online pornographic sex shop offering a range of sex toys, sadomasochistic items and pornography. Minus18 recommends Scarleteen—a teen sex advice site that promotes group sex, sex toys and sadomasochism. Minus18 is an event partner with Melbourne gay bar the GH Hotel, which features erotic homosexual entertainment.

Safe Schools recommends the transgender organisation Seahorse Club Victoria, which in turn recommends the Abode fetish club. Abode is located at the same address as The Parlour Lounge sex club, which provides sadomasochistic entertainment and rooms for sex.

Safe Schools is funded via the Foundation for Young Australians, whose partner agencies implement the Safe Schools program. New South Wales partner Family Planning NSW offers detailed information on oral sex. Tasmanian partner Working It Out recommends YouTube channels featuring such things as 'Gay guy sees first transgender vagina' and 'Anal for FTMs'.

These links to sexually explicit web content and external organisations of an adult or erotic nature raise serious concerns about child safety. Further, Safe Schools provides instructions to children on how to hide their internet browsing history. It advises them to ask for restricted websites that are blocked at school—and would be blocked at home—to be unblocked by their teachers without parental knowledge.

If parents knew their children were being exposed to this type of material, they would probably not let them go to school. If someone proposed exposing a child to this material, the parents would probably call the police because it sounds a lot like the grooming work that a sexual predator might undertake. Child and Adolescent Sexual Assault Counselling Incorporated is a New South Wales peak body for child sexual assault counselling. This is how that body describes the process of grooming:

Sexualisation of the relationship through conversation and exposure of the child to sexual material such as images; taking undue interest in the child's sexual development; assuring the child of the rightness of what they are doing; telling the child the acts will not hurt them; alienating the child from their parents and family so that they do not feel close to them; and shaping the child's sexual preferences and manipulating what the child finds exciting.

That all sounds very familiar. The Safe Schools program focuses heavily on child and teenage sexual activity and sexual attractions; justifies almost any sexual activity; diminishes possible risks and harms; encourages young people to hide their activities from their parents; and provides links to adult sex clubs, adult online communities and sex shops. What is more, the program portrays all of this as normal and wraps it up in a taxpayer funded package and calls it an anti-bullying campaign. The Safe Schools program is in fact an unsafe schools program and it leaves students open to being groomed on websites advertising adult sex venues.

I commend the government for undertaking a review of this program and I call on schools using this program to immediately suspend it pending the outcome of that review. I urge all members of this House, particularly those with young children, to take a close look at what Safe Schools is delivering. I seek leave to table two documents—a diagram and an explanatory sheet illustrating the external links of the Safe Schools campaign.

Leave granted.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott just demolished one of his latest reasons for proposing deregulation of university fees

This was Prime Minister Tony Abbott being quoted in The Australian on 14 March 2015 concerning his desire to deregulate university fees:

Mr Abbott said just one Australian university was now ranked in the world’s top 50.

“Why not try to get two in the top 20. Unless we take the dead hand of Canberra away that is going to be extremely difficult,” he said.

It seems Mr. Abbott has either not bothered to research the issue and relied on a single recent newspaper report or he is just making things up again because he knows News Corp media is not going to challenge the nonsense he spouts.

The 2014-15 Times Higher Education world university rankings survey (covering 400 universities) lists five Australian universities in the top 100 and two, I repeat two, in the top 50 universities.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2014-15/world-ranking

In which Australian Education Minister Christopher Pyne's nose grows longer and longer.....

The Australian depiction of Christopher Pyne and his deregulated university course fees

This was the Australian Education Minister Christopher Pyne being interviewed by The Insiders program on 15 March 2015:

Labor of course are the only reason why the crossbenchers are where the action is because Labor's taken themselves out of the conversation by being political opportunists, except of course we now see that they represent an existential threat to universities because of Kim Carr's policy of putting caps back on, paying on outcomes and shutting out low socioeconomic status students from university.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics Education and Work, Australia, May 2014 clearly states that:

Of those engaged in formal study, approximately 1.2 million (40%) were attending a higher education institution….

More than one third (39%) of people aged 15–64 years who were enrolled in a non-school qualification were studying for a Bachelor Degree….

Leaving aside the fact that is was past Labor federal governments which introduced first free university education then later low, no-interest loans to meet the shortfall between government funding of university places and course costs and, even adjusting this attendance figure for overseas students studying in this country, that still leaves an est. 1 million domestic university students of which an est 17.5% are from low socio-economic backgrounds.

In fact, the reason that the percentage stands nationally at an est. 17.5 is because the former Gillard Labor Government uncapped Commonwealth supported student places at Australian universities under the demand-driven system in 2012 and, this led to an immediate 0.5% enrolment increase within twelve months of low socio-economic students [Socio-economic Status of Schools and University Academic Performance: Implications for Australia’s Higher Education Expansion, December 2014]

Some universities can now boast 20% or more students from low-income family backgrounds.

When comparing the percentage of such students in the final years of the Gillard Government with percentages during the Howard Coalition Government, it is clear that numbers being admitted to university from this group were lower during the Howard years – in the first three years the percentage never rose above 14.7% [Socioeconomic Background and Higher Education Participation, 2002] and didn’t reach 16% until the early 2000s.

Mr. Pyne appears to have offered up his strange claims to voters before this.

As Labor’s higher education policy, the Shadow Minister for Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Industry Kim Carr pointed out at a Universities Australia conference on 12 March 2015.

The Minister and some supporters of deregulation have chosen to wilfully misinterpret my past remarks as a signal that Labor intends to impose an enrolment freeze.

Let me categorically reject that claim.

Mr Pyne’s so-called analysis of these claims is based on a lie.

Under Labor, the number of student places will continue to grow. Under Labor, universities will be properly funded.

So how much have Abbott and Pyne spent on finding ways to convince voters that creating an unfair barrier to higher education for the working class is OK?

AusTender snapshot 29 November 2014:

It seems that once Federal Government politicians swan off for the December to February 2015 parliamentary holiday break, their backroom boys may not be enjoying quite such extended rest as they may have to return to their desks in order to delve into the $149.8k of data supplied by Orima Research.

Looking for ways to bombard unsuspecting voters with propaganda, advertising, 

information which attempts to convince them that higher education access and equity is not really an issue for their children, women in general and all low income families under Abbott & Pyne's unfair and unpopular tertiary education reform agenda.

And an advertising blitz is all that is left to the Abbott Government in the new year as the Senate voted down its higher education changes 33 to 31 on 2 December 2014.

OVERCOMING INDIGENOUS DISADVANTAGE 2014 report released 19 November 2014

M e d i a R e l e a s e

Wednesday 19 November 2014

Steering Committee for the Review of Government Service Provision

OVERCOMING INDIGENOUS DISADVANTAGE 2014

The 2014 Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage (OID) report released today shows some positive trends in the wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, with improvements in health, education

and economic outcomes. However, results in areas such as justice and mental health continue to cause concern.

The report shows that, nationally, for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians:

• economic outcomes have improved over the longer term, with higher incomes, lower reliance on income support, increased home ownership, and higher rates of full time and professional employment.

However, improvements have slowed in recent years

• several health outcomes have improved, including increased life expectancy and lower child mortality.

However, rates of disability and chronic disease remain high, mental health outcomes have not improved, and hospitalisation rates for self-harm have increased

• post-secondary education outcomes have improved, but there has been virtually no change in literacy and numeracy results at school, which are particularly poor in remote areas

• justice outcomes continue to decline, with adult imprisonment rates worsening and no change in high rates of juvenile detention and family and community violence.

“It has been almost three years since the last OID report. For this report we made a concerted effort to increase the involvement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Their input contributed to significant developments, including broadening the focus from overcoming disadvantage to improving wellbeing, and the inclusion of new indicators, such as Indigenous language revitalisation and maintenance, valuing Indigenous cultures (including experiences of racism and discrimination) and participation in decision making” said Peter Harris, chairman of the Productivity Commission and of the Steering Committee.

The OID report is the most comprehensive report on Indigenous wellbeing produced in Australia. It contains accessible data for an extensive range of wellbeing measures as well as case studies of programs that have led to improved outcomes. “This report should be compulsory reading for anyone interested in outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians or working in service delivery or program design,” said Commissioner Patricia Scott, who convenes the expert working group that advises on the report.

The report is a product of the Review of Government Service Provision. It is overseen by a Steering Committee comprising senior officials from the Australian, State and Territory governments, and supported by a secretariat from the Productivity Commission. This report is the sixth in the series, which traces its origins to the final report of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation in 2000.

The full report can be found here.

On the same day the Productivity Commission report was released the Abbott Government walked away from another one of its 2013 election promises, according to The Australian, 20 November 2014:

THE national peak body for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services NATSILS is angry at the Abbott government for “back flipping” on a pledge to consider introducing justice targets as part of the Closing the Gap policy agenda, a move which NATSILS along with many other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders and organisations have long called for.

It comes after this week’s Productivity Commission Overcoming indigenous Disadvantage report revealed a shocking increase of nearly 60 per cent in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander incarceration rates over the last decade.

NATSILS Chairperson, Shane Duffy, said that confirmation from the Minister for indigenous Affairs, Nigel Scullion, during question time in the Senate on Wednesday that the government would not be progressing with introducing a justice target, despite publicly supporting such in the lead up to the 2013 election, was a troubling development…..

Mr Duffy said that the development of Closing the Gap justice targets was not just about throwing more money at the issue, as the Minister had described it, but was rather about getting the policy settings right to affect real change and to make sure resources in the justice space are used most effectively.

“The high cost of incarceration combined with the fact that prisons actually offer little in terms of effective rehabilitation, means that addressing incarceration rates should be an economic priority for the Government and its budget bottom line,” Mr Duffy said.

“It is costing Australian taxpayers more than $795 million per annum just to maintain the current level of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander over-imprisonment, so to reiterate the sentiments of the Minister in recent days, we shouldn’t just keep throwing money down the drain.”

Turning state school students into good little Christians in Abbott's Australia

Not content with circumventing a High Court of Australia ruling and forcing exclusively religion-based counsellors into the secular state school system, now Prime Minister Tony Abbott and his merry band of mindless ideologues are intent on revising the national education curriculum to place more emphasis on morals, values and spirituality and to better recognise the country’s Judeo-Christian heritage.

Proof that Christianity is a prominent focus can be found in the 2014 final report of the ‘independent’ two-man committee (comprising ex-Liberal Party staffer and lobbyist Kevin Donnelly & professor of public administration and Abbott supporter Keith Wiltshire) tasked with reviewing the education curriculum - with its sixty-three mentions of this religion and/or Judeo-Christian heritage.

The Australian published this potted outline on 13 October 2014 for readers who may not be inclined to wade through the report:

One day after the final report was released Abbott was quoted in The Newcastle Herald publicly support the reviewer’s final recommendations:

PRIME Minister Tony Abbott believes sending schools back to basics, as recommended in the national curriculum review, will boost the economy and students' job prospects.

"My comments get on the tellie - yours don't. You can't be heard!

YouTube may not be the tellie, however it records the Australian Education Minister Christopher Pyne for posterity just the same....

http://youtu.be/xt7CxXh5nQw

Has 'Captain Catholic' and his merry band of Christian fascisti finally wrecked a proud tradition of secular public education in Australia?

The Sydney Morning Herald 27 August 2014:

The Abbott government is pushing ahead with a religious-only school chaplaincy scheme following a cabinet debate over whether secular welfare workers should be included in the program.

The government was forced to redesign the $224 million scheme after the High Court ruled it invalid in June for the second time in two years. The court found the Commonwealth had over-reached its funding powers by providing direct payments to chaplain providers.

In a bid to prevent another High Court challenge, the federal government will provide funding to state and territory governments to administer the scheme. This new arrangement strengthens the hand of the states and could see some demand an option for secular welfare workers or tougher qualification standards.

In a cabinet meeting on Monday, Abbott government ministers explored options to extend the scheme to include funding for secular welfare workers. This would have reversed the government's existing policy that funding should be restricted to religious chaplains. 

During the cabinet discussion, Mr Abbott argued that the government should stand by its existing policy. Mr Abbott argued the scheme's original intent was supporting pastoral care in schools and that should remain its focus….

The chaplaincy scheme was introduced by the Howard government in 2006. Labor expanded the scheme to include funding for secular welfare workers in 2011 – an option the government scrapped in this year's budget.

Both challenges in the High Court were brought forward by Toowoomba father Ron Williams, a secularist opposed to public funding for religious workers in public schools.

The government rushed forward its announcement about the new scheme on Wednesday afternoon after Fairfax Media revealed the story online. The government had hoped to avoid a distracting debate on chaplains during the introduction of its sweeping higher education changes into Parliament on Thursday.