Australia During Pandemic 2020: Portraits in Selfishness & Self-interest

Crikey, 13 July 2020:

FLIGHT CENTRE FOUNDER GRAHAM TURNER
(IMAGE: AAP/LUKAS COCH)

For some business leaders and lobby groups, the return to lockdown in Melbourne is intolerable. The most prominent is the Australian Industry Group (AIG).

Last week it condemned the Melbourne lockdown, saying “widespread shutdowns is a strategy that can be used just once.” The following day it called for the reopening of the NSW-Victorian border on the basis that the Melbourne lockdown — which it had opposed the previous day — had removed any threat of community transmission of COVID-19 outside Victoria.

The carefully chosen words of last week, though, were replaced by an altogether harsher view articulated by AIG head Innes Willox to The Australian over the weekend.

State premiers, Willox complained, were trying “to outdo, outbid and outrace each other to smother any chance of economic recovery” — a couple of days after Queensland had reopened its borders.

“Putting up artificial barriers, closing borders and turning Australians against each other is not going to get us there.”

That coincided with the head of Flight Centre, Graham “Skroo” Turner calling for Australia to “learn to live with the virus”, which would get “society and business back to a reasonable level of normality”.

After dismissing herd immunity, and the tens of thousands of deaths that would require, as “not a great option”, Turner, or his ghost-writer, suggested that Australia had embraced a “model of states, territories or governments who have no COVID-19 objectives or clear science and data-based strategies”.

Despite complaining about this alleged lack of clear objectives and strategies, it wasn’t clear what Turner’s “living with the virus” meant beyond “containment by proven health and hygiene practices, widespread testing and tracing but without hard lockdown.” Unsurprisingly for the head of a travel company, Turner wants international borders and tourism reopened as soon as possible. The Australian backed Turner in an editorial.

Turner’s “strategy” would amount to letting the virus rip, with contact tracers — let alone hospitals — rapidly overwhelmed. That’s exactly the scenario that is unfolding in places like Florida and Texas right now. Funnily enough, that’s not very good for consumer sentiment, even without hard lockdowns….. [my yellow highlighting]

Read full article here.

CEO OF THE AUSTRALIAN INDUSTRY GROUP INNES WILLOX
(IMAGE: AAP/LUKAS COCH)

The New Daily, 13 July 2020:

A group of six Victorians has been fined more than $24,000 after trying to cross the border into Queensland in a minivan. 

The group, who had lied on their border declaration forms, told police patrolling entry the state’s points that they had been working in NSW for three weeks. 

However, evidence on their phones revealed they had been in coronavirus hotspots in Victoria during the past 14 days. 

“Police intercepted a minivan on Saturday night, where all six occupants were refused entry at the M1 border control check point,” Queensland Police said. 

“On Sunday, officers intercepted the same van on Stuart Street in Coolangatta around 2pm.” 

All six in the group – two 19-year-old women and four men aged 18, 19, 23 and 28 – were fined $4,003 for failing to comply border directions and turned around immediately....

myPolice on Jul 13, 2020

NSW Police, 13 July 2020:

A man has been fined after failing to follow self-isolation ministerial directions in the state’s south west. 
 At 2.30pm on Wednesday 8 July 2020, a 24-year-old man was stopped by police on the Newell Highway at Tocumwal, as part of border enforcement patrols. 

The man was issued a direction under the Public Health Act to self-quarantine for a period of 14 days and was provided with information before being allowed to leave. 

Officers from Murrumbidgee Police District attended the man’s home in Leeton at 12pm and again at 4pm on Thursday 9 July 2020, and found the man was not home as directed in the orders. 

Police attended the home again at 5.30pm and provided the man with a formal warning in relation to self-isolation. 

About 8pm on Friday 10 July 2020, police attended the man’s home and again found he was not home. 

About 4.20pm yesterday (Sunday 12 July 2020), police attended the man’s home and issued him with a $1000 Penalty Infringement Notice (PIN) for failing to comply with a direction under Section 7 of the Public Health Act 2010 (NSW). 

Since Operation Border Closure started at midnight on Wednesday 8 July 2020, police have facilitated the movement of tens of thousands of vehicles crossing the border from Victoria into NSW. 

To date, more than 300 people have been issued with directions to self-isolate as they enter NSW.....

Patience with Australian Prime Minister Morrison and Treasurer Frydenberg’s ducking and weaving on JobKeeper support beyond September is "wearing mighty thin"

The Monthly, 8 July 2020:

Amid mounting criticism on social media that he’d again gone AWOL during a crisis, Prime Minister Scott Morrison showed his face this afternoon at a well-timed Canberra press conference, in which he killed two birds with one stone. 

As Morrison expressed his manifest sympathy for Victorians returning to lockdown, he also knocked out the broadcast of an unwelcome National Press Club speech by ABC managing director David Anderson. The PM had little to announce – an extra 6105 home-care packages for the elderly at a cost of $326 million – but he was flanked by Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck, who mouthed all of 180 words (including “Thanks, PM”) and received no questions. The press gallery was mostly interested in the implications of Victoria’s second wave for the federal government’s recovery plans. Morrison suggested there would not be an extension of the JobKeeper program on a geographic basis – just for Victorians, say – making the point that the government would extend support for businesses or industries in need beyond September, and saying, “this is about tailoring a national program to provide support where the support is needed”. The PM also refused to be drawn on reports [$] that the personal income tax cuts slated for 2022–23 might be brought forward to stimulate the economy, saying, “That’s a matter that the treasurer and I will address in the context of the budget, not today”..... 

Millions of Australians are doing it tough. Some are surviving without any income at all, while 2.4 million people have raided [$] their super early, in withdrawals totalling $27 billion. And, with the federal budget heading for a deficit next financial year (which Westpac estimates at $240 billion), it is hard to see how the top economic priority right now is bringing forward income tax cuts that will favour the wealthy. Victoria’s return to lockdown highlights the uncertainty of the situation confronting the federal government as it prepares the July 23 economic statement. But as shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers said at a doorstop interview today, “If the banks can provide some certainty with this announcement, the Morrison Government can too – by releasing their secret report into the JobKeeper payments … We need the government to come clean.” Chalmers expressed support for the idea of bringing income tax cuts forward, saying that the Opposition would “engage with that constructively and responsibly”, adding, “Labor has been calling for that to be considered for some time. The working families of middle Australia need help now, not later.” 

It would be an understatement to say that patience with the PM and treasurer’s ducking and weaving on support beyond September is wearing mighty thin.

Has our dream run over the coronavirus pandemic has come to a sticky end?

Echo NetDaily, June 2020:

Thus Spake Mungo: ahh the Spike

Australia awoke last week to the strains of Spike Milligan’s poignant refrain, ‘I’m walking backwards to Christmas.’

It may not be all the way to Christmas, but it could be even further – well into next year, and perhaps beyond that. We don’t know and we can’t tell.

But it is sadly clear that our dream run over the coronavirus pandemic has come to a sticky end. And it has happened on both fronts, the medical and the economic. The cluster of hot spots that emerged from Victoria does not yet constitute the dreaded second wave, but it is worrying, and defies explanation.

For readers of The Australian, of course, it is all too simple: Daniel Andrews unleashed the beast by not clamping down on the Black Lives Matter protests. But hang on – there were protests in other states as well, without clusters emerging, And in any case, not one of the cases in Victoria can be traced to the demonstrations.

So perhaps the problem was that Andrews mismanaged the Cedar Bay abattoir outbreak? Or ignored communicating COVID-19 information to the ethnic communities? One way or another, we have to blame the socialist totalitarian for something.

But apart from the partisan bullshit, the fact that there are clusters at all must serve as a warning, because across other parts, around the world, COVID–19 is still raging. It is out of control in Brazil, spreading dangerously in India, working its way through the southern United States and, most disturbingly, making huge inroads in parts of China, where it was thought to have been tamed......

And for the government, the worse news is that the easing of restrictions has not just stalled, but has been reversed in some areas, notably the urgency of opening state boundaries.And despite the predictions of the optimists, we are not yet in reach of a vaccine. This is not good news.

It appears that we are reverting to the old maxim: think globally, act locally. The national cabinet was never much more national than our mish-mash federation, or the constitution that birthed it; it was a useful conceit and helped us muddle through the early emergency, but it was always gesture politics rather than reality....

And now the premiers have declared that it is every state for itself. Some are derestricting like mad, others are more cautious, playing for time. And of course Victoria has gone backwards – even toilet paper is back on the rationing list. This is serious, folks......

And it appears that the other premiers are less than sympathetic. In NSW, Gladys Berejiklian has made it clear that Victorian holidaymakers will not be welcome in her pristine domain – in fact, she has bluntly told them to bugger off.

Australia is still doing fairly well by world standards. Moody’s rating agency and the International Monetary Fund have both offered commendation, ticking us off as one of the best in a fairly miserable bunch.

But the IMF have warned that shutting down the stimulus measures designed to dampen unemployment too abruptly could lead to awful consequences – it has urged caution; a gradual easing, rather than a sudden shut off.

Morrison and Josh Frydenberg seem, reluctantly, to be getting the message. The strictly temporary JobKeeker program, scheduled to end in September, may have to be extended, at least for the most vulnerable sectors of the economy.

And some extra spending is being rolled out; the beleaguered arts are finally getting a boost, although a very minor one, and in the wake of the Qantas stand down, assistance for the airline industry is on the table.

And Morrison is hell-bent on ramping up the nation for business – whatever the consequences. ‘We can’t go “stop, go, stop, go”, we can’t flick the light on and off,’ he insisted, blithely ignoring the fact that this is precisely what he is planning to do with JobKeeker. ‘We’ve got to just keep the focus on keeping the economy open and getting people back into jobs.’ And there is absolutely no need for anxiety about the Victorian outbreak, because ‘we were expecting it.’ Perhaps he was – the rest of us were somewhat taken aback. 

But it is still all about industry and business. Individuals – casual workers in particular – are not considered essential. And of course enemies are still to be punished. The universities, and most of all the ABC, have been singled out for clobbering. Some of us are in this together more than others.

But it’s time to forget about the health crisis – so 2019-2020, We need a new narrative to turn the page into the new financial year. It’s the economy, stupid – and we do mean stupid. Back to Spike Milligan. As the Great Goon might have warbled:

‘I’ve tried walking backwards

And walking to the front

But all the people stare at me

And ask: who is that silly…’

Yes, quite so. Moving right along…

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Murdoch has managed to deprive NSW Northern Rivers region of most of its local print newspapers & now Morrison is attacking our most reliable news source, the ABC

The Age, 25 June 2020: 

ABC chairwoman Ita Buttrose has lashed out at Communications Minister Paul Fletcher over the Morrison government's handling of its multimillion-dollar budget cuts and accused him of lying about the national broadcaster's efforts to collaborate with SBS. 

In a fresh war of words between the taxpayer-funded broadcaster and the Coalition government, Ms Buttrose has accused Mr Fletcher of twice failing to provide the ABC board and management with the critical data that informed an independent report proposing the closure of two broadcast channels and the sharing of back-office and support services with fellow public broadcaster SBS. 

Ms Buttrose has also said the government misrepresented the ABC's efforts to work closer with SBS. In a strongly-worded letter to Mr Fletcher, seen by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, Ms Buttrose said the ABC's board had asked her to "convey its concerns" about Mr Fletcher's lack of response to correspondence between the pair in September last year. 

"We raised a number of issues but were particularly interested in seeing 'the information - data, models and assumptions - which formed the basis for the savings estimates provided in the report'," Ms Buttrose wrote. "I appreciate you have a busy schedule but we would appreciate an answer to our queries." 

Ms Buttrose said several media reports, which ABC management believes were informed by Mr Fletcher, had suggested the ABC "had neglected to 'collaborate more closely with SBS'". 

"This is incorrect," Ms Buttrose wrote. "David Anderson has had several conversations with SBS about sharing costs". 

A Peter Tonagh-led review of the public broadcasters was handed to the Morrison government in March last year, but its details were kept confidential as the ABC developed plans to cut costs. Some recommendations - such as an increased focus on digital growth, improving the ABC's iview platform and reducing investment in products that are not central to the ABC charter - were effectively adopted in the plan announced yesterday, but an ABC spokesman said that if all had been implemented there would have been more cuts. 

In the September correspondence between the pair, Ms Buttrose said the board said several proposals in the review "lack enough detail to allow an evaluation of whether the suggested savings can be realised". 

"In some cases, the savings estimates are presented in aggregate for the two national broadcasters and it is unclear what proportion of them has been attributed to the ABC, rather than SBS," she said. 

In particular, the review estimates that the national broadcasters could together save "a minimum of $45 million" by reducing multichannel services and "between $80 million and $115 million per annum" through focusing expenditure on what it characterises as "core" activities and a greater focus on digital delivery. 

"However, it provides no information as to how these figures were derived or the proportions attributed to the ABC," she said. Sources said Ms Buttrose had also raised the issue with Mr Fletcher at a face-to-face meeting between the pair at ABC's Ultimo headquarters on Tuesday. 

Mr Fletcher and Prime Minister Scott Morrison staunchly defended the level of funding provided to the ABC, insisting the government has not cut its budget, and backed the national broadcaster's efforts to be more focused on regional and suburban Australia. "There are no cuts ... the ABC's funding is increasing every year," Mr Morrison said on Thursday. "The ABC would be the only media company or organisation in Australia today whose revenue, their funding, is increasing. It would be the only one in the country. We are seeing regional mastheads by commercial newspapers abolished." 

The ABC announced a range of cuts on Wednesday, including 250 job losses and the end of the 7.45am radio news bulletin, in a bid to save $40 million until 2022. Managing director David Anderson also announced plans to cut poor-performing content, reduce episodes of Australian Story and Foreign Correspondent and lease space at the ABC's Sydney headquarters in Ultimo. The measures triggered a wave of criticism about the funding squeeze imposed on the broadcaster by the Coalition in recent federal budgets.

ABC News, 27 June 2020: 

The ABC put forward two separate proposals offering to open more regional Australian studios, expand its coverage of remote communities and hire more journalists in rural areas in return for the federal government dumping its decision to freeze annual funding indexation. 

Correspondence between ABC managing director David Anderson and Communications Minister Paul Fletcher and seen by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, show the national broadcaster was prepared to invest tens of millions of dollars more outside capital city centres if the Morrison government was prepared to reverse its budget cuts. 

In a proposal made after the Black Summer bushfires in January, ABC management told Mr Fletcher the national broadcaster would be able to find $10 million a year to employ more regional journalists if indexation was restored. 

Mr Anderson's letter, sent to Mr Fletcher on January 24, said he was writing to ask the government to consider a reversal of the indexation pause, which is expected to cost the broadcaster up to $84 million over three years, to safeguard the future sustainability of the ABC. 

"If indexation was restored, combined with savings and efficiencies that the ABC has identified in recent months, the Corporation would be in a position to commit an additional investment of up to $10 million per annum to employ more journalists in regional Australia and generate more content from regions for the local and national stories," Mr Anderson wrote. 

Several government sources have confirmed Mr Fletcher did not reply to the letter, nor did he discuss the proposal with the ABC or his National Party colleagues, who have constantly raised concerns over the future of regional media outlets, following a spate of natural disasters including last summer's fires.... [my yellow highting]

The Saturday Paper, 27 June 2020: 

Two days before the ABC confirmed that up to 250 jobs will be cut across the organisation, the federal government finalised a $200,000 offer for consultants to prepare a report on news and media business models looking specifically at the impact of public broadcasters “on commercial operators”. 

An approach to market for the report was closed on Monday, with the federal Communications Department under minister Paul Fletcher requesting the successful bidder evaluate failed, successful and emerging news media operating models from around the world. 

As it happens, a key requirement of the research, due before the end of August, is also a hobby horse of the ABC’s commercial rivals. 

The tender asks consultants to examine “the role of publicly-funded (non-commercial) media organisations in the production and dissemination of news and media content in the comparable jurisdictions, and the impacts and interactions of publicly-funded entities with commercial operators”. 

This is the argument News Corp makes against the ABC: that it is cutting into the audiences of commercial enterprises such as Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers, websites and pay television business. 

“The report will be used as an input to inform policy advice and decision-making in relation to the news and media sectors. The end-users of the report include Commonwealth officials, relevant Ministers, and their staff,” the tender documents say. 

“The report is not intended for public release.”......

BACKGROUND

ABC News, 26 June 2029: 

The ABC has not only helped shape Australia, we are the national voice that unites us. 

It’s about democracy. Without the ABC we would have a balkanised and parochial bunch of broadcasters that are in danger of being compromised by profit and more intent on dividing than unifying. 

Imagine what it would be like during the bushfire season if we had to rely only on state-based or even regionally based media outlets. When we are in the middle of bushfires, don’t we want to know that they are being covered by a knowledgeable and experienced network of journalists with all the supporting infrastructure of a large national network? 

The ABC, funded by all of us, regardless of our creed – race, age, political beliefs – is us. It’s the way we build cross-cultural understanding, the way we help each other in times of need. It’s who we are collectively. Why would anyone want to diminish that and make us less than who we are? 

This has been a devastating week for the ABC. With unemployment at an all-time high to have to inform up to 250 people they no longer had a job has been an incredibly difficult task. 

Cuts to services caused by the ongoing reduction in our budget forced this action upon us and although we knew what had to be done, our hearts were with our employees. 

Let me clarify the cuts because there seems to be some confusion in Government circles about them. The 2018 Budget papers clearly state that the Government’s savings measures reduce funding to the ABC by $14.623 million in 2019-20, $27.842 million in 2020-21, and $41.284 million in 2021-22. This reduction totals $83.75 million on our operational base. 

It is true that over the three years the ABC budget does still increase but by a reduced amount, due to indexation on the fixed cost of transmission and distribution services. Previously, it was rising by a further $83.75 million over the same three years for indexation on our operational base. This is the funding that has been cut and considered a saving by the government. 

These funding cuts are unsustainable if we are to provide the media services that Australians expect of us. Indexation must be renewed. 

The strength of the ABC and its relationship with the nation comes from the very people who work for us. They are passionate about public broadcasting and are prepared to work for less than they would be paid by commercial media to deliver it. The creativity in the programs they produce, the dogged and independent journalism they pursue and the connection with communities everywhere they provide through conversations is at the very heart of what the ABC delivers to our audiences. 

The ABC has a statutory requirement to operate as efficiently as possible. We have a strong track record in identifying savings and reinvesting them in services. This is how we created ABC News 24, ABC iview and a range of packages to boost services in rural and regional Australia. 

There is no other authority better placed to manage the ABC than the ABC itself. We know our business and we are determined to honour our commitment to independence. All Australians expect this of us just as they expect the Government to provide the appropriate funds to allow us to do so. 

The ABC is essential in generating and preserving Australia’s democratic culture. An independent, well-funded national broadcaster allows Australians, wherever they live, to connect. It is how we share our identity, how we tell our stories, how we listen to each other, how we ask for help and how we give it. 

 Ita Buttrose AC OBE 
 ABC Chair

Quote of the Week

“We have done our best to convince the Government to reverse the indexation freeze...We've done our best to find efficiencies without affecting content, but we have said all along, since this (freeze) was announced in 2018, that after successive budget reductions to the ABC, there's only so much that can be gained through efficiency and in the end, content will be affected, and we've seen that roll out yesterday.”  [ABC managing director David Anderson, in The West Australian, 25 June 2020]

Australian Prime Minister is urging states to push ahead with reopening despite COVID-19 outbreaks

“We always said that we were not going for eradication of the virus. Other economies tried that and their economy was far more damaged than ours. And so we have to ensure that we can run our economy, run our lives, run our communities, alongside this virus.” [Australian Prime Minister & Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison speaking on ABC radio program “PM”, 22 June 2020]

Financial Review, 22 June 2020:

A fresh outbreak of coronavirus in Victoria should not stop moves to reopen the economy, according to Scott Morrison, as one state delayed plans to reopen its borders and others contemplated new travel restrictions.

With Victoria recording a spike in cases because of what experts said was tardy adherence to safety protocols, thousands living within six local government jurisdictions were told not to leave their area unless essential.  

As the state introduced the toughest COVID-19 measures currently in Australia in an effort to contain the spike, the Prime Minister agreed it was a "wake-up call" but said setbacks were anticipated when he announced more than a month ago that the states were to reopen their economies by July. 

"This is part of living with COVID-19. And we will continue on with the process of opening up our economy and getting people back into work,'' Mr Morrison said.....

This was Scott Morrison at his uncaring, bullying best last Monday.

So what does "living with COVID-19" actually mean?

Well for 104 people it meant death, with 3 elderly victims dying at home and 30 in nursing homes.

It means there are still active COVID-19 cases in 4 Australian states and some people are still becoming sick enough to require an intensive care hospital bed.

Living with COVID-19 also means community transmission of the disease remains an issue in Australia, as well as people entering/exiting the country while infected.

The pandemic growth may have significanly slowed in Australia but it has not stopped, every day the average number of confirmed COVID-19 cases grow by around 12 people.

All this clearly indicates that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is not passively responding to successive state public health orders. What was happening is that collectively we had gone to great lengths to avoid coming into contact with this deadly virus thereby avoiding spreading COVID-19 disease.

When this collective action begins to fragment as more and more businesses, entertainment and sporting venues open, state borders are no longer closed and more international flights are allowed into the country, the virus which lives only to mindlessly replicate in as many human bodies as possible will quickly begin to infect larger numbers of people again.

It is highly likely that the resultant disease growth rate will not be able to be described as a "spike" or "setback". For Scott Morrison is stubborn. He will force the states and territories, along with communities and families, to keep exposure to the virus at a dangerously high level simply because he intends to open up the economy and go full bore ahead by July.

So why does the economy have to 'open' in July? 

Not because Morrison really cares about one of his favourite slogans, "jobs and growth". No, 'Emperor' Scott is afraid his own party and its financial backers will finally realise that he has no clothes and the economy is that scrap of cloth he is clutching to cover his nakedness.

It's all about hanging on to personal political power and his lucrative salary as prime minister - and he doesn't care how many people have to die or become chronically ill in order to achieve this.

Morrison Government's class warfare sees this hard right group closing the door to students from low income families and cutting funding to universities

MORRISON GOVERNMENT SPIN

SBS News, 20 June 2020:

Mr Tehan outlined the coalition's latest plan for rejigging university funding in a speech to the National Press Club on Friday afternoon. He is offering to increase the number of university places by 39,000 over the next three years, rising to 100,000 more by 2030. 

The coalition had effectively capped places over the past couple of years by freezing its funding at 2018 levels. 

The trade-off in the new deal is changing what students and taxpayers pay. 

A three-year humanities degree would more than double in cost for students, from about $20,000 now to $43,500. The government's contribution would drop to $3300. 

 Fees for law degrees, typically four years, would jump from $44,620 now to $58,000. 

Conversely, the government would contribute more and charge students less for courses it says are more likely to lead to jobs. 

Agriculture and maths fees would drop from nearly $28,600 over three years to $11,100. 

Fees would also be cut for teaching, nursing, clinical psychology, science, health, architecture, IT, engineering and English courses.....

THE REALITY

From January 2021 students entering Humanities courses such as Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Arts & Business, Bachelor of International Studies, Bachelor of Politics Philosophy & Economics, Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Advanced Studies (Media and Communications), Bachelor of Education, Bachelor of Arts/
Bachelor of Advanced Studies (Languages), fees will more than double, putting them alongside law and commerce in the highest price band of $14,500 a year or est. $43,500 for a completed degree. Making these courses more expensive than studying medicine.

The Australian, 22 June 2020:

Universities will be paid less to teach courses such as maths and engineering under the Morrison government’s overhaul of higher education funding — despite those programs being promoted by Education Minister Dan Tehan as post-pandemic job creators. 

Education Department data shows the commonwealth will cut university funding for each enrolment in those courses while also cutting how much those students pay to study. 

The reforms are intended to push students towards high-­priority courses such as maths, teaching, science and engineering by lowering how much students, through the HECS-HELP loan scheme, pay. 

Universities currently receive $28,958 a year for each science course enrolment, made up of $19,260 paid by the student through the HECS-HELP loan scheme and $9698 from the commonwealth. 

Under the new system, however, students will contribute $7700 and the commonwealth will pay $16,500, leaving universities with $4758 less revenue for each science student enrolled. 

Universities will lose a similar amount for each student enrolled in an engineering course under the reforms announced by Mr Tehan on Friday, and lose $3444 per student in an agriculture subject, one of the key areas where the government is hoping to drive enrolment growth. 

That’s because while the commonwealth is increasing its payment per student from $24,446 to $27,000, that does not compensate for the fall in student contributions from $9698 to $3700. 

Frank Larkins, a researcher at Melbourne University’s Centre for Higher Education, said the fall in overall revenues per student in high-priority areas was likely to make it more difficult for universities to teach more students in those job-creating subjects. 

“It appears there are two mess­ages here. The government wants students to go into nursing, teaching and STEM subjects, but they also think those courses are overfunded,” Professor Larkins told The Australian on Sunday. 

“Agriculture — one of the areas they want more students — would retain its funding in the present scheme, but it’s cut by 17 per cent in this new one. It’s a curious situation. 

“The areas of study we are touting as the national interest are actually diminishing under these changes. 

Every university will have a different reaction, but these changes are almost disguising a cut in funding for some of these courses the government is promoting.”....

@RichAFerguson

ABC News, 21 June 2020: 

If you were thinking about starting a university degree in the future, you've got a new fee structure to take into account. The Government has announced an overhaul of the university fee system, slashing the price of courses it says are more likely to get you a job and hiking up fees for courses in the humanities. 

The changes will mainly apply to future students, with no current student to pay increased fees for the duration of their degree. 

However, if you're a current student enrolled in a course that is getting cheaper, you'll pay less from next year. 

Many of you told us the changes will affect your choice of study, and for some it will deter you from going to university altogether.... 

Robert H: "My son is in grade 11 and he picked his subjects for grades 10 to 12 at the end of grade 9. So even if he wanted to pivot towards the cheaper STEM degrees, he would need to go back in time to the end of year 9 to reselect his subjects. So much for a fair go." 

Monika O: "This is terrible. We need to encourage a variety of careers as we all have different gifts and abilities. It's not justified to discriminate and "punish" people who choose to study arts and humanities. These topics encourage critical thinking skills and communications skills — all much needed abilities. 

David D: "This an appalling idea. Prejudicing young people because their ability and passion are in the humanities, and rewarding those whose ability and passion just happens to be what business thinks they require now for jobs … Many businesses are actually crying out for workers with critical thinking and creative skills.".... 

Emma J: "Doubling humanities degree costs is appalling. These are the only degrees where you are taught to think for yourselves and where ideas and innovation are encouraged. Without social and political sciences and history and Indigenous studies, we're going to have a workforce which can only follow rules and can't think for themselves." Shane H: "Two of the most valued skills employers want is the ability to think critically and emotional intelligence. How many STEM subjects teach that?" 

Carolyn J: "Humanities subjects are foundational and help to produce people who understand the history and nuances of our society. They teach people how to communicate ideas, how to analyse language, image and thought. The arts themselves provide beauty, expression, reflection, critique, examination. They are vocations — sometimes compulsions — not job choices." 

Johny M: "More than doubling the cost of humanities degrees is not only sad, but grossly unfair. They teach critical thinking, research skills, and broaden our worldview. It is easy to rip into them for not being 'job specific', but that ignores they are the scaffold to everything we know about our society." Stefan P: This is absolutely tragic. The choice of which course to pursue within higher education should be entirely dependent on a student's desires, not their financial situation and the whims of the economy. Besides which, if the Federal Government acknowledges the difficulty of finding work as an arts student, then saddling them with even more debt is simply counterintuitive." 

Matt B: "I'm a Medsci student progressing into medicine, arguably an 'in demand' degree. However … the arts/humanities allows scientists to put the research in perspective of humanity and thus allows us to better communicate to the public and (science-ignorant) governments why we do what we do. Arts isn't a second thought; it's a priority, more so than learning chemistry and biology is for a doctor, because without the arts, we cannot communicate and appreciate the meaning of cancer beyond it being a mutation of cells.".... 

Lili K: "I'm just about to finish my honours degree in politics, and it has been the most rewarding and interesting years of my life. I know if this price hike happened when I was at my poor public country high school, I would have had to take a different path."....

 Anna G: "I have an arts degree. I work for the Government in a relatively senior role. My degree gave me essential critical-thinking, analytical and writing skills that equip me to do my job daily. It's frustrating to know that the Government thinks that my degree isn't 'job focused' when I use it to support and deliver its policies and programs.".... 

 Lana G: I am a business/politics (humanities) student. I am the first in my family to attend university, and all this does is make university (for the most part) unattainable. My degree is now going to be on par with the cost of a medical degree … Poorer kids are going to move away from economics, humanities and law."..... 

The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 June 2020: 

 The government will fund an extra 39,000 places by 2023 – an increase of about 6 per cent – as the recession prompts more school leavers to stay on in education (and avoid taking a gap year), but will compensate for this by cutting the amount of its funding per student. 

 According to calculations by Professor David Peetz, of Griffith University (whose former job as a senior federal bureaucrat helps him find where the bodies are buried), the government will cut its funding by an annual $1883 per student, with the average increase in tuition fees of $675 per student reducing the net loss to universities to $1208 per student. (The fee changes won't apply to existing students, however.).... 

Professor Ian Jacobs, boss of UNSW, who points to the perverse incentives the changes will create (assuming the Senate is mad enough to pass them). Unis will be tempted to offer most places in those courses with the widest gap between the high government-set tuition fee and the cost of running the course. They'll be pushing BAs harder than ever. 

This, of course, is exactly the way you'd expect the vice-chancellors to behave when you've taken government-owned and regulated agencies, spent 30 years pursuing a bipartisan policy of cutting their federal funding (from 86 per cent to 28 per cent of total receipts, in the case of Sydney University) and pretending they've been privatised.