Australian Attorney-General George Brandis discloses how little he knows about information technology and the Internet – video at 2:18 minutes begins his crash and burn moment.
Sunday 10 August 2014
The crunching of Joe Hockey's numbers continues
Eighty-three days after Budget Night and the country was still crunching Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey’s numbers, as is demonstrated by this Inside Story of 5 August 2014:
The most comprehensive analysis of the distributional effects of the budget was undertaken by the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling, or NATSEM, at the University of Canberra. Using Australian Bureau of Statistics data on the distribution of household incomes, NATSEM divided the community into five segments or “quintiles,” each made up of a little over 2.5 million households. It found that the poorest 20 per cent – those with $35,000 or less in disposable annual income – would forgo $2.9 billion over four years thanks to changes to family benefits, pensions and other payments. More than one-third of the budget cuts, or $6 billion worth, would fall on the middle quintile of households, those earning between $45,000 and $63,000. The wealthiest 20 per cent of households, meanwhile – those earning $88,000 or more after tax and benefits – would lose $1.78 billion, some 40 per cent less than the lowest income families.
Given that the most recent official ABS figures show that the poorest 20 per cent of households receive about 7.5 per cent of disposable income while the richest 20 per cent receive 39.5 per cent, it is clear that the impact of the budget in relative terms is much greater on low-income households than it is on high-income households. The poorest 20 per cent of households, which receive less than 8 per cent of total income, are the source of at least 16 per cent of the expenditure savings.
The impact on different income groups can also be gauged by considering which sectors the budget savings are coming from. In a speech to the Sydney Institute after the budget, Joe Hockey emphasised the fact the government will spend $146 billion – “35 per cent of the federal budget” – on welfare in 2014–15. That might be true, but this sector provides a larger share of the proposed cuts. Budget Paper No. 2 shows out of total projected expenditure cuts of $29.4 billion between 2014–15 and 2017–18, $15.4 billion, or 52 per cent, comes from programs of the Department of Social Services. (This compares with revenue measures estimated to raise an extra $8.7 billion over the period, not including fiscal drag.)
Even more striking is the budget’s impact on spending on the unemployed. Support for the unemployed costs around $10 billion annually, or less than 2.5 per cent of the budget. Of people receiving the two benefits – Newstart and Youth Allowance (Other) – around 37 per cent are under the age of thirty; given that Youth Allowance recipients are paid less than Newstart recipients, we can conservatively estimate that payments for this group account for around 0.9 per cent of the budget. From next year, unemployed people under twenty-five will get Youth Allowance rather than Newstart, and people under thirty will wait up to six months before getting unemployment benefits, and will then have to participate in Work for the Dole to be eligible for income support. The projected savings from these changes amount to about $2.8 billion over the period 2014–15 to 2017–18, or about 9.5 per cent of the total budget spending cuts. In other words, unemployed people under thirty receive less than 1 per cent of total budget spending but are the source of close to 10 per cent of total expenditure savings.
Saturday 9 August 2014
A close encounter of the unique kind
The Sydney Morning Herald 5 August 2014:
One day early last year, Australian comet hunter Robert H. McNaught spotted something unusual from his post at the Siding Spring Observatory in the foothills of the Warrumbungle Mountains, NSW….
Comet Siding Spring is especially interesting because of its formation in the Oort cloud during the early days of the solar system, making it a "long period" comet with an orbit of millions of years. What's more, it is believed to be what comet specialists call a virgin - one that has never reached the inner solar system.
As a result, its icy nucleus (the "dirty snowball" at the core of a comet) has never been thawed and reshaped, like those of comets that pass by more regularly.
"We've studied the nuclei of comets before but never a long-period comet from the Oort cloud," Zurek said. "The comet may well be bringing us primordial material unchanged since the creation of the solar system."
Quote of the Week
"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are."
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that in a 1925 short story, The Rich Boy. He could have been describing Tony Abbott’s "Billionaire's Advisory Council". [The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 August 2014]
Friday 8 August 2014
Far-right lobby group Institute of Public Affairs threatens its protégé
The Age 7 August 2014:
IPA Director John Roskam on Wednesday warned the government not to “underestimate the white-hot anger” of Liberals dismayed by the Prime Minister's decision to back down from repealing section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. Now it appears that anger has been converted into cash with the appeal topping $45,000 as of this morning, according to Mr Roskam.
Well worth repeating: The Age editorial 'Playing Games With Religion In Schools'
Date August 1, 2014
The ancient book of Ecclesiastes teaches that there is a time and a place for everything. A time to be silent and a time to speak. There is also a time to pray, if that is what is needed. Whether there is a time and place for students to pray during school lunchtimes, however, is a matter that clearly causes some people enormous concern.
After state Education Minister Martin Dixon issued a ministerial direction about the rules and procedures governing the provision of special religious instruction in government schools, a cry erupted among some Christian groups claiming the rules encroach on basic human rights. Opponents of the directive say it amounts to an attack on religious freedom and free speech, and that it is a step towards outright bans on prayer in schools.
Their rhetoric is inflammatory, and their concerns are misplaced. The government is not banning prayer in school. It is not forbidding students to pray at lunchtime, if that is what they want to do with their meal break. It is saying that prayer forums ''cannot be led'' by teachers or other school staff, by parents, volunteers or visitors. Put another way, if there are prayer groups or meetings of student religious clubs during school hours, then they must not take the form of ''instructed'' prayer. That is a world away from imposing draconian curbs on the rights to religious freedom and free speech.
The rationale is simple. Government schools are secular environments and their primary aim is education. It has been that way since the Education Act of 1872 formalised that public education in this state should be free, secular and compulsory. In 1958, the law was amended to provide an exception allowing non-compulsory religious instruction classes to be held within schools, but on certain conditions and only by accredited providers. It should be noted the law does not bar religious instruction classes being held on state school grounds outside school hours.
The 2006 education legislation states that schools must ''not promote any particular religious practice, denomination or sect'', but it nevertheless allows schools to provide classes of special religious instruction during school hours, only by accredited representatives. To allow non-accredited instructors to supervise religious sessions at lunchtime would be to subvert the system entirely. Mr Dixon's directive provides a framework for schools to ensure they are abiding by the law and not inadvertently providing non-accredited religious instruction classes.
The Age has consistently argued that beyond reading, writing and arithmetic, there is room in schools for the study of the various belief systems and for informed and informative discussion about ethical choices. Education about religion should provide students with sound information about belief structures and religious practices that help shape our world, as well as provide historical context to the role played by religion in our world. A byproduct of all that might be greater social awareness and enhanced tolerance of diversity.
That does not, however, justify a state-backed religious agenda in education. A secular school system should not impose proselytising nor actively sponsor it. If religious instruction is to be conducted at all within the secular school environment, then there must be clear boundaries and rules. Where state schools do provide special classes in religious instruction, who teaches it, how, and when it is provided should all be carefully managed.
Nothing bars students from organising their own religious groups at school; they are not impeded in practising their religion at school. Their fundamental rights are preserved. At the same time, the resources and facilities of the state education system must be directed primarily to education for all
Although the directive mentioned in this editorial applies only to Victorian schools, the debate concerning religion in schools is nation-wide.
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