Australia's Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard made a serious error of judgement when she jumped on the performance-based pay for teachers bandwagon.
Parading under false banners such as "lifting the status of the teaching profession" and "boosting students' results", "teaching quality" once again raised its head at this week's first meeting of state and federal education ministers since the election of the Rudd Government.
Gillard, like many others, just doesn't get it. Implementing teacher pay schemes that are associated with merit will not enhance the teaching profession. Competitive, cut-throat, eat-your-enemies approaches to paying teachers cannot sit squarely with a profession that is based on co-operation.
Friday 18 April 2008
Budget night 'donation' dinners not a good look for any political party
With so many on the NSW North Coast living on a limited income it leaves a bad taste in the mouth that, on the night of the 2008 Federal Budget, Canberra will be awash with conspicuous consumption in the name of raising a few dollars for the major political parties.
In The Age this morning.
AS Wayne Swan announces billions of dollars in budget cuts on the night of May 13, the political parties will be raking in almost $1million, with corporate high-fliers, lobbyists and party supporters paying big money to attend a parliamentary budget-night banquet.---
The budget-night spectacular comes as state governments come under fire for fundraising dinners and undisclosed donations from developers.
It's in the bag
Granny Herald told us yesterday that federal and state governments had failed to reach an agreement over the problem of disposable plastic bags.
No national ban or levy, indeed no solution at all, has been decided on.
Which sort of demonstrates the bigger problem really - at every step of the climate change response is someone who will either lose income or someone who will be forced to pay more for goods and services.
So nothing gets done with a coordinated national approach. Instead we get lots of wordy hot air, because every pollie has an industry lobbyist at their elbow or an electorate sensitive to a particular topic.
Kevin Rudd keeps going to the media with his 2020 mantra of a new way forward.
This magical date is just around the corner, but the number of life problems in which it has been held out as a goal increases every time I open the paper or turn on the television.
It seems there is nothing that can't be cured by a judicious application of 2020 twice a day.
If the plastic bag issue is any guide, then 2020 will see us no further forward than we are today and we'll all be in deep in global warming trouble before any solution is actually tried.
No national ban or levy, indeed no solution at all, has been decided on.
Which sort of demonstrates the bigger problem really - at every step of the climate change response is someone who will either lose income or someone who will be forced to pay more for goods and services.
So nothing gets done with a coordinated national approach. Instead we get lots of wordy hot air, because every pollie has an industry lobbyist at their elbow or an electorate sensitive to a particular topic.
Kevin Rudd keeps going to the media with his 2020 mantra of a new way forward.
This magical date is just around the corner, but the number of life problems in which it has been held out as a goal increases every time I open the paper or turn on the television.
It seems there is nothing that can't be cured by a judicious application of 2020 twice a day.
If the plastic bag issue is any guide, then 2020 will see us no further forward than we are today and we'll all be in deep in global warming trouble before any solution is actually tried.
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