2022 Election
The implosion continues ……….. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/06/teena-mcqueen-tol...
Yes great article andy-mac. Dr Richard Denniss gets it. Sensible speak from a well respected economist.
indo-dreaming wrote:AndyM wrote:Positive role model for who?
Conservative white people who want someone to hide behind so they (hopefully) don't get labelled as racist?
A positive role model for Indigenous people, she empowers indigenous people because she calls them to take ownership of their issues and bring change from within (the only place change can come from) and teaches and shows them by example what can be achieved and not by some city folk with no understanding of the issues ala Lidia but from an Indigenous girl from central Australia one that has been in their shoes and suffered domestic violence and seen her family affected by violence (even murders)
As you know Jacinta's focus is on indigenous women and families in remote communities which goes back to the influence of her mother who has always gone against the grain and fought back against her mob at 13 years old when she was to be set up with an arranged marriage, while she escaped that she still ended up pregnant at 14 and almost killed by an abusive indigenous partner, but she set out to get herself educated and then became involved in politics and other things like Indigenous Affairs Advisory Council.
So obviously Bess was the positive strong role model for Jacinta who now takes that baton and is a strong positive role models for indigenous people especially indigenous women in remote community's trying to (or brave enough) to escape abusive relationships.
Yeah sure many indigenous people also dont like what she has to say because she challenges them to change and take ownership of their issues(especially men), obviously that's a much harder road than the easy road of accepting the narrative that all your issues are due to others or a past beyond you and any change needs to come from others or government rather than yourself or your community, adopting that view and position is going down an easy road but obviously a road to nowhere.
In regard to your negative comment about white conservatives, obviously these types of comments just come from a place of ignorance and lack of understanding on who Jacinta is or is about, i recommend listing to one or two more recent podcast on Spotify from her and you might be surprised on her views and what she is about.
As far as I can work out she's anything but a role model for a huge number of indigenous people, including the 7000+ who signed a petition titled "As an Aboriginal Person Jacinta and Bess Price DO NOT represent me or speak on my behalf".
And I strongly doubt that Price is a role model for the thousands of local traditional owners, Indigenous community-based organisations and Indigenous leaders who sat through a dozen deliberative dialogues to thrash out the Uluru Statement.
Jacinta Price rubs shoulders with Tony Abbott, Alan Jones and Malcolm Roberts, - she is hanging out with bigots and racists.
So she is at the very least a useful stooge to these white conservatives.
My comments are not coming from a place of ignorance, it's very clear who she does and doesn't represent in reality.
gsco wrote:Yes great article andy-mac. Dr Richard Denniss gets it. Sensible speak from a well respected economist.
Agree, hope common sense prevails. Those tax cuts I guess would be a disaster...
chalmers should just balls up and call it
pressure coming from all angles now
"The former governor of the Reserve Bank, Bernie Fraser, has criticised the Labor government for sticking to the “very dodgy” stage-three tax cuts, arguing they should be repealed to allow for spending on social programs.
Condemning the tax cut package as “unfair and unwarranted”..."
and
"...“I think the more honourable course for Labor would be to use the power it now has in government following the election … to promote the interests of the people of Australia and bring those interests back to the fore..."
there's a novel thought in modern politics...
their poition is looking basically untenable now
but they (still) need to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to the party...
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct...
sypkan wrote:chalmers should just balls up and call it
pressure coming from all angles now
"The former governor of the Reserve Bank, Bernie Fraser, has criticised the Labor government for sticking to the “very dodgy” stage-three tax cuts, arguing they should be repealed to allow for spending on social programs.
Condemning the tax cut package as “unfair and unwarranted”..."
and
"...“I think the more honourable course for Labor would be to use the power it now has in government following the election … to promote the interests of the people of Australia and bring those interests back to the fore..."
there's a novel thought in modern politics...
their poition is looking basically untenable now
but they (still) need to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to the party...
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct...
Give em time, it won't happen..... Alboliar the big taxer flyers already have been made up at LNP and Newscorpe head quarters.
Also would have been nice if the media and all the others being critical of these tax cuts said something when Morrison put them to parliament..... Na better economic managers.
Kind of like RBA, no rate hikes until after election, then bang... Just coincidence I'm sure....
well, to be fair, as a lot of more moderate commentators have said...
a lot has changed since the tax cuts were passed... way back when; there was no inflation, no corona, no corona cash, only moderate debt, no energy crisis, and no war in ukraine...
no 'cost of living' crisis... for a lot of people anyway...
in the current climate the tax cuts stink!
much like the UK
but to a lesser extent - perhaps...
also much like the UK...
"But back to Chalmers’ opportunity. The tax cuts, released in the Morrison government’s 2018 budget, are one of the most expensive budget announcements ever made in Australia. They were announced with no modelling, no costing and no offsetting spending cuts. If they go ahead, their $243bn cost over the next 10 years alone is on par with the lifetime cost of our (just as poorly thought through) plan to buy nuclear submarines."
"...no modelling, no costing and no offsetting spending cuts..."
unbelievable really, in the modern context, for the...
"...most expensive budget announcements ever made in Australia..."
purely ideological wishful thinking
not even wishful thinking actually... more like sleight of hand...
"a lot has changed since the tax cuts were passed... way back when; there was no inflation, no corona, no corona cash, only moderate debt, no energy crisis, and no war in ukraine..."
Was always a bad and irresponsible idea and Policy as highlighted by Labor at the time. Morrison put them in with stage 1 and 2 as a single package to try and wedge Labor. If Labor did not pass the media would have gone nuts! BS such as not supporting battlers, quiet Australians or whatever term was being used at time. Highlights how partisan the media is in Australia. Joke.
Worth keeping in mind that a good political party won't always telegraph it's plans but often keep it's decisions close to their chest in order to, a) control the story, and b) extract concessions from the people/parties it needs to.
Aligned with my list of ALP lying in their intent is the following piece. This is not hollow assertions and incorrect statements, this is fact.
From the eminently worthy Macrobusiness site:
+
Labor unloads international student “ponzi scheme”
By Unconventional Economist
The Albanese Government lit a fuse under the international student trade when it used last month’s Jobs & Skills Summit to expand work rights via:
Uncapping the number of hours international students can work while studying for another year; and
Extending the length of post-study work visas by two years.
The former Morrison Government’s uncapping of international student working hours last year has already delivered a sharp increase in student visa applications from India and Nepal. And Labor’s maintenance of this policy, alongside its two-year extension to post study work visas, will only turbo-charge international student arrivals even more.
Hilariously, the peak lobbyist for the international education industry, Phil Honeywood, has labelled the uncapping of work rights a “ponzi scheme”, since it will inevitably lead to a surge in non-genuine students coming to Australia to work so they can send money home:
Honeywood describes uncapped work rights as “a bit of a Ponzi scheme”, whereby foreigners who are ostensibly in Australia to study in reality work exhaustive hours “and send Australian dollars back home to mum’s and dad’s struggling business”. Nevertheless, the new government has resolved to extend uncapped working hours until the middle of next year.
Honeywood instead wants to trade one “ponzi scheme” for another by offering easier permanent residency for international students:
Honeywood… instead advocates migration-related incentives, backed at both federal and state government levels to dissipate the “political pain”…
Honeywood also advocates a doubling of the five points available to graduates who have completed “professional year programmes”…
International education is the ultimate “ponzi scheme” since it involves higher education providers and policy makers continually gutting entry standards and extending migration and work incentives in order to increase student application numbers and revenue. Rampant cheating is ignored, as are the negative impacts on domestic students, the rental market, and young Australians competing for jobs.
Instead of operating a “ponzi scheme”, why not instead aim for a smaller intake of higher quality international students via:
Raising entry standards (particularly English-language proficiency);
Raising financial requirements needed to enter Australia; and
Removing the explicit link between studying, work rights and permanent residency.
These reforms would raise student quality, would lift export revenues per student, would improve wages and conditions in the labour market, and would reduce enrolment numbers to sensible and sustainable levels, in turn improving quality and the experience for local students and reducing population pressures.
Sadly, the Albanese Government has taken the opposite path by uncapping the number of hours an international student can work while studying for another year, while also extending post-study graduate work visas by two years.
Labor knows that if work rights and permanent residency were scaled back, the numbers of students arriving would plunge, alongside Labor’s Big Australia agenda.
So, get ready for a surge in low quality ‘students’ arriving in Australia for work rights and permanent residency, and the further degradation of our university system. The seeds are sown.
No, most of those are incorrect too.
How so?
Seems like it’s yourself throwing out the assertions.
"Raising entry standards". They have been raised.
"Raising financial requirements needed to enter Australia" Idiotic in the face of our real estate crunch, also raises issues in education. Doing the very opposite and REDUCING financial requirements, offering a hand to the needy, costs more initially yet pays off in the long term. Many succesful real world examples, including here in Australia.
"Removing the explicit link between studying, work rights and permanent residency." Another dumb point, barely worth responding too. Makes it sound like study is the only link to migration when it clearly isn't. Also ignores that many occupations rely on migration (half of all doctors (GP, physicians etc) are born OS. This is clearly a structural problem we've brought on ourselves, but the only way to remedy it is to, at least in part, forge a link between study and migration.
You need to stop reading reactionary journalism. Maybe look up a journalist that keeps asking 'why?' rather than presuming they have all the answers.
AndyM wrote:indo-dreaming wrote:AndyM wrote:Positive role model for who?
Conservative white people who want someone to hide behind so they (hopefully) don't get labelled as racist?
A positive role model for Indigenous people, she empowers indigenous people because she calls them to take ownership of their issues and bring change from within (the only place change can come from) and teaches and shows them by example what can be achieved and not by some city folk with no understanding of the issues ala Lidia but from an Indigenous girl from central Australia one that has been in their shoes and suffered domestic violence and seen her family affected by violence (even murders)
As you know Jacinta's focus is on indigenous women and families in remote communities which goes back to the influence of her mother who has always gone against the grain and fought back against her mob at 13 years old when she was to be set up with an arranged marriage, while she escaped that she still ended up pregnant at 14 and almost killed by an abusive indigenous partner, but she set out to get herself educated and then became involved in politics and other things like Indigenous Affairs Advisory Council.
So obviously Bess was the positive strong role model for Jacinta who now takes that baton and is a strong positive role models for indigenous people especially indigenous women in remote community's trying to (or brave enough) to escape abusive relationships.
Yeah sure many indigenous people also dont like what she has to say because she challenges them to change and take ownership of their issues(especially men), obviously that's a much harder road than the easy road of accepting the narrative that all your issues are due to others or a past beyond you and any change needs to come from others or government rather than yourself or your community, adopting that view and position is going down an easy road but obviously a road to nowhere.
In regard to your negative comment about white conservatives, obviously these types of comments just come from a place of ignorance and lack of understanding on who Jacinta is or is about, i recommend listing to one or two more recent podcast on Spotify from her and you might be surprised on her views and what she is about.
As far as I can work out she's anything but a role model for a huge number of indigenous people, including the 7000+ who signed a petition titled "As an Aboriginal Person Jacinta and Bess Price DO NOT represent me or speak on my behalf".
And I strongly doubt that Price is a role model for the thousands of local traditional owners, Indigenous community-based organisations and Indigenous leaders who sat through a dozen deliberative dialogues to thrash out the Uluru Statement.
Jacinta Price rubs shoulders with Tony Abbott, Alan Jones and Malcolm Roberts, - she is hanging out with bigots and racists.
So she is at the very least a useful stooge to these white conservatives.
My comments are not coming from a place of ignorance, it's very clear who she does and doesn't represent in reality.
Argh here we go you have quickly gone from role model to the already old line of
"But she doesn't represent most indigenous people or the majority of people in her community."
Show me one leader in any community that represents all people in one community, or one ethnic group all agree with.
Be it local council, state or federal, leaders none represent everyone or even close.
Even Albo only got 30% of the vote in Australia, and I'm sure a huge percentage of those people voted based on either just wanting change or over Scomo, if you asked them now if Albo represented them they would so no way, and say i had to vote for someone, i just voted for the lesser of two evils or something similar.
Blowin is a classic example of that voter whom is a very common voter type.
Anyway haters always going to hate, but sorry you do come from a complete place of ignorance, you may not like Jacinta because she is a conservative but she is someone fighting real issues and real change and self ownership and looking for positive change rather than endless tokenism.
Anyway it doesn't matter what you think, she is being talked about, she is getting exposure and more and more support and hopefully in time will bring a change of narrative and approach.
BTW. She wouldn't have the profile she has without the support of conservative media, of course she is going to attend conservative conferences and rub shoulders with conservatives (many i also dont like or agree with) thats life.
I'm getting a little concerned about myself and my mental health due to agreeing with a highly worthy macrobusiness article...
The article is largely correct and highlights many of the problems with higher education in Australia.
Over the past few decades both sides of government are trying to reduce funding, privatise the sector, and move it towards a private sector-like, commercial, profit driven, user pays, US tiered system.
The natural consequences of this is twofold (well it's more than that but this is the two points I always think about).
First, and not mentioned in the macrobusiness article, is that this US-style system reinforces inequality in society by creating an expensive, high quality, elite tier of university education that is financially and culturally inaccessible to most of society.
The other problem is what the macrobusiness article mentions. Universities are forced to measures such as competing in the international student market in order to remain profitable. A number of things then happen (well, are currently happening):
- lower English language standards in international students
- courses are watered down to cater for less prepared international students, and particularly due to poor command of English and to what the articles says of students spending most of their time working (low paying jobs) instead of studying
- a cut throat, publish or perish research culture focused on publishing massive quantities of completely junk "research" in order to compete in the global university rankings, leading to research fabrication, manipulation and fraud, horrible exploitation of lower ranked researchers including sexual misconduct, neglect of teaching quality
- sexual misconduct towards vulnerable international students
- massive rise of cheating by international students due to poor command of English, students working instead of studying, poor backgrounds of international students from developing countries, which in particular leads to the arising of a massive assignment writing and exam cheating industry
- a significant proportion of international students only coming here to study in order to get permanent residency
- and so on, too many problems to list all of...
I would suggest listening to what say Dr Richard Denniss said in the above really good article, things like:
Dr Richard Denniss wrote:People in rich countries such as Norway, Denmark, Finland and Sweden take for granted that they can have nice things like free childcare and university degrees. Their quality public schools and health systems are such that private schools and private health insurance are almost non-existent. And while it may seem strange for Australians to hear, having all those nice things hasn’t hurt their economies – in fact, it has helped them.
And then there’s innovation, the real source of economic growth, which comes from having a highly educated population, a great research culture in public universities and significant public investment in R&D.
Yep. The Macrobusiness article is spot on and Stu is well wide of the mark. Bringing in tens of thousands of fake students is going to help our “Real estate crunch”?
What?
How’s that supposed to work? Tens of thousands of extra people competing for non-existent rentals ? Lol. Sounds like a great outcome. ( sarcasm)
As for this: “ "Removing the explicit link between studying, work rights and permanent residency." Another dumb point, barely worth responding too. Makes it sound like study is the only link to migration when it clearly isn't. ”
Who said that fake education is the only link to migration into Australia? Fake education may not be all of the migration problem but it certainly constitutes a large conduit. There’s no debate that the education system has been designed to be exploited as a back door into work rights and residency. This then falls in behind the fact that the mass immigration scheme is a huge NET LOSS for Australia in virtually every issue of importance.
And the assertion that allowing in millions of fake education economic migrant country-shoppers over a decade is unquestionable because a few thousand of them might become doctors….please. The whole point of the article is to raise educational requirements so that the potential doctors still arrive whilst the 99% who run full time Uber services are not.
BTW….I don’t agree with everything Macrobusiness says but I certainly agree when the things they say are indisputable fact.
You got anything else to support your assertions that the ALP are doing the right thing instead of promoting hollow propaganda, as they further our descent into the neoliberal rabbit hole?
GSCO…why would you need to declare hesitancy in agreeing with Macrobusiness? They’re not always right but they are on the right path for many important issues and they provide a much needed contradictory foil to the almost unchallenged bleating of the vested interest mouthpieces at the MSM.
DudeSweetDudeSweet wrote:You got anything else to support your assertions that the ALP are doing the right thing instead of promoting hollow propaganda, as they further our descent into the neoliberal rabbit hole?
If that is aimed at me then actually so far I don't see anything being improved by the Labor party relating to higher education in Australia.
Actually I'm getting more and more disillusioned by the day with the Labor party.
It seems that the Labor party I had in mind when I voted for them this time is the one from the 80s and 90s...
Unfortunately the current Labor party in power is just all a left progressive woke façade and charade so far, all caught up in the culture wars with no substance.
Again, Satyajit Das says it all:
Satyajit Das wrote:The complex challenges and lack of easy solutions underlies the rising culture wars in Western democracies. Worthy causes -- liberty, gender, sexuality, history, indigenous rights, multi-culturalism -- are largely matters of belief and values. Positions are fundamentally irreconcilable but politically useful in manipulating a fissiparous electorate.
Leaders themselves are an uninspiring lot, long on cunning and media savvy but little else. Constant media scrutiny of private lives and better financial rewards on offer elsewhere mean politics attracts in the main uniquely unqualified aspirants whose highest potential is mediocrity.
Politics is now "panem et circenses" (bread and circuses) as Juvenal wrote in Satire X. The focus is superficial appeasement in form of glib announcements which will remain largely unimplemented. The objective is to distract and divert while maintaining electability.
Re macrobusines, I'm just taking the piss out of myself due to originally panning them when I first started writing in these forums...
Of course they have lots of valid points and call a spade a spade.
GSCO…that was aimed at Stu.
Who says fruit picking doesn't pay well?
Good cherries..?
The tertiary sector is a shambles, I'm not arguing otherwise. What I'm saying is you, and that article, attack all the wrong points.
For starters, you ask how does bringing cashed up foreigners into Australia aid the credit crunch?
Erm....by pricing out Australian-born buyers.
When we stipulate that migrants must have X amount of money or assets then we decrease the odds that those born here and saving for first home ownership are in the hunt. Even worse when migrants are exchanging from strong currencies.
I also didn't say student migration is "unquestionable", just that you're attacking effects not causes, branches not roots, easy answers over hard. Unfortunately decades of neglect, wilful or otherwise, cant be remedied with a flick of the switch.
This cuts more to the heart of your gripes: that Labor should let the structural issues remedy themselves. Of course that means jobs are lost, the economy vulnerable to recession, and it's simply irresponsible governance. Labor would be tossed out at the next election. Then it would be Liberals in again and business as usual.
That is the unavoidable reality.
And that's something you and Macrobusiness aren't in the business of documenting.
Post up a plan that, doesn't just sound good, but most importantly would survive a vote of the Australian people.
Because anything else you or Macrobusiness say is piss and wind.
gsco wrote:I'm getting a little concerned about myself and my mental health due to agreeing with a highly worthy macrobusiness article...
The article is largely correct and highlights many of the problems with higher education in Australia.
What is the actual strategy for higher education in Australia? Does anyone have one? All sides of politics just have some high-level slogan like 'we'll make the education better, bla, bla'. But that's a wishlist, not a goal. When I look at the amount of money my wife and I spent on our uni degrees it makes me sick. It honestly does. Some nice words in those articles about having free education but is anyone even proposing that? I am more than happy to give them even more tax money if they commit to the goal of making education free so my kids don't have to go through what I had to go through. But on the other hand, looking at the current system, I don't trust them with a single cent, and I'll do whatever it takes to minimise my tax liability.
These are very conflicting feelings and I guess trust is a serious issue. How do you trust them when they give more money to private schools than public ones? I get it, there were some interests that got us into this situation but is there seriously no one working on dismantling this nonsense? How much of the money I pay in taxes will end up in private schools that I will never use? What is enough?
At the end of the day, life is a series of deals one makes. A deal with your employer, a deal with your partner, a deal with yourself and what you want to achieve in life, a deal with the government...And one needs to feel confident that these deals will pay off otherwise the whole thing will turn to shit.
I think the basic issue between our points of view is that you seem to believe that the ALP, whilst finally in power, should not rock the boat to any great degree and to continue to kick the can of the inevitable hard economic landing ever further down the road.
There’s no getting around the ugliness that decades of neoliberalism-from both parties- has cast into the stone of Australia’s future. The sooner we take our medicine and experience the necessary recession, the better it is for our country. Of course there will be people who suffer.
But there’s people who are suffering now because we haven’t popped the housing bubble / endless growth / Big Australia Ponzi . And the numbers of people suffering now include everyone with ridiculous mortgage debt , those with insecure employment, those who don’t relish watching the Australian environment turned into a ground zero for destruction and those who are sick of waiting 36 hours in accident and emergency, those who are sick of watching the sun being hidden behind endless high rise construction and those who know a future of 50million Australians is an inestimably large downgrade of everything good in Australia.
The ALP , with their ceaseless and seamless expansion of neoliberalism is not making things better by enlarging the current problems and no mealy mouthed rationalising changes that simple fact.
BTW….I don’t actually agree with the higher cost of degrees for international students beyond the fact that it might cull the sheer volume of “students”. Apart from that your premise doesn’t hold much water when it’s common for 6 poor students to rent a house off a property speculator who outbids young Australians anyway. The property speculator would not have a viable business model if denied the tens of thousands of penniless fake students.
Here’s how it works : House around Sydney get more expensive because, beyond immigrants creating direct demand, we get developers hoovering up the land and pushing up prices in order to densify so as to accommodate the hundreds of thousands- millions! - of fake students.
This even has a knock on effect in regional areas as Sydneysiders flee the Sydney high density fake student shithole.
Australia experiences a net loss because of this situation . ALP is expanding and exacerbating this situation. Therefore it is undeniable that Australia is much worse off due to the actions of the ALP irrespective of the ALP’s lying motherhood statements.
Democracy in Australia is a sham.
And these horrible assumptions about migrants coming here to 'pick fruit'. Unbelievable, some of the best talents we have in this country came through migrant pathways. Everyone wants Australia to solve problems on a global scale, and be a respected leader in international circles...Well, guess what, fixing global-scale problems requires global-scale talent. It's our strength to attract these people in, not a bloody weakness. This country has a serious issue with protectionism. It's detrimental.
flollo wrote:gsco wrote:I'm getting a little concerned about myself and my mental health due to agreeing with a highly worthy macrobusiness article...
The article is largely correct and highlights many of the problems with higher education in Australia.
What is the actual strategy for higher education in Australia? Does anyone have one? All sides of politics just have some high-level slogan like 'we'll make the education better, bla, bla'. But that's a wishlist, not a goal. When I look at the amount of money my wife and I spent on our uni degrees it makes me sick. It honestly does. Some nice words in those articles about having free education but is anyone even proposing that? I am more than happy to give them even more tax money if they commit to the goal of making education free so my kids don't have to go through what I had to go through. But on the other hand, looking at the current system, I don't trust them with a single cent, and I'll do whatever it takes to minimise my tax liability.
These are very conflicting feelings and I guess trust is a serious issue. How do you trust them when they give more money to private schools than public ones? I get it, there were some interests that got us into this situation but is there seriously no one working on dismantling this nonsense? How much of the money I pay in taxes will end up in private schools that I will never use? What is enough?
At the end of the day, life is a series of deals one makes. A deal with your employer, a deal with your partner, a deal with yourself and what you want to achieve in life, a deal with the government...And one needs to feel confident that these deals will pay off otherwise the whole thing will turn to shit.
Good comment.
And the answer is ….the ALP, long cast as the solution to the LNP’s destructive motives - are no answer and no solution at all. They make the problem worse. The ALP enlarges and entrenches the problem whilst bleating about turning things around.
That’s their whole wolf in sheep’s clothing act.
Then you get apologists saying :
“Oh sure…the ALP are fucking everything they touch but…..LNP”
Or
“ ALP may be fucking everything they touch but it’s only been six months and…LNP”
Or
“”Sure , ALP may be fucking everything they touch but if they do their job, the one thing they were elected to do, and attempt to sort out the problems, then they might not get re-elected in 3 1/2 years time.”
I don’t get it?
When is it you think the ALP will finally stop fucking you over and act the way you fantasise they’re going to act ? You sound like a bunch of abused spouses.
“Oh, Albo might’ve just hit turbo for fucking over the environment, work conditions, living standards and everything we hold dear but….he’s sorry and he is trying to get better and he promised that next time he’ll do his best to not fuck us over ….again. “
flollo wrote:And these horrible assumptions about migrants coming here to 'pick fruit'. Unbelievable, some of the best talents we have in this country came through migrant pathways. Everyone wants Australia to solve problems on a global scale, and be a respected leader in international circles...Well, guess what, fixing global-scale problems requires global-scale talent. It's our strength to attract these people in, not a bloody weakness. This country has a serious issue with protectionism. It's detrimental.
“This country has a serious issue with protectionism. It’s detrimental “
Lol.. cool story, bro.
The most successful economy on the planet over the past fifty years is also the one which has made protectionism and mercantilism an art form. Whilst the further the West opens up their borders and economies, the more hollowed out and pulverised their economies and living standards get. Let’s pretend not to see that hey!
No one is saying that immigration isn’t valuable and essential and beneficial. But there is diminishing returns beyond a certain volume of imported humans and Australia has exceeded that volume by an immense figure.
flollo wrote:What is the actual strategy for higher education in Australia? Does anyone have one?
Regardless of the lip service of governments, the trajectory of the sector answers that question.
What they're trying to do to both health and education in Australia is move it towards the US models of what can be described as a bizarre, dysfunctional public-private mixes of service provision - low quality, neglected, cheap public provision and high quality, elite, expensive private provision.
(Actually the US health system is so messed up to the point of some private insurance providers are also the medical and hospital providers, so by paying health insurance to them you are actually locked into only being able to access their health services. But these providers know this - that one is trapped by them - and the level of service is poor due to the barriers to changing providers.)
The Aus health and education systems are being encouraged to move in this US public-private mix direction due to funding for the public sector being squeezed and its mix/target being modified to encourage it, by as you said the funding and subsidisation of private providers, and the allowed stagnation and reduction in the quality of the public sectors.
Hence, the quality of the public systems are being allowed to degrade and the economic conditions (including from subsidies) are being created to encourage the profitability and setting up of private providers.
Make no mistake, there's lots of money to be made here and both sides of politics want in on it.
@DSDS
Some of these concerns are valid. But I'm not finding the associated stigmatisation attractive. It doesn't help the cause. Also, our position to attract talent got a lot worse in the last 2-3 years. I was in Europe in July and everyone was ridiculing me with 'They finally let you out of the prison..'. Initially, these comments come as a joke but they are followed by a more serious discussion about us imprisoning people during covid. I unsuccessfully tried to explain that it wasn't as bad as the media made it. Nothing worked. I had several friends who wanted to come for a visit for a while but everyone's given up. No one wants to touch it. We need to now fix this perception. So it would be good if we didn't create more hostility.
DudeSweetDudeSweet wrote:There’s no getting around the ugliness that decades of neoliberalism-from both parties- has cast into the stone of Australia’s future. The sooner we take our medicine and experience the necessary recession, the better it is for our country. Of course there will be people who suffer.
So despite explaining why one side of politics has to take the safe, slow, and unsexy path, you've still got absolutely nothing based in reality to solve the problem?
Make no mistake, what you just said is fantastical. It's the online equivalent of pasting up a Green Left bill poster in Newtown.
Feels good yeah?
Utter bollocks in real life. May as well be sci fi.
You can either propose solutions based on a three-year election cycle in a country that over a century has shown to be predominantly right-leaning, or you can shake your fist at the sky while gluing up another Socialism Now! poster outside the macrobiotic nut shop on King Street.
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/digitalprinteditions/features
Example of the bullshit Labor is up against re stage 3 tax cuts. War on teachers, nurses blah blah blah ...
@GSCO
"Actually I'm getting more and more disillusioned by the day with the Labor party.
It seems that the Labor party I had in mind when I voted for them this time is the one from the 80s and 90s...
Unfortunately the current Labor party in power is just all a left progressive woke façade and charade so far, all caught up in the culture wars with no substance."
I think you may be being a bit harsh here. Agree with your sentiments, but really they as a Party have to tip toe through a minefield of misinformation and a whole media beast ready to rip apart any move e they make, hence their hesitancy.
My hope is they are waiting until maybe ICAC is up and running and LNP corruption is taking up headlines and they can start to implement some of their more controversial agendas such as dropping, modifying stage 3 tax. When they do you know the media are going to go bat shit crazy about election promises and all the poor aspirational voters who will miss out on their tax cut. Hopefully this story will be over shadowed with some LNP ministers looking at jail time....
But hey, I could be wrong.
flollo wrote:@DSDS
Some of these concerns are valid. But I'm not finding the associated stigmatisation attractive. It doesn't help the cause. Also, our position to attract talent got a lot worse in the last 2-3 years. I was in Europe in July and everyone was ridiculing me with 'They finally let you out of the prison..'. Initially, these comments come as a joke but they are followed by a more serious discussion about us imprisoning people during covid. I unsuccessfully tried to explain that it wasn't as bad as the media made it. Nothing worked. I had several friends who wanted to come for a visit for a while but everyone's given up. No one wants to touch it. We need to now fix this perception. So it would be good if we didn't create more hostility.
It was as bad as the media portrayed it.
Scomo grounded the whole nation in our bedrooms for being naughty. We weren’t allowed out of our houses, we weren’t allowed out of our shires, w3 weren’t allowed out of our states and we weren’t allowed out of the country.
Australian citizens weren’t even allowed back in their home if they were overseas.
How can you possibly exaggerate that heinous reality?
yep andy-mac the alternative is responsible for many bad choices for Australia, particularly from this genuinely upsetting Institute of Public Affairs list linked the other day.
Regardless of the side of politics, the fallacy of privatising - or creating weird out, fragmented public-private provision models - of services like education, health and childcare is clearly displayed in the above quote from Richard Denniss where the public systems in the Nordic countries are so good that private providers don't really exist due to not being competitive.
In order to make private providers competitive, Australia has to first gut and let rot the public systems, as it's doing. A lot of progress has been made on this front in childcare, health, secondary education and vocational education. University education is a slightly slower moving ship.
Neoliberal adherents might argue that private providers in the end will evolve to provide a better, higher quality service and do so more efficiently, but:
1. This is a fallacy since if private providers could then they'd be competitive in the Nordic countries.
2. These services provide strong positive externalities to the nation which are not priced into their private provision.
3. Public-private provision of these services has serious inequality problems in terms of access and outcomes, resulting in only the very wealthy elite in society being able to access and afford high quality services.
So the current business model of decimating the public provision of these services in order to make private provision competitive:
- results in worse outcomes for society as a whole,
- does not improve the actual level and quality of the services over and above high quality public provision,
- further embeds inequality in society and engrains the wealth and privilege of the wealthy elite class, and
- creates business opportunities for the wealthy business class to set up private models of service provision and thus get even wealthier.
In the end it becomes a monetisation and transfer of the positive externalities of these services into the wealth and privilege of the ruling wealthy elite, while shafting the masses - i.e. we become like the US...
Not only that, we’re even paying for this to happen by our tax money going into subsidies for private providers.
gsco wrote:yep andy-mac the alternative is responsible for many bad choices for Australia, particularly from this genuinely upsetting Institute of Public Affairs list linked the other day.
Regardless of the side of politics, the fallacy of privatising - or creating weird out, fragmented public-private provision models - of services like education, health and childcare is clearly displayed in the above quote from Richard Denniss where the public systems in the Nordic countries are so good that private providers don't really exist due to not being competitive.
In order to make private providers competitive, Australia has to first gut and let rot the public systems, as it's doing. A lot of progress has been made on this front in childcare, health, secondary education and vocational education. University education is a slightly slower moving ship.
Neoliberal adherents might argue that private providers in the end will evolve to provide a better, higher quality service and do so more efficiently, but:
1. This is a fallacy since if private providers could then they'd be competitive in the Nordic countries.
2. These services provide strong positive externalities to the nation which are not priced into their private provision.
3. Public-private provision of these services has serious inequality problems in terms of access and outcomes, resulting in only the very wealthy elite in society being able to access and afford high quality services.
So the current business model of decimating the public provision of these services in order to make private provision competitive:
- results in worse outcomes for society as a whole,
- the actual level and quality of the services is not improved over and above high quality public provision,
- further embeds inequality in society and engrains the wealth and privilege of the wealthy elite class, and
- creates business opportunities for the wealthy business class to set up private models of service provision and thus get even wealthier.
In the end it becomes a monetisation and transfer of the positive externalities of these services into the wealth and privilege of the ruling wealthy elite, while shafting the masses - i.e. we become like the US...
Not only that, we’re even paying for this to happen by our tax money going into subsidies for private providers.
I agree 100%!
Australia had the opportunity to be very wealthy (still are) egalitarian society with a very strong public service, health system, education etc.
As you mentioned years of neo- liberal governments have prevented this since 70's. If we took a different path we would have countries such as Norway looking up to us. Imagine our sovereign wealth fund if we had effectively taxed our resources since early 80's! Unfortunately the Murdoch media and powers that be made these policies sound like a communist plot, and the Australian people voted in the government they deserved... Cannot be fixed up in a term, if ever. 乁( •_• )ㄏ
Big changes needed but I am not confident that is possible, but hopefully Labor can slowly change the direction a little. More funding to education and health would be a good start and get rid of the profit driven business model for essential services...
"What is the actual strategy for higher education in Australia? Does anyone have one? All sides of politics just have some high-level slogan like 'we'll make the education better, bla, bla'. But that's a wishlist, not a goal. When I look at the amount of money my wife and I spent on our uni degrees it makes me sick. It honestly does. Some nice words in those articles about having free education but is anyone even proposing that? I am more than happy to give them even more tax money if they commit to the goal of making education free so my kids don't have to go through what I had to go through. But on the other hand, looking at the current system, I don't trust them with a single cent, and I'll do whatever it takes to minimise my tax liability..."
spot on...
whilst Im advocating labor drop the tax cuts whole, I have little faith in what they'll do with that money...
andymac makes fair points about the inevitable media onslaught, however, labor wouldn't be so vulnerable to such a media onslaught if people had faith in what they'll actually do with the taxes
people have no faith in labor due to decades of neglect and outright bullshit with window dressing (what blowin is on about) and because of what seems to be labor's main priorities / agenda / diversions... ( what gsco is on about)
you can argue til the cows come home 'who's the better economic managers' - ...with selective statistics from both sides to prove the point...
but the reality is, the 'perception' is, labor wastes money and has some messed up priorities... (see olddog)
that 'perception' is not totally unfounded
DudeSweetDudeSweet wrote:flollo wrote:@DSDS
Some of these concerns are valid. But I'm not finding the associated stigmatisation attractive. It doesn't help the cause. Also, our position to attract talent got a lot worse in the last 2-3 years. I was in Europe in July and everyone was ridiculing me with 'They finally let you out of the prison..'. Initially, these comments come as a joke but they are followed by a more serious discussion about us imprisoning people during covid. I unsuccessfully tried to explain that it wasn't as bad as the media made it. Nothing worked. I had several friends who wanted to come for a visit for a while but everyone's given up. No one wants to touch it. We need to now fix this perception. So it would be good if we didn't create more hostility.
It was as bad as the media portrayed it.
Scomo grounded the whole nation in our bedrooms for being naughty. We weren’t allowed out of our houses, we weren’t allowed out of our shires, w3 weren’t allowed out of our states and we weren’t allowed out of the country.
Australian citizens weren’t even allowed back in their home if they were overseas.
How can you possibly exaggerate that heinous reality?
Battleground Melbourne live at CPAC.
Ok, I don't want to be bee too cynical. My kids go to a great public school and 2 were born in a public hospital. 1 was born in a private hospital and to be honest, that can't come close to the public hospital. The service I received in the public hospital is top class, only praise for everyone who works there. Also, all the emergencies I had to deal with were dealt with in a very good way. Private health coverage is terrible. Honestly, it looks like a fraud to me.
The current medical system turns to shit with the so-called 'electives'. It's not really elective if your hip is gone and you can't walk. My mother-in-law paid for private health coverage her whole life and then in aged pension, she couldn't afford to anymore. But this is when the health problems increase for people and all the benefits are gone. For her, both hips were gone and it proved impossible to get any info about the dates from the hospital. So, we ended up sending her overseas to do a double hip surgery. Operation + 5 weeks of hospital accommodation + everyday physio cost us $20k. Totally worth it, you can't get that service here.
On child care - Labor's plan looks much better than the current system. I really hope they put it into practice. Although I'm out of it now it is a must for this country to move forward.
Also, I have a good friend who lives in Sweden and I caught up with him a few times a couple of months ago. We talked about some details a fair bit and to be honest, Australia didn't sound too dissimilar to Sweden. The main difference is higher education which is crazy expensive here + terrible childcare system (there's more than this but these 2 were quite prominent). But also, when I told him how much we pay in council rates he nearly fell off the chair. He was shocked. Same as GST of 10%, theirs is 25%. But all in all, there are many similarities. This country needs to reinforce those similarities and move us forward. We are not in some deep, terrible hole as it's sometimes presented, there are things to be optimistic about.
Supafreak wrote:DudeSweetDudeSweet wrote:flollo wrote:@DSDS
Some of these concerns are valid. But I'm not finding the associated stigmatisation attractive. It doesn't help the cause. Also, our position to attract talent got a lot worse in the last 2-3 years. I was in Europe in July and everyone was ridiculing me with 'They finally let you out of the prison..'. Initially, these comments come as a joke but they are followed by a more serious discussion about us imprisoning people during covid. I unsuccessfully tried to explain that it wasn't as bad as the media made it. Nothing worked. I had several friends who wanted to come for a visit for a while but everyone's given up. No one wants to touch it. We need to now fix this perception. So it would be good if we didn't create more hostility.
It was as bad as the media portrayed it.
Scomo grounded the whole nation in our bedrooms for being naughty. We weren’t allowed out of our houses, we weren’t allowed out of our shires, w3 weren’t allowed out of our states and we weren’t allowed out of the country.
Australian citizens weren’t even allowed back in their home if they were overseas.
How can you possibly exaggerate that heinous reality?
Battleground Melbourne live at CPAC.
Supa, did you actually watch the whole video? I can't handle it, that 1 min intro is already too much for me.
@DSDS some media created the perception that all Australians were collectively united against the repressive government. They created an image of all Australians being on the streets and being confronted by the police. This is what people overseas saw.
As you know this is false. An overwhelming majority of the population supported the measures and followed them. Only a small minority protested. Look at the popularity of Mark McGowan. If things were so terrible in Vic you would expect the current government to lose the upcoming election. However, they are probably going for a landslide win. These are the things that people overseas didn't see, all they saw were the snippets of confrontation between police and protestors.
sypkan wrote:"What is the actual strategy for higher education in Australia? Does anyone have one? All sides of politics just have some high-level slogan like 'we'll make the education better, bla, bla'. But that's a wishlist, not a goal. When I look at the amount of money my wife and I spent on our uni degrees it makes me sick. It honestly does. Some nice words in those articles about having free education but is anyone even proposing that? I am more than happy to give them even more tax money if they commit to the goal of making education free so my kids don't have to go through what I had to go through. But on the other hand, looking at the current system, I don't trust them with a single cent, and I'll do whatever it takes to minimise my tax liability..."
I dont know who's quote this is, but why does it make you sick?
You invested money in your future to earn more money.
It's no different to a business owner starting a business investing money to make more money.
You expecting me the tax payer to cover your cost of investing in your future, is as crazy as a business owner expecting the tax payer to cover his business start up cost.
As it is you already have the luxury of not paying hex debts back until you earn a certain amount, imagine if business owners had the same luxury and only paid business start up loans until they earnt 47K a year or whatever it is that you start paying your hex debt back at, but they dont they pay the money back straight away and even if the business fails.
It sucks as it is, as i could be wrong but i expect if you never earn over the 47K a year then id expect its the tax payer who ends up covering your uni course cost?
flollo wrote:Supafreak wrote:DudeSweetDudeSweet wrote:flollo wrote:@DSDS
Some of these concerns are valid. But I'm not finding the associated stigmatisation attractive. It doesn't help the cause. Also, our position to attract talent got a lot worse in the last 2-3 years. I was in Europe in July and everyone was ridiculing me with 'They finally let you out of the prison..'. Initially, these comments come as a joke but they are followed by a more serious discussion about us imprisoning people during covid. I unsuccessfully tried to explain that it wasn't as bad as the media made it. Nothing worked. I had several friends who wanted to come for a visit for a while but everyone's given up. No one wants to touch it. We need to now fix this perception. So it would be good if we didn't create more hostility.
It was as bad as the media portrayed it.
Scomo grounded the whole nation in our bedrooms for being naughty. We weren’t allowed out of our houses, we weren’t allowed out of our shires, w3 weren’t allowed out of our states and we weren’t allowed out of the country.
Australian citizens weren’t even allowed back in their home if they were overseas.
How can you possibly exaggerate that heinous reality?
Battleground Melbourne live at CPAC.
Supa, did you actually watch the whole video? I can't handle it, that 1 min intro is already too much for me.
@DSDS some media created the perception that all Australians were collectively united against the repressive government. They created an image of all Australians being on the streets and being confronted by the police. This is what people overseas saw.
As you know this is false. An overwhelming majority of the population supported the measures and followed them. Only a small minority protested. Look at the popularity of Mark McGowan. If things were so terrible in Vic you would expect the current government to lose the upcoming election. However, they are probably going for a landslide win. These are the things that people overseas didn't see, all they saw were the snippets of confrontation between police and protestors.
Watched first minute, that was it...
indo-dreaming wrote:sypkan wrote:"What is the actual strategy for higher education in Australia? Does anyone have one? All sides of politics just have some high-level slogan like 'we'll make the education better, bla, bla'. But that's a wishlist, not a goal. When I look at the amount of money my wife and I spent on our uni degrees it makes me sick. It honestly does. Some nice words in those articles about having free education but is anyone even proposing that? I am more than happy to give them even more tax money if they commit to the goal of making education free so my kids don't have to go through what I had to go through. But on the other hand, looking at the current system, I don't trust them with a single cent, and I'll do whatever it takes to minimise my tax liability..."
I dont know who's quote this is, but why does it make you sick?
You invested money in your future to earn more money.
It's no different to a business owner starting a business investing money to make more money.
You expecting me the tax payer to cover your cost of investing in your future, is as crazy as a business owner expecting the tax payer to cover his business start up cost.
As it is you already have the luxury of not paying hex debts back until you earn a certain amount, imagine if business owners had the same luxury and only paid business start up loans until they earnt 47K a year or whatever it is that you start paying your hex debt back at, but they dont they pay the money back straight away and even if the business fails.
It sucks as it is, as i could be wrong but i expect if you never earn over the 47K a year then id expect its the tax payer who ends up covering your uni course cost?
Good in theory, but in reality it creates situation where kids from wealthy families will go into Uni, and kids from lower socio economic groups will not. This further creates a have and have nots society. Having a $30 K ( probably being conservative here) plus debt at end of degree is off putting to many families, whereas to others it is small change and the family will pay up front. Of course there are many in between. Also Uni's will sign up kids that are unsuitable for the course and pull out before completion and still have debt.
Entry to a Uni course should be earnt not bought and it should be universal like it was in pre 90's. The multiplyer effect of having a well educated population is also a major economic bonus.
Using business owner not really great example as if you wish to study to be a nurse, paramedic, teacher etc
flollo wrote:Supafreak wrote:DudeSweetDudeSweet wrote:flollo wrote:@DSDS
Some of these concerns are valid. But I'm not finding the associated stigmatisation attractive. It doesn't help the cause. Also, our position to attract talent got a lot worse in the last 2-3 years. I was in Europe in July and everyone was ridiculing me with 'They finally let you out of the prison..'. Initially, these comments come as a joke but they are followed by a more serious discussion about us imprisoning people during covid. I unsuccessfully tried to explain that it wasn't as bad as the media made it. Nothing worked. I had several friends who wanted to come for a visit for a while but everyone's given up. No one wants to touch it. We need to now fix this perception. So it would be good if we didn't create more hostility.
It was as bad as the media portrayed it.
Scomo grounded the whole nation in our bedrooms for being naughty. We weren’t allowed out of our houses, we weren’t allowed out of our shires, w3 weren’t allowed out of our states and we weren’t allowed out of the country.
Australian citizens weren’t even allowed back in their home if they were overseas.
How can you possibly exaggerate that heinous reality?
Battleground Melbourne live at CPAC.
Supa, did you actually watch the whole video? I can't handle it, that 1 min intro is already too much for me.
@DSDS some media created the perception that all Australians were collectively united against the repressive government. They created an image of all Australians being on the streets and being confronted by the police. This is what people overseas saw.
As you know this is false. An overwhelming majority of the population supported the measures and followed them. Only a small minority protested. Look at the popularity of Mark McGowan. If things were so terrible in Vic you would expect the current government to lose the upcoming election. However, they are probably going for a landslide win. These are the things that people overseas didn't see, all they saw were the snippets of confrontation between police and protestors.
I watched the first 10 minutes then skipped forward and watched 30 seconds at a time . Just curious if this is broadcast to other parts of the world and their reaction if it is . It’s very dramatic the way it was presented and comes across as a cookers camp . In saying that I do also believe things went to far with lockdowns and the riot police firing rubber bullets on citizens . Looking at how Dan is polling in the up coming election , the majority of people appear to support him .
Yes, this is exactly the footage that people reacted to. It is so easy to make assumptions that Australians as a whole were crushed by a totalitarian state. Especially with this style of production. Sadly, there is not much footage that was sent globally about the things we were strong at; empathy, care for each other, and respect for the rule of law. You talk to people from other countries and the overwhelming attitude is: 'disrupting daily life for a few hundred older people that die every day? Piss off!' It's hard to explain that this attitude just doesn't fly in Australia.
This will be interesting if it’s proven to be true…….. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/07/kings-school-in-s...
Supafreak wrote:This will be interesting if it’s proven to be true…….. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/07/kings-school-in-s...
It will be swept under the rug. i guarantee it
DudeSweetDudeSweet wrote:flollo wrote:@DSDS
Some of these concerns are valid. But I'm not finding the associated stigmatisation attractive. It doesn't help the cause. Also, our position to attract talent got a lot worse in the last 2-3 years. I was in Europe in July and everyone was ridiculing me with 'They finally let you out of the prison..'. Initially, these comments come as a joke but they are followed by a more serious discussion about us imprisoning people during covid. I unsuccessfully tried to explain that it wasn't as bad as the media made it. Nothing worked. I had several friends who wanted to come for a visit for a while but everyone's given up. No one wants to touch it. We need to now fix this perception. So it would be good if we didn't create more hostility.
It was as bad as the media portrayed it.
Scomo grounded the whole nation in our bedrooms for being naughty. We weren’t allowed out of our houses, we weren’t allowed out of our shires, w3 weren’t allowed out of our states and we weren’t allowed out of the country.
Australian citizens weren’t even allowed back in their home if they were overseas.
How can you possibly exaggerate that heinous reality?
The pin cushions want to quickly forget exactly what happened. I will never forget what they did to everyday Australians.
@indo what are you trying to say? As far as I remember I pay income tax in this country. It has nothing to do with the business I work with. Salaries are negotiated in the free market on a gross income basis. I also pay the GST which is basically a consumption tax. Again, nothing to do with businesses, they collect it and act as administrators for the government but they are not the ones paying for it. The end consumers are the ultimate payers of GST. I also pay the stamp duty when I buy the property or even take out insurance. Then, if I want to own the car I need to pay the rego. If I buy a car above a certain threshold I get hit with a luxury car tax. And when I put the petrol into the car - again, more money to the government. The list goes on.
So based on the above I would say I am a significant stakeholder in how the collected money will be spent. I can assure you that I definitely expect something in return for all those expenses. You, your business, or other businesses also have their own expectations and are also significant stakeholders in the decision-making. But we are all mutually exclusive, I don't need your permission to seek returns on the investments I made through the taxes I personally paid. Therefore, your analogy is false.
I would love to see investments in higher education and health care. I would like lower (or none) out-of-pocket expenses for the next generations of students. It will, for example, help them buy a house once they're working as their net cash position will be better. I would also like to increase the resources in the health system so we can have elective surgeries move much faster. I think that would be a good investment from the taxes I personally paid. For you indo it might be a stronger investment in defense or increasing business incentives. Some want it all thrown into fighting climate change.
We all get to choose what we want in a free country. This is called democracy.
@ Indo "You expecting me the tax payer to cover your cost of investing in your future, is as crazy as a business owner expecting the tax payer to cover his business start up cost."
The current policies of the LNP in areas of health, education, child care, even just the provision of advice to government, etc does exactly that. Tax dollars go to companies to provide a service at a profit to the business owner. The rhetoric to justify this system is that private providers of these services do it more efficiently than those that are government run. During COVID this was shown to be false, as if anyone needed convincing, when the highest number of deaths in aged care were recorded in privately run aged care centres showing that the services provided are actually not as good as those from publicly run centres.
So in fact you're tax dollars are, right now, ending up in the coffers of businesses, and plenty of them are based overseas
"It sucks as it is, as i could be wrong but i expect if you never earn over the 47K a year then id expect its the tax payer who ends up covering your uni course cost?"
In regards to education your tax dollars are paying for the education of children whose parents are the wealthiest people in the country when they have chosen to send them to private schools. I'd rather see kids from all areas and households be given a fair and good education. The arrangement as it stands have children from less well off backgrounds missing out while the tax payer subsidises Gina Rineharts offspring. Like you say "it sucks"
andy-mac wrote:indo-dreaming wrote:sypkan wrote:"What is the actual strategy for higher education in Australia? Does anyone have one? All sides of politics just have some high-level slogan like 'we'll make the education better, bla, bla'. But that's a wishlist, not a goal. When I look at the amount of money my wife and I spent on our uni degrees it makes me sick. It honestly does. Some nice words in those articles about having free education but is anyone even proposing that? I am more than happy to give them even more tax money if they commit to the goal of making education free so my kids don't have to go through what I had to go through. But on the other hand, looking at the current system, I don't trust them with a single cent, and I'll do whatever it takes to minimise my tax liability..."
I dont know who's quote this is, but why does it make you sick?
You invested money in your future to earn more money.
It's no different to a business owner starting a business investing money to make more money.
You expecting me the tax payer to cover your cost of investing in your future, is as crazy as a business owner expecting the tax payer to cover his business start up cost.
As it is you already have the luxury of not paying hex debts back until you earn a certain amount, imagine if business owners had the same luxury and only paid business start up loans until they earnt 47K a year or whatever it is that you start paying your hex debt back at, but they dont they pay the money back straight away and even if the business fails.
It sucks as it is, as i could be wrong but i expect if you never earn over the 47K a year then id expect its the tax payer who ends up covering your uni course cost?
Good in theory, but in reality it creates situation where kids from wealthy families will go into Uni, and kids from lower socio economic groups will not. This further creates a have and have nots society. Having a $30 K ( probably being conservative here) plus debt at end of degree is off putting to many families, whereas to others it is small change and the family will pay up front. Of course there are many in between. Also Uni's will sign up kids that are unsuitable for the course and pull out before completion and still have debt.
Entry to a Uni course should be earnt not bought and it should be universal like it was in pre 90's. The multiplyer effect of having a well educated population is also a major economic bonus.
Using business owner not really great example as if you wish to study to be a nurse, paramedic, teacher etc
If we were only talking about a pay upfront or pay as you go system then 100% it would be true, but its not true for the current hex debt type system many people from socio economic groups go through university having a debt at the end isn't off pointing, it would only be off pointing if you had to pay the debt back no matter what you earnt most low social economic familys would just think if I'm earning that much then im happy to pay it back, plus by the time its being paid back its not the families problem.
If there is lower take up of university courses from lower social economical groups the reasons would be way more complex and a combination of reasons more social and cultural rather than economical.
Even for myself and most of my friends whom i wouldn't say were low social economic but more regional blue collar mid to lower class families most of our parents never went to university so we weren't expected to or encouraged too, actually my father discouraged us from doing so it would never have suited me, but in hindsight my sister who was more academic could have benefited.
On the flip side, id expect many kids with university educated parents especially from city area would natural expect their kids to go to university.
Anyway at the other extreme a free university system would also have big problems, firstly the burden on tax payer, and secondly encourage more of those typical killing time party uni students types and also see people go into courses that aren't suitable or just lack dedication and even be negative influence on others..
Having some type of investment in things by knowing at some stage you may have to pay things back, helps ensure more responsibly both in choice of course and dedication to studies.
I dont know a lot about it and maybe they already do it, but if they were smart they could tweak the basic system and for periods give discounted rates in some areas, for instance if we need more doctors or nurses you encourage people into that area with financial discounted incentives, while doing the opposite for other areas where there is very little demand for jobs but everyone wants to do or just nonsense courses that dont help people get a job at the end, put the prices up or even pay upfront or as go.
@ flollo
Great you pay tax, doesn't mean you deserve everything for free.
@Fliplid
Look i can see where your ideology lies so no chance i will sway you, but i think its hard to argue that anything government, be it council level, state or federal run is efficient, in all cases its hugely inefficient in every single way use of money and use of Labor.
Yeah sure in the case of Covid and aged care it had a win, but fuck its a rare win.
Im not a fan of private schools and my kids will be going public all the way, but obviously government provides some funding to private schools to encourage them to be built or expand to help reduce pressure on the public system if they didn't and there was less private schools the public system would be much worse.
Private schools are also important in that it gives people choice, be it for religion, or a different style of learning or just to avoid certain indoctrination of beliefs they dont agree with, and even better it keeps all them rich up themselves kids all in one place.
Anyway in every case, that the government helps encourage a service, it helps ensure that the the government doesn't have the burden of running things and the tax payer doesn't have the burden of completely funding things, and just as importantly you get choice, and choice is really important even if we all dont use it.
.