Oz Election Thread #6 - Abbott's LNP

He's called our Prime Minister an "abo lover," a sexual abuse survivor a "worthless slut" and he's taken aim at "fatsoes" "chinky-poos" "mussies" and many others. Who is this man? Believe it or not, Professor Barry Spurr is the Abbott Government appointed "consultant" to our country's English Curriculum.

His goal for our schools? A "greater emphasis on western Judeo-Christian culture." Oh - and using his extensive vocabulary as a Poetry Professor at USyd to insult and degrade as many Australians as possible.

Do you want our kids' schooling influenced by a man with such despicable world views? Sign our petition calling on Christopher Pyne and Sydney University to take immediate action to address these inexcusable actions: http://www.getup.org.au/spurr

Still gobsmacked he won that election. Are you people stupid?

Former Howard government minister Jackie Kelly quits the Liberal Party

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/former-howard-government-minister-jackie-kelly-quits-the-liberal-party-20141016-116w6z.html#ixzz3GLfgoDWq

Ms Kelly was my minister for a bit when I worked for the feds. Never had much time for her.

That she would resign because lobbyists are running the party is interesting at the time the current government is doing everything it can to undermine the unions, and by proxy their influence on the ALP.

Bronwyn Bishop loses bid for international position

Date
October 17, 2014 - 9:02AM
Fergus Hunter


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/bronwyn-bishop-loses-bid-for-international-position-20141017-117db0.html#ixzz3GLyBAZWC

While I hope he will be 'one term tony' I can't see Bill Shorten as PM. I'd much rather Albo or Penny Wong (which can't happen as she's in the Senate). I use to be a huge fan of Plibersek too - but she hasn't been as impressive as deputy opposition leader - but that may be because everyone, except Albo, is duing the unity thing and avoiding any appearance of anything of other than 100% backing of Shorten.

Kelly speaks

USyd suspends Spurr over slur-filled emails

Posted by: Andrew Bracey in News 5 hours ago 0 4,453 Views

The University of Sydney has suspended professor Barry Spurr as the fallout continues following the publishing of apparently racist comments contained within emails he had authored.

Excerpts of the emails, published yesterday by news site New Matilda, included references by Spurr to various racial and religious slurs, along with a description of Prime Minister Tony Abbott as an “abo-lover” who would have to be “surgically removed” from Indigenous AFL player and Australian of the year Adam Goodes.

In one email New Matilda referenced, Spurr – a professor of poetry – reportedly commented that 95 per cent of students studying in Australian universities should not be in tertiary institutions but that to say so openly would invite charges of elitism, fascism and misogyny.

The emails were reportedly sent to senior figures within the university and were written over the past two years.

In a statement released this afternoon, the university announced that Spurr’s employment had been suspended.

“Professor Spurr is suspended, effective immediately, from teaching and engaging in any other university business and is precluded from attending any university campus, while the matter is investigated and dealt with in accordance with the terms of the university’s Enterprise Agreement,” the statement read. “Racist, sexist or offensive language is not tolerated at the University of Sydney. The expectations for our staff and affiliates in respect of their professional and personal conduct are clearly set out in the University’s Code of Conduct.”

Meanwhile, the University of Sydney Student Representative Council education department is continuing to pressure the university to sack Spurr, with an on-campus rally – attended by about 150 people – taking place today.

Spurr, who was also one of the key authors of the federal government’s recently released review of the National Curriculum English, has defended the emails, telling New Matilda the language used was not a reflection of his own views or values but rather an effort to mock the very terms he was using.

“These are emails of mock-[shocking] repartee, mocking, in fact, that very kind of extreme language,” he was quoted as saying.

“What I say about the place of the study of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language and literature in the curriculum is my considered professional view and not in any way influenced by these email exchanges, which are linguistic play; and the numerous students of different races and of colour with whom I have worked for many years will testify that I have treated them with the same equity and dignity that I treat all my students.”

Spurr added that legal advice he had sought suggested the accessing of his private emails may constitute a criminal offence and that the university’s security service was looking into the matter.

The education minister, Christopher Pyne, has moved to distance himself from the controversy. A spokesperson from his office said the government had not appointed Spurr and the emails were a matter for the university and Spurr himself to deal with.

“The minister utterly rejects and finds repugnant the denigration of any minority on the basis of their sex, race, sexual orientation or beliefs,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

Direct comment from Spurr was being sought at the time of press.

For the original New Matilda report, including further contents of the emails go here.

Senate Inquiry hears more evidence about budget impacts on single parents
media-releases
16 Oct 2014 | Rachel Siewert
Family, Ageing, Community & Disability Services
Source

The Australian Greens said today that evidence presented to the Senate Inquiry into income inequality shows the disproportionate impact of the Government's budget on the most vulnerable members of the community.

"NATSEM outlined the findings of their latest report showing that those at the lowest end of the income spectrum are bearing the highest impact of the budget, and that the impacts differ regionally," Senator Rachel Siewert, Australian Greens spokesperson on family and community services said today.

"If the Government does impose its budget cuts, NATSEM modelling shows single parents will lose 10.8% of their income - an average of $3,000 per year, going as high as $6,000 per year for some households. This would have a significant hit on the family budget, and would make it much harder to pay essential costs like food, utilities, safe accommodation, school and childcare.

"The modelling showed different impacts in different areas so for example, people in Broadmeadows in Vic could be $3300 a year worse off, while people in east Melbourne could be only $17 a year worse off.

"The Government's budget measures will have a perverse effect on single parents who are also undertaking paid work as they stand to lose more of their income as a result of the budget cuts hence reducing the value of working.

"This is a very cruel effect given the Government's rhetoric about wanting to get people into work. Their budget is punishing people who are working and receiving income support, meaning them and their families will lose important support.

"Figures from ACOSS show that 33% of sole parent families and 47% of people receiving parenting payments, the majority of them single parents, live below the poverty line. Children growing up in poverty are potentially setback for life, because it is a barrier to accessing opportunities such as proper nutrition and education.

"It is time for the Federal Government to knowledge that their budget is fundamentally flawed. It will increase poverty, it will increase deprivation in this country and should be abandoned," Senator Siewert concluded.

TITLE: Liberals’ core conundrum laid bare by ANU row
AUTHOR: Richard Denniss
PUBLICATION: Australian Financial Review
PUBLICATION DATE: 21/10/14
LINK: http://www.afr.com/p/opinion/liberals_core_conundrum_laid_bare_7xcjESjAfNAdDd1NDRu60K

The Abbott government can’t decide if it wants to tell people how to live their lives or free them to make their own decisions.

The Coalition’s education policy, for example, reveals the contradictions between the world views of libertarianism and conservatism that the Coalition claims to represent. For many years, the balancing act has worked. But as the divestment furore over the past two weeks has shown, the seams are starting to show.

In the commercial sphere of our lives, the Liberal Party seems to believe that individuals are best placed to make their own decisions. When it comes to choosing our own lunch, car, or holiday destination, it is hard to fault such an instinct.

But when it comes to making decisions about our private lives, there is nothing liberal about the Liberal Party.

Suddenly, the party of small government is the party of state intrusion, the nanny state and wowserism. We can’t, they tell us, be trusted to decide who we can marry, when we should die or whether we wear a burqa. The seemingly libertarian government wants to collect and retain data on every website you visit and every phone call you ever make.

The combination of market liberalism and social conservatism never made philosophical sense, but for a long time, the two formed a marriage of political convenience. Big business likes the low tax and deregulation part of the equation, so it turns a blind eye to the nanny state Liberals who want to protect us from homosexuality and countless other “sins”.

Conservative churches, on the other hand, are so keen on the Coalition’s support for “conservative family values”, that they overlook the inconvenient neoliberal hostility to the vulnerable in our community.

The book of Luke commands that the poor be invited to join when there is a feast. But despite our nation’s affluence, the government’s budget proposed to take from the poorest households and give to the wealthiest. Tony Abbott’s fiscal policy is hardly very Christian.

Christopher Pyne is simultaneously trying to introduce a new national curriculum and deregulate the university sector. Does Canberra know best, or doesn’t it? Nobody is surprised when Pyne hand picks experts to tell us what our children should be taught. He is not under attack for engaging “elite” advisers to decide what is and isn’t on the curriculum.

CAN FINANCES BE MORAL?

When it comes to values, it seems the Coalition is always happy to tell us what is right and what is wrong. When it comes to university deregulation, no one is surprised that the Coalition thinks individual universities can do a better job of setting the price of their degrees than the bureaucrats in Canberra.

Such decisions are best left to the free market, we’re told. After all, when it comes to financial decisions, the Coalition is always happy to let individuals make, and sometimes suffer for, their choices.

So when the Prime Minister last week attacked the Australian National University for making the “stupid” decision to divest itself of a small parcel of mining shares, people were surprised. The government that trusts universities enough to set their own prices doesn’t trust them enough to invest their own funds? What’s going on?

The media and political furore over a decision to sell some shares only makes sense when viewed through the prism of the Coalition’s philosophical contradictions. It espouses a world view where moral decisions are the role of the state and financial decisions are the role of the individual. The ANU’s divestment was a financial decision based on a moral one. That’s not supposed to happen.

Business groups and the financial press have generally paid little attention to the social conservatism of the Liberal Party.

But now that the philosophical friction between the camps has been laid bare, and universities, churches, super funds, banks, and some of the world’s wealthiest families are expressing their values as consumers, this looks set to change.

The reaction from the government and the business lobby to the ANU’s recent divestment commitment made little sense.

Then again, the idea that our personal values and our personal investments should be entirely separate matters never made much sense either.

Richard Denniss, an economist, is executive director of The Australia Institute

Another government lie to push an ideological position exposed

Health spending crisis isn't real

Date
October 22, 2014

Ross Gittins

Oh dear, what an embarrassment. Thank heavens so few journalists noticed. Last month one of the federal government's official beancounters, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, issued its report on total spending on health in 2012-13. It didn't exactly fit with what the government has been telling us.

As you recall, the minister for Health, Peter Dutton, got an early start this year, warning that health spending was growing "unsustainably". (Blame it all on Gough Whitlam, whose supposedly too expensive Medibank Malcolm Fraser dismantled, only to have Bob Hawke restore it as Medicare.)

The report of the Commission of Audit soon confirmed that health was prominent among the various classes of government spending growing - and projected to continue growing - "unsustainably".

Something would have to be done.

In the budget we found out what the something was. A new "co-payment" of $7 a pop on visits to the GP and on each test the GP orders. The general co-payment on prescriptions to rise by $5 to $42.70 each.

And the previous government's funding agreement with the states to be torn up, with grants for public hospitals to rise only in line with inflation and population growth.

Sorry, but it was all growing "unsustainably".

So how unsustainable was the growth in 2012-13? Total spending on health goods and services was $147 billion, up a frightening 1.5 per cent on the previous year, after allowing for inflation. This was the lowest growth since the institute's records began in the mid-1980s, and less than a third of the average annual growth over the past decade.

Allow for growth in the population, and average annual health spending of $6430 per person was actually down a touch in real terms.

It gets better (or worse if you've been one of the panic-merchants). That $147 billion is the combined spending on health by the federal government, state governments, private health funds and other insurers, plus you and me in direct, out-of-pocket payments on co-payments and such like.

So total spending may not have grown much, but the federal government's share of the tab rose faster than the rest, right? Err . . . no. The opposite, actually.

The feds' health spending in 2012-13 actually fell by 2.4 per cent in real terms. The states' spending rose by 1.5 per cent, but that left the combined government spend falling by 0.9 per cent.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/health-spending-crisis-isnt-real-20141021-1196j8.html#ixzz3GugrdciC


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/health-spending-crisis-isnt-real-20141021-1196j8.html#ixzz3GugPomr6

I think this has been highlighted in the last week or so with the death of Whitlam. There is no one now with any great vision of how our society should and could be - certainly not with the presence and charisma to match.

If Tony Abbott can become PM, Shorten could do it standing on his head.

But shorten won't have rupert 'gently cupping his balls'

They're all for sale, so Uncle Roopurt will switch hands.

A nation as rich in resources as ours obviously is, we could all be comfortably working 20 hour weeks, and spending the growing years raising our children.

It's probably quite funny to those nations who are advancing into the next century, looking in at our little quagmire here.