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Post by chookmustard on Aug 24, 2013 7:32:52 GMT 10
Austerity measures but PPL left in for middle class welfare, cos that stuff is ok
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Post by angra on Aug 24, 2013 8:16:11 GMT 10
And now buying the people smugglers boats, despite the fact that there likely over 100,000 such boats in Indonesia, and the Indonesian army might not appreciate Australian agents trampling around their islands and villages interfering in their sovereignty. And ignoring the fact that new fishing boats are being built all the time.
Costings for this?
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Aug 24, 2013 12:58:49 GMT 10
"And now buying the people smugglers boats"
They're not going to do it. Nobody expects them to do it. In the unlikely account that anyone in the press calls them to account, they'll set up some mickey-mouse form-filling-in desk in an office in jakarta that nobody can see here and they'll report now and then that they've bought a few boats here and there and reassure us all that they're working with local authorities.
It's not actually meant to be a promise - what they're doing is reassuring anyone for whom "border policy" might be a consideration to that whatever rudd will do, the libs will do harder and more so.
Both parties are just trying to get past the election. Even the libs can't really know for sure how effectively their policies will work - but they do have an out in that they can blame everything on labor. Right now they just have to appear to be more committed. I flat-out don't believe that they have any intention of really following through on some of it. The world-for-asylum policy is nuts, for example - it'll cost a fortune to run and it'll cause all sorts of legal and practical problems for the government. I don't think ANYONE seriously believes this boat-buying nonsense. They just have to keep offering more than the other guy.
Rudd managed to get the boats off the front page by promising to whack boat people with a stick. The libs put it back on the front page (where it helps them) by promising to use a stick with a nail in it. If rudd promises to set fire to the stick as well, then the libs will add some new incremental factor on top of that. Again, neither side actually has to DO most of this stuff, and the actual practical effect of most of it is irrelevant. They're just saying it to get through an election.
Decide for yourself whether that's better or worse.
My lack of posts lately has nothing to do with a lack of material - bolt's been boring a hole through the bottom if his barrel, for one. I'm just over it. I think I've become jaded, and I've recently realised that there are more important things in life than shouting at the rain.
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zoot
Junior Member
Posts: 58
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Post by zoot on Aug 24, 2013 16:07:43 GMT 10
Does this mean the policy has changed from "Stop the boats!" to "Buy the boats!!!"?
Like Matthew I'm over it. I survived Howard, I'll survive his idiot bastard son.
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tssk
New Member
Posts: 45
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Post by tssk on Aug 26, 2013 11:33:13 GMT 10
Does anyone think the child care plan will survive day one? I reckon he'll drop it and blame the ALP for the "biggest black hole in Australian history."
Win-win. He doesn't have to fund the promise and people who get angry about it will be angry at the ALP, not the Libs.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Aug 26, 2013 13:36:42 GMT 10
They're already blaming the senate for not passing the PPL. Bolt was spinning back-flips on that basis months ago.
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tssk
New Member
Posts: 45
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Post by tssk on Sept 6, 2013 10:03:47 GMT 10
Internet filter to be opt out. (Announced a little early but I think they can claim a mandate on this once they're in.)
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Sept 17, 2013 7:13:59 GMT 10
I think it would be folly to expect that women will ever dominate or even approach equal representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes, abilities and interests are different for physiological reasonswww.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2010/s2846485.htmSo why are people now expressing shock at the new front-bench lineup?
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Post by angra on Sept 17, 2013 9:26:02 GMT 10
I also note that in Abbott's press conference yesterday, when asked about 'buying the boats' he sidestepped the question and merely said he would be setting up a fund to be jointly managed by Indonesian and Australian officials to 'help stop people smuggling and not disadvantage local villagers.' Also the budget surplus promise seems to have been diluted, and the Look North idea relegated to a committee tasked to produce a white paper over 12 months headed by Entsch who Abbott described as a 'colourful character' (I think that's code for 'a bit of an uncontrollable dickhead who we will remove to a fake position to avoid embarrassment'. In fine Yes Minister tradition. For more on ATSI views on Entsch see this - fredleftwich.com/2013/09/15/warren-entschs-racist-rant/(Yeah maybe that's an extreme view)
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Post by jack on Sept 21, 2013 1:07:58 GMT 10
I understand there's now a Minister for Keeping Sport Not Boats On The Front Pages.
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Post by angra on Sept 21, 2013 12:10:03 GMT 10
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jreidy
Junior Member
Posts: 60
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Post by jreidy on Sept 22, 2013 21:40:54 GMT 10
Well it's now 4 days since the swearing in of the Govt, minus Sophie. He has, Appointed a cabinet of his choice. Closed down the climate commission. Told 2 other climate change authorities that they will be closed down. Launched a freeway construction project. Stopped reporting of asylum seeker boat arrivals
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Sept 23, 2013 21:00:47 GMT 10
There's pretty much only one reason to withhold statistics about SIV arrivals www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/christmas-island-administrator-jon-stanhope-attacks-boat-arrival-blackout/story-fn9hm1gu-1226724949853They could release monthly totals and give no useful information to the smugglers, but it's irrelevant because the smugglers already know. There are things called "phones", and if coverage gets really desperate they can use some old-fashioned radio technology, like the ones they have on boats. The same radios they use to call for help. Yep, they're totally hiding critical border protection information to stop the smugglers from knowing it, or because it helps their political cause. Those are the only two possible reasons.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Sept 24, 2013 19:58:30 GMT 10
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Sept 24, 2013 23:56:53 GMT 10
This is such a bullshit argument www.smh.com.au/national/education/christopher-pyne-reveals-university-shakeup-20130924-2ucag.html"Education Minister Christopher Pyne has also opened the door to re-introducing caps on university places, warning any loss of quality would ''poison'' the sector's international reputation."No, limiting student places isn't what improves the quality of graduates ... what does that is actually improving the quality of graduates. It's a different thing. Hoping that only letting in "the best of the best" with take care of the results just says that nobody really believes that it's the course or university that's doing the heavy lifting - that the students themselves are doing it. Any school can take an Isaac Newton and turn out a competent scientist. A better school would presumably be able to inspire and educate somebody with less natural flair and advantages. I started a technical/vocational degree at one of the sandstone universities. I shouldn't have picked the degree I did, it was a big mistake and it meant I wasted some time. I wasn't suited to it, and I really wanted to be doing something else, but it's long ago enough that I think I'm genuinely past any bitterness now. So, time to put the boot in ... This particular (highly regarded) school was still using photocopied examples that I could find in my dad's 1960's machinery handbooks - complete with the original typos, never discovered or corrected by the lecturers. I had a lecturer who was so superannuated that he had to be amplified electrically for anyone to hear him. No, it wasn't offset by some other quality, he was absolute crap and they just couldn't be arsed shoving him out the door. One second-year common subject was so poorly taught that 80+% of the class failed, across several related courses. The lecturer was ordered to hold the exam again, and lo - they were (essentially) the same questions (just different variables), so people did a lot better second time around. Presumably the same thing will have happened the next year, and the year after that. Students had to band together in the lunch halls and figure out how to solve problems from first principles - the difference between the ones who passed and the ones who failed came down to who could make it to those sessions, because they sure as hell weren't going to get any inspiration from their lecture notes or the references. With the benefit of hindsight, there were lectures who pretty clearly had no idea what they were doing. One in particular might have understood his subject at some level, but he could not explain it and he sure as heck couldn't demonstrate it. This guy was truly special - on one occasion, when challenged by the entire class to work through a problem on the board, he failed to achieve the result within the time-frame of the lecture. Just couldn't do it. It wasn't even that he was getting the wrong answer - he couldn't get ANY answer. He was lost. And it was his question. That's all true, and then some, and that's one of the BETTER universities in the country. My advice to students? Make sure you do all the tutorials and assignments, because those are more or less the exact questions that will be in the exams - otherwise nobody would ever pass, and the department would have been closed. I bring it up, because when I was discussing my departure to a better-suited course of study (at which I excelled), the student counselor - at the time an up-and-coming bright young thing in the field - explained his philosophy to me: They have to fail people, and fail lots of people, because otherwise the degree isn't worth anything. If they let too many people pass, then the degree loses its value and falls in rankings nationally. That's pretty much verbatim what the man said, and he was the course coordinator for my year. I have to admit that it seemed a lot easier to just run a shit department, protected by its inherited reputation and a low graduation rate. And I have no doubt that the people who stuck with it and saw it through will have made absolutely first-rate XXXXX's. They would have been excellent no matter what they put their mind to, or where they studied. Honestly - kudos to them, I know they will have done well. Just imagine what they might have achieved if their educators weren't relying on them being smart enough to succeed despite the odds. Maybe things have changed since the 80's, but that comment from Pyne isn't encouraging. That's rent-seeking reasoning - shrink the pie, but keep some slices the same size.
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