The Australian reports the Coalition’s lead in Newspoll has blown out to 58-42, from primary votes of 30% for Labor (down four on the previous fortnight’s result) and 50% for the Coalition (up six) and 10% for the Greens (down one). There has also been a big move to Tony Abbott on preferred prime minister, going from 42-38 behind to 43-35 ahead – remembering that the result of the previous poll was well above the trend for Labor. More to follow.
UPDATE: Julia Gillard has recorded her worst personal ratings since September 2011, while Tony Abbott’s ratings are the best they have been since the middle of that year. Gillard is down six on approval to 26% and up eight on disapproval to 65%, while Tony Abbott is up three to 39% and down five to 50%.
[Gp your probably not structuring your tax affairs correctly, get a better accountant.]
Well he does his own super and since he doesn’t know when one number is bigger or smaller than another number his super is probably pretty messy.
SO, it is one of the ironies of education politics that the LNP are not interested in maximising the efficiency of taxpayer spending on education. The LNP don’t mind public waste if it means private gain…the hypocrisy of the LNP is very clear.
Well no, it actually wastes money because Gonski found that for many private schools the education outcomes aren’t any better than public schools
I would argue the accuracy of that finding. Certainly in primary school there is little difference but in secondary schools there is a huge difference. With the exception of 10 well run public schools here in Melb- the rest are a long way behind. At uni- with the higher entry courses, medicine, law etc- there are few public kids, and those that are mostly went to those top ten mentioned
After the Howard/Rudd/Gillard Accord on funding private schools, even if it stopped now, they’d still all feel like the owners of Black Caviar.
Rubbish gp – the systemic catholic schools are exactly the same as the public system.
ESJ,
How did Russia convert you into this?
So Sky PMONAIR with Paul Murray have just announced that Mark Latham will no longer be appearing on the show.
This is after Latham tore shreds of Chris Kenny, and gave Rudd and his backers the full monty on their treachery.
Ruperts balance on show; toe the line and receive the Murdoch shilling. Speak out and get “boned”.
GP@2536. But you wrote your land tax off the tax payable to the Feds (income or company) did you not?
Asset owners, especially if they are incorporated, get a pretty good deal on their income relative to PAYE wage earners: the ability to deduct losses and gear, discounted CGT, etc. You shouldn’t complain too vociferously.
[No 2541
No disagreement for me re: stamp duty.]
Oh come off it! It is easy to say which taxes one doesn’t like, but it is harder to say which ones you are for.
Clearly land taxes are a much better way to tax property than stamp duty which is essentially just a nuisance tax / revenue raiser.
LL: TJ starts by quoting Gibbon. Night, all.
sprocket,
No doubt Latham can wear it as a badge of honour.
It makes me want to like him more.
I’d like to send my kids to Geelong Grammer, as their new $17m Equestrian Facility is just spiffy.
Sadly, the $30,000 per year fees are even beyond my income.
No 2555
Sorry ESJ you can argue that there’s no difference til your blue in the face but there are differences and parents see value otherwise 35% of kids would be in the private sector.
We had long self criticism and struggle sessions were we were encouraged to talk about working families and read the collected works of comrade senator doug Cameron.
Would=wouldn’t in 2563
SO
Choice means just that. It doesn’t mean they will make what someone thinks is the best choice. We leave it up to people to choose what they think is bet for them.
Jv
It makes private schools more affordable therefore making more people go there. My daughter goes to a private school specifically because they look after kids with disabilities better there than in public schools. My son goes to a public school (Gillards old one actually).
In the end, the voters decide how they want their taxes spent in a democracy and it has been well supported for generations. If someone wants to change that, they are welcome to try.
Aren’t most private schools profit-making enterprises? And don’t they make most of their profit from the money contributed by the government?
If so, this money does not necessarily contribute anything to helping the kids that go there.
For example, from: http://www.news.com.au/money/money-matters/private-school-funding-boosting-profits/story-e6frfmd9-1226123590121#ixzz2OjpkKovq
[ Australia’s most expensive school, Geelong Grammar, recorded the biggest profit, finishing the year $10.7 million in the black after drawing $4.1 million from the public purse. ]
This seems like a massive rort to me – although I should point out it is a NewsCorpse story, so it could all be just complete fabrication.
Can anyone confirm that this is correct?
If so, it seems to be a bit like the child-care sector – the one that all the LNP ministers (and their families) just love to invest in because the profits are guaranteed to them by the government.
GP
Are you a Principal, offering someone’s errant brat salvation? Anyway, Peter Sellers will save us from any verbal violence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kwnh4RbX9s
No 2559
You’re arguing against nothing. I never said I was opposed to land tax, I simply scoffed at the suggestion that asset taxation is inadequate!
[SO, it is one of the ironies of education politics that the LNP are not interested in maximising the efficiency of taxpayer spending on education. The LNP don’t mind public waste if it means private gain…the hypocrisy of the LNP is very clear.]
Oh of course and they apply the same philosophy to health by giving the health insurance industry massive tax payer subsidies.
Gp a lot of people are snobs and assuming paying more means there getting something better. It’s essentially unprovable because you can’t definitively say what would have happened on the road not travelled
centaur009@2553: I think comparing public/private school outcomes – or even those of public schools in wealthier areas with those in poorer areas – is a process fraught with difficulty. So much of what determines a kid’s educational performance happens at home.
Oh and I’m an old King’s School boy
@Player One/2567
I agree, perhaps a limit to gov funding if schools earn profit of say $5 million or more?
GP 2536
Didn’t think you would mind paying land tax as it is a state tax and is helping prop your “beloved” party here in NSW 😀
Meher on the money again
[You’re arguing against nothing. I never said I was opposed to land tax, I simply scoffed at the suggestion that asset taxation is inadequate!]
Well it clearly is for the simple reason that labour is taxed too much. The Howard entitlement mentality has required us to keep an income tax system based around churn.
ESJ,
I’ve always regarded a private school education a bit of a scam.
My kids did fine in a public system and are getting on with productive lives.
[2573
Generic Person
Posted Wednesday, March 27, 2013 at 10:34 pm | PERMALINK
Oh and I’m an old King’s School boy]
Did you encounter Alan Jones? Gave quite a few Kings boys a hand up.
Bully for you gp
Actually a means tested supplement like the private insurance rebate would be the best solution.
This would be by far more egalitarian..at the same time increasing the funding of public schools, and taking away the $6k per student the gov kicks in
Fantastic CC for Labor. The PM once again shows how competent she is in grasping detail and communicating to her audience and dealing with left field stuff – death penalty, WTF?
And I’m loving this post-leadershit environment where policy issues are discussed rather than beltway speculation about this and that. It’s even had an impact on PB, which is commendable.
Diogenes,
[1. They don’t get the same. They get less.
2. Sending kids to private schools save the taxpayer money and improves the choices available to patents.]
Why don’t they save even more taxpayers money by refusing federal subsidisation and allow the money to be spent on schools that accept students with:
1. Learning difficulties,
2. Non English-speaking backgrounds,
3. Disabilities,
4. Poorer households,
5. Different ethnic/religious backgrounds,
6. Family difficulties,
7. Criminal backgrounds,
8. Behavioural problems
etc, etc.
Private schools claim foul for getting less funding, when the fact of the matter is they provide none of the services that warrant it being provided. They will expell students that don’t perform and refuse any student that might provide them with difficulties or use up resources. The fact of the matter is education is a universal right, and spivvs who favour the uncultured view that only the fittest and first-in-best-dressed deserve an education deserve no sympathy from the taxpayers.
I went to a Government school the whole way through my education, and did better than half the barmy toffs that went to elite schools anyway, when I counted many an “undesirable”, in the eyes of these insitutions, among my friends and collegues while there.
Generic person kids even HIMself!..;”It’s often about discipline standards, facilities, extra-curricular opportunities and so forth, which are often beyond what even a good public school would be able to offer.”
What absolute far-kin crap…they ALL go to such schools because it’s easier to “suck-up to the network princes” at a tender age than to expect a career-keen aspirant, wanting to break into the “high-roller” exec’ club to have to suck something much harder when they hit the promotion glass-ceiling.
With the “blue-ribbon dress-circle” executives it is either “suck or crawl” on the path to success!
[Did you encounter Alan Jones? Gave quite a few Kings boys a hand up.]
GP is younger even than me and Alan Jones is older than my mother, so it’s unlikely that GP encountered Jones at school.
zoidlord@2574
I don’t really understand why a school reporting such a massive profit should be able to get any money from the government!
Shouldn’t any school sucking on the government teat be non-profit enterprises?
No 2571
Get your head out of your arse ESJ, with all due respect. You have a pathological hatred of private schools, there’s nothing I can do about that I’m sorry.
But as GG said earlier, even if all government funding was removed from private schools you are not going to magically get superb facilities given that private school amenity is funded by fees up to $30,000 a year or more when parents don’t even contribute $500 in a public school.
There will always be a disparity if you’re merely looking at amenity unless and until parents with kids in the public system start contributing.
[SO
Choice means just that. It doesn’t mean they will make what someone thinks is the best choice. We leave it up to people to choose what they think is bet for them.]
Oh of course, but when there is significant tax payer subsidisation at play then there needs to be serious consideration of the harm that bad economic choices have on others that are providing the subsidy.
That sort of analysis is made all the other time in other policy areas so I don’t understand why education should be exempt.
For example there was a productivity commission report a few years back that found that public hospitals are actually just as efficiently run as private hospitals after you take into account all the emergency services that public hospitals provide.
That report alone cast serious doubts on economic worth of massive tax payer subsidisation of the private health insurance industry.
mb
[So much of what determines a kid’s educational performance happens at home.]
50% is already determined by our genes before we are even born.
[So much of what determines a kid’s educational performance happens at home.]
And in the wider socio-economic environment, in which the particular school operates. Some schools are better at dealing with kids from socio-economic disadvantage, and others not so much.
Good evening Bludgeroonies.
I find it quite interesting to hear the ALP types trying to convince us how they did everything they could to sideline Obeid and McDonald. If they knew all this stuff a decade ago what the hell were they doing? Did they report their concerns to the police?
Sometimes the one who speaks out against one’s own (even if it causes some short-term trouble) is the strongest advocate for ones own side.
That is why Neville Longbottom got the extra 10 points for Gryffindor which won the House cup!
No gp people have a right to send their kids to private school, the truth is the labor party has abandoned the idea of fairness other than in the most superficial sense.
History will show labor abandoned fairness when they bent over for the mrrt sell out.
GP – the choice of private over public is essentially about screening, whether religious, ethnic or class. In a secular society based on equality of opportunity that is deeply problematic.
Centaur the 9th – studies show public school kids out perform at university relative to private school leavers at the same OP/ATAR score. And for that matter that those scores are very very rough predictors of academic success compared to first year uni results.
They are a crude rationing mechanism that help stream kids into high prestige degrees based excessively on class and school provenance. But Unis keep it up for assembly line degrees like law, as its costless to administer compared to American style tests and screening.
centaur
[Actually a means tested supplement like the private insurance rebate would be the best solution.
This would be by far more egalitarian..at the same time increasing the funding of public schools, and taking away the $6k per student the gov kicks in]
That’s quite a good idea.
GG
[I’ve always regarded a private school education a bit of a scam.
My kids did fine in a public system and are getting on with productive lives.]
Me too. A point of agreement. Cheers to that from me. [As did I]
@Player One/2586
I agree once again, it’s abit like a business gets funding from the Goverment, continues to still get it, even if making the same amount of profit as private schools.
The only difference is one provides education, and the other provides jobs.
But there is no gov funding (that’s on the same level as private schools).
Sprocket,
[I’d like to send my kids to Geelong Grammer, as their new $17m Equestrian Facility is just spiffy.
Sadly, the $30,000 per year fees are even beyond my income.]
Getting asked to help fundraise for Scotch’s new boathouse was something I recall getting very peeved about, considering what we had to put up with. Doing my music exam at Carey Grammar was another experience, where they had a brand new piano in every practice room, of which there were more than 10. Plus a grand piano in the few examination rooms, and doubtless more throughout the complex and school.
My school had two pianos, both out of tune due to the cost of a piano tuner and decades old. These people want more money?
Mod lib..2591…what the shite are you chatting about you drongo!..it’s a completely different subject!…..take the pill and stfu!
[50% is already determined by our genes before we are even born.]
Is it as much as 50%? The in-utero environment is increasingly found to be critical in determining early learning capacity, but so too is the social environment.
The late Clyde Hertzman, and Fraser Mustard (who at one point was ‘thinker in residence’ in SA) have done a lot of work in this area.
Diogenes
I appreciate that. And good on you. But it’s another case of where leadership comes in on this funding. At the moment it’s a bit like the law and order auction in the states every election. Where do they stop?
I want a subsidy for my private car! I hate pblic transport!