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%.
Mod Lib,
Have you ever borrowed money to buy something you feel was worthwhile?
Do you feel dirty for doing so?
Neither do I.
No 2643
Howson you are always downplaying debt but I’ll never accept that ~$150bn of net debt is acceptable. The billions we are paying in interest could have funded the Gonski reforms or helped fund the NDIS.
Endless debt and deficit is not a good thing, sorry to burst your bubble.
Diogenes@2627
Private schools (at least the ones in my area – I investigated) rarely offer full-fee scholarships. Part-fee is the norm. It seemed to me they were quite willing to sacrifice their profit (they still cover their costs) in order to “cherry pick” talent from the local public schools to lift their averages in specific areas – which are often … well … average.
Of course, I know some do offer genuine full fee scholarships (e.g. to indigenous students). But I suspect there are not that many.
fess
Early literacy would be highly environment dependent. Lots of the traits are more dependent on environment at a young age but genetics wins out by the time they teach adulthood.
Private schools have several benefits.
Networking and focus on Sport and other activities
I don’t really think it matters where the kids go but it is a bit rich to support funding private schools then complain about welfare
Howard left a debt, it’s called foreign debt
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Ross-Gittins/Trade-deficit-the-key-to-avoiding-debt-trap/2005/06/03/1117568376791.html
No 2651
We have nothing to show for all that debt except flammable insulation, Juliar memorial halls and cheques to dead people.
[ … and cheques to dead people. ]
Hey! Dead people vote too, you know!
Player One
Probably true.
On the networking thing, it depends on the career. Business and politics has networks. I can assure you people in medicine don’t give a toss what school anyone went to. I have honestly never been asked where I went.
2566
Give me one example of a taxpayer funding increase cutting a non-low end private school`s fees and those responsible not getting sacked and the decision reversed (the was some item in the media a while ago about this happening at Mentone Grammar I think it was). They do not cut the fees. They use the money on extra facilities.
GP, there are a few “excepts” there :P.
Also, you seem to imply that dead people can cash cheques. This has me curious. Have we invented zombification?
How come everyone is being so pleasant tonight?
It’s eerie.
I get really sad when I talk to people who struggle to put their kids through private schools. Such a waste. The image does does equate with the reality. I taught in private and public schools, and can tell you that there is no jolly difference in the quality of teachers. None.
Nor are there differences in ‘discipline’. The only difference is the public schools have more alternative classes. And the public principals do not have daddy’s money encouraging them to keep the brat in the mainstream after whatever outrage.
[Howson you are always downplaying debt but I’ll never accept that ~$150bn of net debt is acceptable. The billions we are paying in interest could have funded the Gonski reforms or helped fund the NDIS.]
Fucktard. You are always acting hysterical about debt but I’ll never accept that ~$150 billion of net debt is much given that the economy generates $1500 billion of goods and services a year. To make it easier for you to understand, it is like someone earning $100,000 owing a bank $10,000. But it is actually less than that, because the government as an AAA rating so it can borrow at extremely low interest rates.
[Endless debt and deficit is not a good thing, sorry to burst your bubble.]
Fucktard. I never proposed Australia should have “endless debt and deficit” so again you are arguing against yourself, sorry to burst your bubble.
Diogenes,
[Quite a few kids are actually pit through by the grandparents rather than the parents.]
In my experience it transpires from someone who went to a elite private school and has wealthy parents marrying/having children with someone who went to a Government school and sans wealthy parents. They reach a compromise to go to a non elite private school with the status hungry grandparents footing the bill. Not to say that’s where your daugher’s friends are coming from, but its something I have come across quite a bit.
Its worse when they agree to send the kid to the local High School. War breaks out.
Dio, just tonight? Try all day. I’m having a nervous breakdown!
[Diogenes
Posted Wednesday, March 27, 2013 at 11:07 pm | PERMALINK
Mod Lib
That shows a higher correlation between MZ and DZ twins (.7 vs .5). That would fit.]
No-one doubts a genetic influence, I am just saying that to put a 50% figure on it is quite interesting as I am not sure how you quantify this.
Even the MZ vs. DZ analysis cannot really answer this question.
What you really need is a massive study of MZ twins where I twin was raised on a rich environment and the other twin was raised in a poor environment. There are a few of those types of studies (adoptee studies etc) but the numbers are so small it is hard to work out the truth.
The twin studies also show that those who think ADHD isnt real are wrong. MZ twins have much higher concordance of ADHD than DZ twins, so genetics play a huge role in ADHD, its not bad parenting.
o dear i thought this was a safe place at least to share thought but generic person reappears with boringly banal comments … hecs for schools. this is not the tea party site mate …
[No 2651
We have nothing to show for all that debt except flammable insulation, Juliar memorial halls and cheques to dead people.]
Fucktard. We also have a growing economy with low unemployment.
But I can see that Liberals couldn’t care less about those things.
centaur
[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]
…because you’re using a very select set of data to test it.
Educational outcomes shouldn’t be measured by the achievements of the high fliers, who arguably would be high fliers regardless of which school they went to. (And of course, private schools actively seek out high fliers and encourage them to attend private schools, so there’s a bias there anyway).
Educational outcomes are measured by the performance of students overall, and that’s what Gonski is referring to.
As private schools actively discourage students who they think won’t achieve, they should do far, far better than public schools, who have to take anyone who rocks up at their door.
If, with all the ducks lined up in the opposite direction, students at a private school are not performing better than students at a public one, there’s something drastically wrong.
Of course, as has already been hinted at, there is very little difference between the teaching on offer. Teachers are educated at the same institutions and must satisfy the same registration requirements. As a rule of thumb, teachers at your average private school work under worse conditions than teachers at your average public one (been there, done that) – and often with worse resources and facilities (the private school I taught at had classrooms where the doors were hanging off the hinges, inadequate heating and cooling, etc).
The advantages a private school has are that parents are paying to send their children there. That means there’s a contractual arrangement between the parent and the school, which is enforceable, and that allows the school to set rules for behaviour etc which could never be set at a public school.
My high school had
1 oval for footy & cricket
1 football oval
1 soccer pitch
2 tennis courts
Hard court sports area for tennis or hockey or other stuff
1 Indoor basketball court
Fully equip library and science rooms
Now was it public or private?
[ It’s eerie. ]
Due in large part to Psephos and the pledge! It has taken the wind right out of the sails of a few serial PB abusers.
Shows, and zombies, apparently!
GP,
Have you ever ben in to one of the schools that had a hall or a Library built as a result of the BER. You’d find that most are grateful.
Saving 200,000 jobs at the height of the GFC was a perfectly legitimate response from the Government. The fact that our economic management is lauded and our situation is regarded as highly desirable shows the whole debt/deficit hoohaa from the Libs is based on politics and not onany principle.
Our debt this year will be less than 1% of GDP. It is not something you Libs need get your knickers in a knot about.
mexican, public.
Howson is officially over the edge, time for an intervention.
2659
There is low enough competition among doctors for most doctors to get similar chances compared to the cut throat competition of the open entry professions of business and politics. They do not have a single long university degree that is very hard to get into choking off supply into them.
GP, you don’t support self determination?
No 2678
Well played DN 😀
plus it owned its own camp and had three outdoor basketball courts
Mod Lib
[The twin studies also show that those who think ADHD isnt real are wrong. MZ twins have much higher concordance of ADHD than DZ twins, so genetics play a huge role in ADHD, its not bad parenting.]
The behaviour is obviously partly genetically determined. Whether means it is a “disorder” is another matter.
Diogenes@2659
Ok – where did you go? (now you can never say that again!) 🙂
2662
You are evil, nasty and horrible and should be locked up!
Is that better?
Psephos thinks it is his pledge.
governments should not fund church schools … unless some church state relationship is defined in the constitution. to do so would contravene secularism and separation of church and state that is norm in most western countries – US europe scandinavia etc where church schools are not funded. church schools act as de facto private schools and compete with public schools. great public ethics. julia talks a lot about finland and education but no church schools – funded or not – are allowed. the issue is deep and problematical and no political or few others with tackle the basic pragmatic ad hoc way funding has been done
[Due in large part to Psephos and the pledge! It has taken the wind right out of the sails of a few serial PB abusers.]
What pledge?
Although I notice SO is being a bit norty.
Volk HE, Neuman RJ, Todd RD. A systematic evaluation of ADHD and comorbid psychopathology in a population-based twin sample. J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry 2005; 44: 768.
The study I referred to earlier.
Monozygotic twins about 5 times more likely to have ADHD than Dizygotic twins.
It’s because posters are talking about policy rather than personality.
Private schools are good for networking but having working in both the public and private sector i have never been asked where i went to school.
I get asked what uni did i studied at
Tom
There is plenty of competition for places in some of the specialties.
Diogs,
Showsy has perfect right to be a moronic piece of belligerant shit.
It’s people like you that just come here to cause trouble that are the real problem.
Anyone else want to have a guess
I will give a clue it was merged and so doesn’t exist anymore
[I get asked what uni did i studied at]
What uni did you studied at? 🙂
Mb
We sometimes get asked what Uni we went to but never for high school.
Swinburne
GG
As scarce as truth is, it’s supply is always in excess of its demand.
Mexicanbeemer,
I got fined for jaywalking outside Swinburn Hawthorn, you can understand why I have little sympathy for the place 😛
That said, had I gone there I could have had a “bonus” 5 ATAR points added, because of the school I went to. Just as well I declined, considering the Campus is closing.
2690
But there are few poor doctors who work hard and well and do not devote their life entirely to charity. Business and politics are not like that. Lots of hardworking, non-incompetent businesspeople get bankrupted by cycles and changes. As a politics blog we know that many hardworking candidates loose elections.
I don’t generally allow “fucktard”, SO.
Q. Getting back to policy for a moment, with 6 months to go to an election, and given the polls, would this be a good time for the govt to raise superannuation concerns among baby-boomers for the budget in 8 weeks?
Yes or no?