I’m afraid I won’t be able to treat you to the normal weekly BludgerTrack poll aggregate update this week, but given the ongoing stability of the polling situation generally, you’re probably not missing much. We do, however, have the first fortnightly rolling average result for the year from Essential Research, last week’s result having been drawn from a single week’s sample. The Coalition’s two-party lead is up from 51-49 to 52-48, but the primary votes are unchanged at 44% for the Coalition, 35% for Labor and 10% for the Greens.
Other results from Essential Research show little change in perceptions of the state of the economy on two such results last year, with 28% rating it as good (up two from September) and 31% poor (down one), while 30% rate the economy as heading in the right direction (down four) versus 38% for wrong direction (down one). Scott Morrison is favoured better to handle the economy by 26% (down one), versus 19% for Chris Bowen (up one). Eighteen per cent favour increasing Australia’s military involvement in Syria and Iraq, with 34% wanting it decreased and 32% favouring no change. Respondents took a favourable view of Australia Day, which 56% rated “a day of national pride” against 22% who opted for two disapproving choices: “a day of reflection on the impact on indigenous people” (14%) and “irrelevant in the 21st century” (8%).
daretotread @ 485,
Have the Liberals been handing out the Kool Aid in Maroubra today as well?
What you just wrote is straight out of the Liberal Party Education Propaganda Handbook.
You wrote, like you had a clue, which you don’t (and may I ask how long has it been since you had children in school? 20 years?):
‘ I might add that if you look at those ATAR scores for teacher training, the disadvantaged kids may be better off staying at home and using the Net. I can think of nothing more likely to ENTRENCH disadvantage if a poorly educated teacher, who failed high school, is allowed loose on kids struggling with school work. It sets up a role model of failure and poor performance as well as not providing the educational and academic excellence disadvantages kids need to overcome their many obstacles. unfortunately the Gonski reforms, which focus on additional teaching resources may do more harm than good if the additional resources are people with a very, very poor educational standard themselves. it might be positive for the very youngest children, but post 8 years age or so, you need talented well educated teachers.’
Now, as someone who has in the recent past completed a Graduate Diploma in Education, I can say from first hand experience that of all the students in my cohort, maybe 1 or 2 were not extremely literate. They would have been the ones who were extremely numerate but suffered from the fact that they were highly-talented migrants and refugees retraining after migrating to Australia. Bad teachers they would not be. Also, all of our course work was marked to a very high standard and the lecturers were not simply passing students for the sake of the educational institution we were at.
Not only were we all as smart as you would hope teachers would be but some were smarter. In fact I knew of one who had a PhD in Computer Science who just decided he wanted to impart his vast knowledge to the next generation.
Not only that but as my children have just passed out of the school system I can vouch for the fact that 9/10 of them were of the highest calibre. What other organisation is perfect? Not many, if any.
As for this laughable assertion:
‘ Gonski funding is a great idea and should be supported, but as a vote winner it is boring as bat droppings. It is just a way of allocating money and as many parents will be bothered that thie little darlin’s school will miss out as will those whose schools get extra funding.’
For a start, maybe if you could spell correctly yourself it might give your arguments more credence. But I digress.
Firstly, it is the resources, such as Teachers Aids, Educational Specialists such as Occupational Therapists, Physiotherapists, Speech Pathologists and other ‘resources’ that are used to aid teachers in their work, as well as the purely physical resources, that allow a teacher to do their job to the best of their ability.
Also, Labor has promised that no school will be a dollar worse off. That means that no child will have less spent on it than some other child in the school down the road. Therefore parents can be assured that their child will have as much money spent on it in order to allow it to develop to it’s fullest potential. No matter which school in Australia it attends.
Something which is not a boring matter to them at all, even though it may be to the ill-informed, such as yourself.
[Who is your candidate?]
I don’t know. I just checked on the campaign facebook page and it is not at all clear from it that there is a candidate, just a campaign. Perhaps it is to be announced …
Steve777
[Labor will have to bypass the mainstream media to get their message out.]
The MSM are increasingly irrelevant and the ALP IS bypassing them in may respects. Labor won in Queensland essentially by ignoring the media and its spin and speaking directly to voters.
They even used the media to help do it by having a simple message which was repeated often. The number of times I saw Annastacia looking straight into a camera and saying “We will NOT sell your assets” is burnt into my brain. It strikes me that Shorten is using a similar method: “We will NOT raise the GST by 50%”, “We WILL fund our schools properly”, “We WILL tackle the problems of corporates not paying their tax and of excessive Super concessions for the wealthy”, etc, etc.
It’s a bit subliminal at the moment but come an election campaign I think it may be quite effective.
MT is just starting to come under a bit of pressure – will be interesting to see how he stands up to it – for all I know he may surprise us on the positive side, although I think that’s unlikely.
Somebody also mentioned the contrast between infighting in the coalition and the unity Labor is showing. I think the hype about coalition infighting is overblown, but we know the MSM cannot resist even the slightest whiff of blood in the water and they may well turn what is a minor skirmish into a real battle for Turnbull – we can only hope.
[Yes I guess Gonski is a good call to get out the party faithful.]
I am starting to wonder if Bill can inspire the faithful to once more unto the breach. His delivery is improving, but oh so slowly.
1st week back in parliament – but I will be watching not so much his performance in the pit but on in his pressers and stumpings.
c@t
If no decent and fair education for all it makes you wonder what daretotread considers a vote winner.
I wonder; what does a kangaroo do when you try and put dynamite in it’s pouch.
I wonder; how do you transport an angry kangaroo with dynamite in it’s pouch.
Terrorism seems to raise many unanswered questions.
Julia Baird on 7.30 interviewed new Labor candidate for the WA seat of Cowan. She has been in the media as she is a counter terrorism expert.
One question I would like to ask the ABC is what the heck is the headline for this segment supposed to mean??
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2015/s4396378.htm
c@tmomma
Hear bloody hear!!
WeWantPaul@502
What electorate?
[The ALP in Victoria does seem to be getting better organised, but in the past a great deal of knowledge and lists of contacts etc just seemed to get lost between elections.
Terrible really.]
Like the libs when we hold a seat we have staffers and groups and branches that are really just bodies in orbit of the member who holds the seat.
When we don’t hold a seat, well in my limited experience anyway, you lose the member, you lose the staffers and the branch all but melts away.
I remember going to about 6 branch meetings where there was me and two other people, the same two other people. And one of them made it clear he was there to run for the seat and that I should not get any stupid ideas about that.
When the libs don’t hold a seat they seem to fallback into chamber and local business bodies, so they maintain the local grouping / relationships.
i know Labor politicians who told me that it was ‘political amateurism’ to have any connection to seats. And we preselect in WA without reference to any local connection at all. Someone who can barely find the seat they are running for is unlikely to find a list of people who worked in that locality for a decade or more. And you have to be careful you might find people from the wrong faction in you branch if you are like welcoming …
It is very lucky the liberals pick such weak and stupid candidates as often as they do.
frednk@506
That is eerily like I posted earlier today.
Maybe engineers do think alike. 😉
frednk
[ I wonder; what does a kangaroo do when you try and put dynamite in it’s pouch.
I wonder; how do you transport an angry kangaroo with dynamite in it’s pouch.
Terrorism seems to raise many unanswered questions. ]
No allegation is too absurd for the ABC to shout TERRORISTS!
What a joke.
Shorten is showing more leadership than Truffles
[But Mr Shorten has called the claims offensive and incorrect and defended the Howard-era reforms as “indisputably the right thing to do”.]
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/offensive-and-incorrect-bill-shorten-writes-to-us-politician-ted-cruz-on-gun-claims-20160128-gmg4yt.html#ixzz3yXT4Bw00
Follow us: @theage on Twitter | theageAustralia on Facebook
WeWantPaul@510
Victoria is not that bad, but it has the same problems to a lesser extent.
If we lose a MP and the campaigns have been run out of their office, we lose a lot of intellectual property with them. Crazy stuff.
If we are campaigning in a Lib seat then there just seems to be a loss of continuity and information between campaigns.
This is all inexcusable with modern IT and all information should be held on a server and passed on.
[What electorate?]
Just one of the many unwinable Perth electorates.
Not Cowan, who seems to have a very impressive (to the left at least) candidate who’d I’d have thought more at home in Perth of Freo, I hope they’ve checked the bogan demographics of Cowan before putting her there.
victoria@513
That is similar to what I said earlier but at least one other disagreed.
I think it is a good move and helps make him look ‘Prime Ministerial’.
Kangaroos don’t need TNT.
I hit a roo doing near 100kmh. It destroyed the whole front of the car, buckled the bonnet, smashed the windscreen and took out the A pillar on the passenger side. Walking stunned from this accident I saw the roo lying on the side of the road in what I thought was it’s death throws. Whilst I was thinking how I could possibly humanely dispatch it the roo jumped up and took off over the hills.
WeWantPaul@515
You would have to be well to the right not to appreciate Anne Aly as a candidate.
Education.
I heard Birmingham today spouting that money doesnt seem to be improving education outcomes vs the rest of the world.
Gimme a break bucko. Firstly, what about all those tens of thousands of $ being thrown into private schools per year per student by desperate parents trying to get their kids a leg up.
Secondly, perhaps the correlation is the increasing percentage of children going to private schools decreases the overall educational outcomes for Australia? Could it be?..just maybe?… that private schools are making Australia dumb? But no, that cant be as it would mean the opposite, a state based system of education, is superior than a market based private system. Oh heavens!
Thirdly, Birmingham, you are just so damn wishy washy.
CatMomma
I take it you did not follow this morning’s comments about NSW ATAR scores. It would seem that some in teaching degrees have a score of 30. Now given entrence to courses such as medicine and law require scores of 95+ I am assuming that an ATAR score of 30 is pretty low.
Now sorry but a teacher with this sort of score is not going to be a good teacher. Of course there will be migrants and those from extrem disadvantage, for whom the ATAR score is not an indication of basic ability and I am all for those people getting entrance although I rather suspect that a university level foundation course to catch up on missing school knowledge may be a better way to go than direct entrance.
Now Catty dearest, I am a terrible typist, a not very good speller, a lousy proof reader, I have no spellchecker on my browser and I am time constrained. All of which adds up to bad/terrible spelling and poor grammar. So be it. I come here to discuss ideas. I am not really a big beliver in spelling as such, but it is a useful indicator of educational attainment. Far, far more important is capacity to write a coherent structured essay or report and to be able to read and comprehnd information. An ATAR of 30 (or in Qld an OP of 22) does not indicate that the person has this skill.
ajm @ 503: At the moment the Liberal Party infighting has exactly three public protagonists: Mr Abbott, Mr Andrews, and Senator Abetz. All generally regarded as failures (as Ms Tingle so elegantly hinted). Mr Abbott is already reduced to giving talks to American looneys, while Mr Andrews has made the singular decision to talk publicly about defence, a topic about which by common consent he knew nothing prior to this short stint as Minister. Senator Bernardi doesn’t really count, as he’s been out of sympathy with almost everyone at one time or another.
Three people who will fit in a phone booth don’t exactly constitute an insurrection. Mr Turnbull is following precisely the right strategy, which is to ignore them. “I strove with none, for none were worth my strife.” The longer he does so, the more it will become clear that they really have nowhere to go.
People tend to forget that Liberal leaders have had a history of having to deal with disaffected backbenchers. Senators Ian Wood and Reg Wright often voted against the government during the Menzies era. How many people remember that now? Some might say it’s different because Mr Abbott is a former PM. But he never seemed very Prime Ministerial, and appears less so every day: he’s wasting what little authority he took with him when he left office.
Simon Katich@519
The expensive private schools are not so much about education as gaining access to the right social and business networks.
daretotread@520
What is your browser?
I am not aware of any without a spell checker.
mike hilliard,
‘ If no decent and fair education for all it makes you wonder what daretotread considers a vote winner.’
Um, my reading is that she is one of the ones who have shut up shop on Labor already this election year. No guts when it comes to fighting for what Labor believes in, that’s for sure.
[You would have to be well to the right not to appreciate Anne Aly as a candidate.]
Yeah, but it is the electorate that elected Luke Simpkins a thoroughly unimpressive exmilitary type, who replaced a throughly impressive exmilitary type Graham Edwards, who replaced a liberal.
[The expensive private schools are not so much about education as gaining access to the right social and business networks.]
Yes yes, I know that. I live in Adelaide – its all about what school you went to.
Which adds another point. If going to these schools gets you a leg up through networks not merit, what does that mean for productivity and competitiveness of the companies that these people end up working for (or running)? What happens to the competitiveness of a State when meritocracy has sunken under the weight of cronyism? What are the other effects on society?
Why don’t we concentrate on improving the public schools rather than tearing down the private ones. It’s starting to smell like discontent rather than reasonable policy.
No joke, there are a large number of ALP/Green voters who stump up the fees for the kids and they are not desperate, looking for a leg up or networking.
mike
then why do they spend so much on those schools when studies shows that there are no academic benefits gained from these higher fees?
Simon Katich@526
It certainly is a form of cronyism and taxpayers should not be contributing a cent to foster it.
Simon Katich @ 526: You wind up with lions led by donkeys, as in World War One.
mikehilliard@527
Well aren’t they silly.
bemused
[What is your browser?
I am not aware of any without a spell checker.]
Wasting your time.
Simon
I have had experience with private schools and I do NOT think the education any better. Indeed I pulled my daughter from a “prestigious” private school and sent her to the local high school where the teachers were better, the kids nicer and the atmosphere kinder.
However there is not really direct evidence to link money spent and educational outcomes, especially when we are talking class size etc.
I suppose what I am saying is simply this. If you have a disadvantaged school and you have a choice between a class of 60 led by a passionate english teacher with experience in acting and drama who can make the classics and modern literature come alive for kids, versus two classes of 30 led by teachers who have rarely read a novel other than Mills and Boon and prefer to teach only about the movie version of Romeo and Juliet, then I go for the larger class size. This problem is most acute in Maths and Science because if you do not know how to to do integral calculus or chemical equations or understand the complexityies of climate science you cannot teach these subjects at higher maths levels and probably will stuggle with most lower level high school clases too.
So money as such if it goes just into having smaller class sizes will not achieve positive outcomes (other than with very small kiddies). Money spent on attracting really top flight teachers would do wonders for high school ecucation, but I am sure this is not part of the plan. Gonski money spent on physical aids and teachers to help with special needs will of course give positive outcomes for those kids with disabilities, but will not achieve anything for the rest of the kids.
mike
I argue that the high prevalence of private schools in Australia has a deleterious effect on overall education outcomes, which snowballs more people into private schools. If the studies are right when they state parents spending more money on their childrens education are not getting a better academic outcome in return, then that means a predominantly state based schooling system is more efficient at obtaining higher educational outcomes.
Furthermore, a two tier education system creates other social problems especially when so many private schools now have sporting teams and other extraciricular activities where the children interact only with other private schools. This segregation of children (based mostly on wealth) concerns me.
However, I would like to see ‘choice of school’ in a state based system.
Simon Katich
[then why do they spend so much on those schools when studies shows that there are no academic benefits gained from these higher fees?]
Something called personal choice I guess.
Bemused
Everyone is silly compared to you, that’s a given.
Bemused
I have already asked you and others for help. I am using firefox. Browser spell checker disappeared one day and I have no idea how to get it back. May be a simple options box to tick but where do I find it. Have tried the obvious places.
daretotread,
As you obviously don’t have a clue about an ATAR, or about entry to University based upon other factors besides the ATAR, which may or may not be 30, let me explain it to you.
For example, even in Medicine, some faculties have gone beyond simply relying on the ATAR in order to assess prospective students for their courses. They do interviews, they do Psychometric testing, they look at the complete picture of the student before they offer them a place.
So an ATAR of 30 may not be the end point of the bell curve of ATARS which qualify a student for entry to Teaching but may be indicative of exceptional circumstances. The majority of ATARs may indeed be clustered around the nominal entry score.
I happen to speak from experience here because for the last 3 years of High School my eldest son nursed his father through his Multiple Myeloma. It was his choice to be with him as intimately as possible, right down to bathing and toileting him every day until his last week of life. So of course his school work suffered. However his school were aware of this and made adjustments accordingly. He was too distracted to do well at his Higher School Certificate exams but he sat them.
He ended up with a few points below the cut-off for the course he wanted to do at the Uni he wanted to go to, UNSW. However he was offered a place and went on to successfully top the year in a few of his subjects as his father had passed away by then and he could concentrate on his studies.
So do you think he shouldn’t have been allowed into his Uni course? Do you know where the student with an ATAR of 30 came from and why they were allowed into Teaching? Or do you simply jump to conclusions based upon what you surmise from Pollbludger?
Just as well there are people in this world more sophisticated than you making important decisions about our children’s futures.
Simon Katich @ 526,
‘ What happens to the competitiveness of a State when meritocracy has sunken under the weight of cronyism? ‘
You get a federal Coalition government!
Night all. 🙂
Simon Katich@534
And then there is the problem of segregation based on religion.
[Something called personal choice I guess.]
Yeah, thats a cultural thing I understand and have myself.
I like the idea that if you have a belief your school is under performing or not on top of bullying etc, you have options. Currently in the state schools with zoning you dont have such options (unless you move or go private or homeschool).
[However there is not really direct evidence to link money spent and educational outcomes, especially when we are talking class size etc.]
If you play the Liberal game of pretending it is all about putting more money into one end of the machine and getting better outcomes from the other, that is a fair statement. But that is a classic Liberal game.
If, instead, you are talking about specific actions to deal with disadvantage of specific types in specific locations, and there is an additional cost to deliver those actions, there is another story completely.
It was the same with domestic violence cut backs – and the same rhetoric about how you need to look at doing things better with less money, etc and how money does not solve everything. And now they are handing half the money back they hold themselves up to be heroes because they have ‘increased’ funding. And almost nobody is calling out the dishonesty and hypocrisy.
So yeah. Throw money at education and you don’t get a return. But follow the very carefully researched and developed recommendations and apply the funds to those recommendations and you are very likely to get some very big bangs for your bucks.
An important critique of Peter Costello’s tenure as Treasurer:
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=32861
Cat momma
What you need to understand is that some policies are very worthy and should be supported but are not especially vote winning. The problem with educational initiatives is that the ALP is full of teachers, who see the issue from a teaching perspective. Ideas like Gonski which are exciting for teachers, actually are pretty meaningless for parents, let alone all the many people who have no kids in the school system. Gonski is not a tangible deliverable for ordinary people. Hence while a worthy policy, too many ALP people actually think it is a big vote winner, which it is not. I honestly think that Mum at the school gate is going to be more concerned with the traffic management and uniform policy that with Gonski funding.
Simon @534
I agree with much of what you say. All of my children have gone to private schools with mixed results. I would suggest that these schools would be considered more as “alternative” than “private” however.
I would much prefer a better public system, something that was not guaranteed in our “catchment”, particularly at high school level.
I did both systems and have mixed feelings. I would rather pay more tax and have better schools for all, put it that way.
Anyhow, I’m off so g’night all.
pedant @ 521
[ At the moment the Liberal Party infighting has exactly three public protagonists: Mr Abbott, Mr Andrews, and Senator Abetz.]
And in the beginning Rudd only had Alan Griffiths and a couple of other discontents who background briefed favoured journos. In some ways Abetz, Bernardi, Andrews don’t really count. But there are a lot of players behind them who are very unhappy with the threat of where Turncoat could take the party policy wise. They have backed Turncoat because they want to keep their seats (and, as a secondary consideration, stay in government).
But they will be prepared to make things very difficult if he moves away AND if he starts to lose popularity. Indeed, they could also make trouble if he doesn’t lose popularity because they will think that they can afford to push for what they want (unless you are in a marginal seat or a barely winnable Senate seat).
Commentators and the public make the mistake of thinking that political parties are monoliths or a collection of a small number of factions when, in fact, there are a whole lot of individuals with a whole lot of varying ambitions, etc, which they are holding in check because they know that an all-in brawl will be catastrophic, no matter how far ahead they are in the polls. That can all come apart when one or two make judgements that they are not prepared to stand for whatever the party policy is.
mikehilliard@535
I am flattered, but you do exaggerate a little. 😛
daretotread@536
Well I switched to Chrome several years ago so I don’t have Firefox to play with and work it out.
It has a help function. Use it.
TPOF@546
Since you can’t even get names right, I doubt the quality of your information.
TPOF
I think you underestimate the initial number of shell shocked Rudd supporters on day 1. Maxine McHugh, Clair Moore, Janelle Saffrin, Trish Crossin, Chris Bowen are just a few who spring to mind as well as much of the NSW left. Lindsay Tanner obviously walked rather than staying with Gillard, leaving the seat to fall to the Greens.
However the big difference is that Abbot has a defined factional/ideological base – the Monkey Pods plus others. We know there are 30 of them. Rudd’s support was more diffuse -more personality than policy, although policy was important to a degree.