With the fortnightly cycles of Newspoll and Essential Research in sync for the time being, we would appear to be in another off week for federal polling (although ReachTEL are about due to come through, perhaps at the end of the week). However, there is a fair bit of preselection news to report, with Malcolm Turnbull having told the state party branches to get candidates in place sooner rather than later. That might appear to suggest he at least wishes to keep his options open for an early election, although betting markets rate that a long shot, with Ladbrokes offering $1.14 on an election next year and only $5 for this year.
• With the creation of a third seat in the Australian Capital Territory, the Canberra Times reports the member for Canberra, Gai Brodtmann, will contest the seat of Bean – new in theory, but in reality the seat that corresponds most closely with her existing seat – while Andrew Leigh will remain in Fenner. The ACT Chief Minister, Andrew Barr, said he contemplated running in the Canberra electorate “maybe for a moment”. The other name mentioned is Kel Watt, “a member of ACT Labor’s right faction and lobbyist for the Canberra Greyhound Racing”.
• The Courier-Mail reported a fortnight ago that Jane Prentice, Liberal National Party member for the Brisbane seat of Ryan, is likely to lose preselection to Julian Simmonds, a Brisbane councillor and former staffer to both Prentice and her predecessor, Michael Johnson. Despite Prentice being a moderate and a Turnbull supporter, the move against her has reportedly “outraged” Campbell Newman.
• Elections for administrative positions in the Victorian Liberal Party have seen Michael Kroger easily face down a challenge to his position as president, and conservative young turk Marcus Bastiaan much strengthened, including through his own election to a vice-president position. The Australian reports Bastiaan is “largely regarded as Mr Kroger’s numbers man”, but his use of his new influence to cancel an early Senate preselection process suggests the situation may be more complex than that. According to James Campbell of the Herald Sun, the preselections had been initiated at the behest of Kroger, consistent with Malcolm Turnbull’s aforementioned call for them to be handled expeditiously. The report further says Bastiaan’s determination to delay proceedings suggests a threat to James Patterson or Jane Hume, the two Senators who will face re-election at the next election. However, a report by Aaron Patrick of the Financial Review suggest the bigger threat from the conservative ascendancy is likely to be faced by factional moderates in the state parliament.
• The Toowoomba Chronicle reports John McVeigh, the Liberal National Party member for Groom, has easily seen off a preselection challenge by Isaac Moody, business manager of Gabbinbar Homestead. Moody accused McVeigh of having “betrayed” his constituents by voting yes in the same-sex marriage plebiscite (49.2% of those constituents did the same).
• The Clarence Valley Daily Examiner reports Labor’s preselection for the north coast New South Wales seat of Page will be contested by Isaac Smith, the mayor of Lismore, and Patrick Deegan, who works for a domestic violence support service. Page has been held for the Nationals since 2013 by Kevin Hogan, whose margin after the 2016 election was 2.3%. Smith is backed by Janelle Saffin, who held the seat for Labor from 2007 to 2013 and is now the preselected candidate for the state seat of Lismore.
• The Townsville Bulletin reports that Ewen Jones, who lost the seat of Herbert to Labor’s Cathy O’Toole in 2016 by 37 votes, has again nominated for Liberal National Party preselection in the Townsville-based seat of Herbert.
• The Courier-Mail reported a fortnight ago that George Christensen might face a preselection challenge for his north Queensland seat of Dawson from Jason Costigan, member for the state seat of Whitsunday, but Costigan announced a few days later that he had chosen not to proceed.
Scott Pruitt continues to provide inspiration for Liberals about how getting the most out of your taxpayer funded position.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/lobbyist-helped-broker-pruitts-100000-trip-to-morocco/2018/05/01/b2e20ee0-4d76-11e8-b725-92c89fe3ca4c_story.html?utm_term=.bbb150d655c8
Cash machine: Apple flags yet another $125 billion buyback as sales surge
Apple will return even more money to shareholders as the company generates mountains of cash from iPhone sales and benefits from recent US tax cuts.
How do they have any money left from the tax cuts to afford share buybacks? I thought they were going to spend it all on wage rises for their employees…
Sorry Zoomster
You are just wrong.
You are only right to the extent that Jenny gains a specific and specialist skill set at university that her sister did not. I am really talking of generalist business or events management or marketing courses (or even arts and general sciences) which actually do not provide specific skills.
Come back to me with data that excludes all the specifically professional degrees and we can start to talk sense.
Possum on the case.
.
Possum Comitatus
@Pollytics
14h
The CBA – The Australian Boardroom’s “Boardroom” is full of mediocre dross that can’t do their jobs. Believe me now that it’s across the entire corporate sector?
Tim Watts MP
✔
@TimWattsMP
Need some industrial relations reform in the boardroom to improve productivity
4:39 PM – May 1, 2018 · Melbourne, Victoria
10
See Tim Watts MP’s other Tweets
Possum Comitatus
@Pollytics
The biggest impediment to Australian social and economic development is the garbage in our boardrooms. For 20 years, this closed, grubby little club of rent seeking refuse has bullied public policy into outcomes as competent as their firm management.
4:32 PM – May 1, 2018
Possum Comitatus
@Pollytics
Let there be a reckoning, if not for the benefit of the 24 million of us that live in this place, at least for the benefit of the firms run by this grandiloquent menagerie
4:43 PM – May 1, 2018
confessions
That was my very point!
dtt
No, I am not. I have used actual data. You have created a unique set of circumstances, which would not happen in real life (Jenny would not get the position to begin with; a Uni graduate would).
And these – ‘ generalist business or events management or marketing courses’ all provide specific skills (in business, in event management and in marketing…).
Many Arts students, of course, do an extra year and get their teaching diploma, and earn $60k in their first year of employment.
A detailed analysis of the costs of degrees.
My basic point remains: the Greens have provided no costings for any of their hairy-chested trillions of additional expenditure over forward estimates. Everything is free: just shake the money tree.
The Greens are relying on the magic pudding. This approach trashed the Venezuelan economy such that the erstwhile middle class is now fleeing the country as refugees while those remaining try to cope with hyperinflation and with queuing for the basics, if they can be found at all.
https://docs.education.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/deloitte_access_economics_-_cost_of_delivery_of_higher_education_-_final_report.pdf
Poroti
This is what I have been putting on here
The RC into Financial Services is restrictive and is not a RC into banking practices, practices which are not in the public interest or the National interest
Then you get to business per se
There are some excellent operatives but, unfortunately they are few and far between
My knowledge?
30 years lending to Corporate Australia
Whilst I pulled up stumps over 20 years ago my associations and therefore knowledge remain
Morning all. Possum is correct. Australia’s boardrooms are a collection of (mostly) private schooled boys who are well connected and of average intellect. Look at how our “successful” banks fare every time they venture to operate overseas. Without the RBA to prop them up they lose money by the fistful. In protecting depositors and homeowners well, the RBA has created a system where our bank executives look far smarter than they are.
@Boerwar
Actually, the plummeting price of oil, coupled with sanctions from the USA designed to ‘encourage’ Venezuela to vote properly next time destroyed the economy.
Observer
Fingers crossed you get your wish with regard to ‘business’ !!
Dtt/zoom
Generally I agree with zoom – studies consistently show education is a good long term investment for the educated. Even health and social outcomes are better, not just financial ones. It is slow and hard to prove because you need to compare people within their cohort and track them over time. Recently returns to new graduates compared to average incomes have been falling. But returns to non graduates new to the job market have fallen even further, witness the gig economy.
The only caveat on this is that skills, not qualifications, are what matter. So setting up private vocational diploma mills was a waste of money. Likewise I do question some business courses with limited contact hours. BAs are actually superior IMO. We train far too many MBAs too. But the solution to that is tighten up standards and fundin* allocation systems in education, not throw school leavers onto a job market where the unskilled will struggle to survive.
Come on, have some sympathy for Sophie. She turned into a Netflix addict!
VE
Any time and every time is a bad time for crap economic policies.
Morning all
Mirabella truly has zero self awareness.
She exudes such negative and self absorbed energy. Even when she says and does nothing at all
Yep. The shit show rolls on…
Conversation
Rick Wilson
Rick Wilson
@TheRickWilson
This story is the craziest damn thing I’ve seen all day. And that’s saying something.
Trump’s doctor says Trump bodyguard ‘raided’ his office, took files
nbcnews.com
From
https://www.smh.com.au/money/a-university-degree-is-worth-1180112-over-the-course-of-a-lifetime-20171026-gz8mgd.html
Feedback I have been getting of late from parents of children in their teens, is that the odds are stacked against them.
Cost of housing features heavily, followed by casualisation of work, and belief that only way they will have any financial stability is by getting handouts by parents and waiting for inheritance.
It’s a pity this facial recognition system wasn’t used to qualify ministers of the crown.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF01246635
@don – I suspect the type of person who goes to university would (on average) be the type of person who earns more anyway.
i.e. this doesn’t answer whether a specific person will earn more if they go to university or not.
https://www.theage.com.au/world/europe/pell-faces-demotion-in-rome-vatican-expert-says-20180502-p4zcrx.html
CNN
CNN
@CNN
EXCLUSIVE: Dr. Harold Bornstein, who served as Donald Trump’s physician for more than three decades, says Trump dictated the glowing health letter in 2015 (link: https://cnn.it/2rjJD5h) cnn.it/2rjJD5h
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-military-spending/russian-military-spending-falls-could-affect-operations-think-tank-idUSKBN1I24H8
While some might expect ww3, clearly Russia is not among them. Military spending fell by 20% last year and is expected to remain flat or fall further.
Russia’s finances are still fragile following a two-year economic downturn brought on by Western sanctions and a collapse in global oil prices. Higher crude prices helped the economy return to growth of 1.5 percent last year, short of a government target of 2 percent.
The export-dependent economy has now got accustomed to lower commodity prices than before 2014, and the budget is likely to post a small deficit or even a surplus in 2018.
President Vladimir Putin has also called for higher living standards and higher spending on social infrastructure, such as healthcare and education. Some government officials have called for lower military spending to free up funds for such initiatives.
The Kremlin said in March Russia would cut its defense budget to less than 3 percent of gross domestic product within the next five years.
Socrates @ #562 Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018 – 9:10 am
Socrates
We probably basically agree.What i am trying to say is that a generalist uni qual – especially if from an institution that has dumbed itself down to cater for international students, the needs for many students to basically work full time to be able to afford to live and the fact that more kids are going into courses who may not have essential foundation skills – may not be a cost effective option
I think the story I am trying to tellis
1. Raising university fees especially on generalist courses may be detrimental
2.People should not have to pay back their debt unless clearly earning more than their contempories without degrees
3. expansion of university because it is high prestige etc may not be the best thing overall
Data should compare like with like – a kid in the top 1% who studies medicine or Law and goes on to become a high flying surgeon or barrister or academic, if left without a degree option would in the past have selected a career path that avoided high uni fees – an articled clerk route for becoming a lawyer, becoming a journalist (until the 80s few journalists had degrees), girls (sorry it was a sexist age) would choose nursing where they got paid). Of course these days those with degrees fare better than those without but since getting a degree also correlates with basic ability to apply oneself in a desk type situation this is an obvious result.
I might also add that for anyone over 55 and out of the workforce for more than a year, having a degree is totally without any financial benefit at all. Certainly I am sure my employment options are now limited to simplistic call centre work (no degree needed), care work or domestic cleaning. Luckily I was of the free uni generation or by god I would resent it.
I might also add I had a bit of a dream run at first at a time when Zoomster’s estmates were the workplace reality. But that was 40 years ago.
Briefly
I am very confident there will be no ww3 that involves Russia.
Putin is well and truly pissed that Trump has not been able to remove sanctions as agreed.
Putin sees his puppet unravelling and he is going to cut him loose.
Fun and games
Well, adult government of Tasmania is starting off well.
Libs have 13, Labor 10, Greens 2.
However, one of the Liberals just voted (with support from Lab + Greens) to make themselves the speaker.
Ms Hickey, who said while she would stand with the Government on matters of supply, she would vote on all other bills on their “merits”.
Liberals essentially down to minority government on day 1.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-02/sue-hickey-speaker-coup-a-dog-act-kate-crowley-says/9718160
BK @ 9:26
As a person of Irish descent, I thoroughly approve of potatoes in all roles except Ministers of the Crown. Your article says that the accuracy of the grading is adversely affected by the motion of the spud. I wonder whether retrograde motion would be even worse? in that case any attempt to grade our current crop of Ministers would certainly fail.
zoomster @ #530 Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018 – 5:01 am
If the BCA like it, it must mean that Gonski isn’t proposing Ethics classes for students! 🙂
BK @ #544 Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018 – 5:39 am
That’s why it’s hard to see how they allowed the case to proceed! 🙂
Dtt
I understand and as you say, the question is the marginal benefit for someone of equal ability doing or not doing uni. However that is exactly what the long term cohort studies I referred to do check. They still find the students who do uni do better than similar ability students who do not. This often takes more than a decade to show up, but is pretty consistent.
Interestingly it is the generalist courses NOT the specialist ones, that have shown the largest benefits in the past. Specialist knowledge can become obsolete as technologies and occupations change. Generalist skills like problem solving and communications do not become obsolete.
Gee
What a problem being the wife of an gas killing evil monster. Obviously Satan revised eh what! Time for the US to we came, we saw, she died eh what?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJD2kzK2SdE
Good Morning
I see that BW is back. I hope he can tell us if he has not already how Ctar is doing.
BW
On the Greens. Expensive out of touch marxist ideas. You sound like a Murdoch scribe. The Greens have $65 Billion to spend before they even get close to the LNP profligacy!
You know Neo Liberal economics is dead when Chris Richardson starts arguing to raise the rate of Newstart.
Barney
Yes exactly! I assume the BCA want our schools to teach students how to commit fraud and evade tax, in order to be “job ready”.
Socrates @ #582 Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018 – 9:48 am
Socrates
I am not sure that the studies are still true.
What you say WAS true for those who completed university any time up to say 1990. However these people are not yet at the end of their working life so the data is not complete.
However for those who completed university less than 30 years ago, the lifetime data is no where near complete enough to make any sort of lifetime estimates.
A comment on the media in the US
David Rothkopf@djrothkopf
Job of media is not to provide “balanced” views. It is to provide truth. If one side speaks the truth and the other does not, the liars are not entitled to a platform. Suggesting otherwise is what got us into this mess in the first place.
The economic questions in education funding begin with asking whether investment tends to result eventually in declining returns or not. If declining returns prevail, eventually it makes sense to curtail investment, at least from an economic perspective.
I think that in fact the returns to investment in education are unusual. They exhibit increasing returns to scale. As well, investment made in new education compounds the returns accruing to earlier investment. (So, for example, the returns to primary education in literacy and numeracy are increased when the literate or numerate person undertakes a higher degree. There will be an additional gain accruing to the very first round of investment as well as to subsequent rounds.)
The other question relates to where the returns to education accrue. Do they accrue in the accounts of the educated only? Or do they accrue socially. I think the largest share of returns accrue socially, which is to say that when more of us are better educated, we all prosper; and that this welfare effect can be interpreted in many ways, not merely in financial terms.
The instrumental example is literacy. When one person in a village is literate, that person has great advantages. But when others become literate, not only do these new learners acquire advantages, the first-literate person also benefits. Their literacy becomes more valuable as they are able to apply their literacy in new ways and with a wider class.
This illustrates that each person in a community derives benefits from the investment made in the education of others as well as from their own education. There are collective benefits. These collective benefits extend well beyond the individual gains and give rise to expanding returns to investment in education.
The focus on the return available to the individual is premised on a user-pays approach, which insists that on cost/benefit grounds the recipient of education investment should be required to pay for it. This is, necessarily, elitist and socially regressive.
As an aside, while not talking about John Monash, it is well worth recalling that he was born in rural Victoria where the educational opportunities were few, even for very talented children. Monash’s mother was persuaded by a teacher that her son should have the best education available. The family were not able to afford to send John to a college in the city, but, undeterred, Monash’s mother went and camped in the office of the Headmaster of Scotch College and eventually he agreed to create a full-fee scholarship for the boy.
Clearly the investment made in this scholar was well spent. But who knew that at the time? There are obviously large, if unquantified, opportunity cost that arises from failing to invest in education.
https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/05/01/faith-schools-exposed-over-policies-banning-promotion-of-homosexuality/
So much for keeping education and religion apart.
Guytaur
I think if the Greens policy had just two caveats it would be quite affordable:
– up to four years free tertiary study per person who qualified, with the extra years in longer courses paid for (they generally earn more)
– the money stops if you dont pass or drop out, so no wasting of years.
It isn’t marxism. Many other capitalist OECD countries still have free unis. We live in a bubble when we only compare ourselves to UK, USA or wherever else the Murdochracy points to. NZ is introducing this policy now and they have less money than we do. Just cancel that stupid F35 fighter jet purchase. Program paid for, job done.
France and Germany already have free uni. Germany is hardly going broke from it.
Socrates
When Fraser kept Whitlam’s free universities it didn’t exactly break the national budget.
Good point about Russia and WW3… Russia has a GDP about the same as Australia. Imagine Australia’s budget trying to maintain a country the size of Russia, and a nuclear arsenal, and aircraft carriers, and decrepit infrastructure etc… Putin plays cheap (and effective) cyber and social media mind games to mess with the West. He is not stupid.
Macron is on my television he just lectured Turnbull on Climate Change.
G
Show me the money.
daretotread. @ #585 Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018 – 6:57 am
Classic, deny the evidence if it doesn’t fit your world view!
Once again you you pull numbers out of your backside where as zoomster has shown a simple Google search would show that they are rubbish.
As I said last night;
This is because the graduate, on average, is earning more than the non-graduate, around 40% more.
Edjamukation has other benefits.
.
“More education is what makes people live longer, not more money
Could schools be a better public health investment than hospitals?
When countries develop economically, people live longer lives. Development experts have long believed this is because having more money expands lifespan, but a massive new study suggests that education may play a bigger role. The finding has huge implications for public health spending.
Back in 1975, economists plotted rising life expectancies against countries’ wealth, and concluded that wealth itself increases longevity. It seemed self-evident: everything people need to be healthy – from food to medical care – costs money.
But soon it emerged that the data didn’t always fit that theory. Economic upturns didn’t always mean longer lives. In addition, for reasons that weren’t clear, a given gain in gross domestic product (GDP) caused increasingly higher gains in life expectancy over time, as though it was becoming cheaper to add years of life. Moreover, in the 1980s researchers found gains in literacy were associated with greater increases in life expectancy than gains in wealth were.”
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2166833-more-education-is-what-makes-people-live-longer-not-more-money/
For those that missed Chris Richardson’s comments
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-02/budget-repair-less-urgent-than-raising-dole-economist-says/9717140?section=politics
Dtt
This stuff is getting studied all the time. L8ke I said before, yes graduate wages are dropping in real terms. But starter wages for non graduates are dropping even faster. So the relative benefi5 is still there. The problem is falling real wages, not education. Look up some non-Murdoch sources on this:
https://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/164_graduate_winners_non-financial_benefits.pdf
And
https://theconversation.com/university-a-worthwhile-investment-for-individuals-and-society-oecd-31516