Three things

The major parties in Victoria get fiddling to nobble the Greens in local government; candidates confirmed for Queensland’s Bundamba by-election; and Barrie Cassidy’s moustache strikes back.

Three things:

• The Victorian parliament has passed contentious legislation to change the process by which boundaries are drawn for local government elections, the effect of which will be an end to proportional representation in many councils and a return to single-member wards. This was passed through the upper house with the support of both major parties, and fairly obviously targets the Greens, whose local government footprint expanded considerably in 2016. The legislation is covered in greater detail by Ben Raue at The Tally Room. Relatedly, The Age reports Labor plans to endorse candidates across metropolitan councils at the elections in October, after doing so in only three councils in 2016. The Liberals in Victoria have never endorsed candidates.

• The closure of nominations for Queensland’s March 28 by-election for Bundamba on Tuesday revealed a field of four candidates representing the Labor, the LNP, the Greens in One Nation, just as there will be in Currumbin on the same day. You can read all about it in my election guides for the two seats, which are linked to on the sidebar.

• For those who have forgotten what a Labor election win looks like, Malcolm Farnsworth has posted four hours of ABC election night coverage from 1983 in two parts, here and here. The broadcast predates results at polling booth level and indicative two-party preference counts, which would have to wait until the 1990s, and without which it was difficult for analysts to read the breeze from partial counts in any but the most homogenous seats.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,957 comments on “Three things”

Comments Page 35 of 40
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  2. Bucephalus
    “States don’t have to balance their budget. Just because they don’t print money doesn’t mean they don’t create money. They are debt issuers.”

    But that is not the same thing at all. Carrying a large debt is a not desirable for a state.
    No problem for the feds.

  3. The emergency Irish legislation apparently gives sickness benefits to anyone including the self-employed who has a doctor’s certificate to self-isolate.

    On a more cynical note there is a suggestion that the Covid-19 situation in Ireland will be used as a pretext to form a “government of national emergency” between Fianna Fàil and Finn Gael. This will be presented to both parties’ partisans, who have hated each other for 98 years, as the sensible thing to do in such an emergency
    In reality the two parties are both centre-right and much closer to each other than to Sinn Féin

  4. Bucephalus says:
    Tuesday, March 10, 2020 at 3:15 pm

    Mexicanbeemer

    Which government? Federal or State? They both find education but at different rates in different sectors.
    ———————————-
    Education is the state’s responsibility. There is an argument that the federal government should provide zero funding for education besides higher education and tafes.

  5. Interesting definition of “gouge” from Bucephalus: to be gouged is to not have someone else pay for your heated pool.

  6. “RI,
    The triage process is completely logical.
    All cases in WA to date have been bought in by travellers and from contact with them.
    Triage is designed to allocate limited resources to the highest priorities.
    Not a big fan of the WA ALP government but they are doing a good job on this.”

    This would be fine if we were sure we knew where every case was. This is becoming rapidly untrue.
    My friend’s mum went to a WASO concert on the weekend. She was sitting in the row in front of a now confirmed case.
    She is not being tested. She has to monitor her temperature for the next week.

  7. ‘Oakeshott Country says:
    Tuesday, March 10, 2020 at 3:23 pm

    The emergency Irish legislation apparently gives sickness benefits to anyone including the self-employed who has a doctor’s certificate to self-isolate.

    On a more cynical note there is a suggestion that the Covid-19 situation in Ireland will be used as a pretext to form a “government of national emergency” between Fianna Fàil and Finn Gael. This will be presented to both parties’ partisans, who have hated each other for 98 years, as the sensible thing to do in
    In reality the two parties are both centre-right and much closer to each other than to Sinn Féin’

    1. Never waste a crisis.
    2. I assume that the coronavirus will trigger/cause some significant upheavals over the next couple of years.

  8. Bucephalus @ #1699 Tuesday, March 10th, 2020 – 2:12 pm

    You class warrior throwbacks spew terms like fairness and equity but demand that the highest income earners who pay by far the most tax in nominal and absolute terms and subsidise government education spending by sending their kids to private schools should be gouged even more by withdrawing all government funding.

    Sending their kids to a private school is a choice they make of their own free will (and unlikely very many of them do it primarily because they want to “subsidise government education spending”). In principle, they should bear the full cost of that choice. If they’d rather not be “gouged”, they can get the same free, government-funded education as anybody else; they just have to get it from a public school like everyone else.

    Things like big houses, luxury cars, elite educations, and the like are all fine, so long as the person (or legal guardian of the person) who gets to enjoy the benefit of those things is the one who funds it. Let private schools be private, and they can be as extravagant as they like. 🙂

  9. Roger Miller

    This would be fine if we were sure we knew where every case was. This is becoming rapidly untrue.
    My friend’s mum went to a WASO concert on the weekend. She was sitting in the row in front of a now confirmed case.
    She is not being tested. She has to monitor her temperature for the next week.

    Our leaderless government should should be doing what Italy has finally done – close all public events.
    We will pay for their recalcitrance.

  10. Bucephalus:

    States don’t have to balance their budget. Just because they don’t print money doesn’t mean they don’t create money. They are debt issuers.

    This is completely wrong.

    There are only two ways money is created in significant quantities and States have access to neither of them (unless they illegally operate as commercial banks with the collusion of the reserve)

  11. A R
    I know a number of parents that send their kids to the elite private schools – Trinity Grammar, Scotch, MLC, St Catherine’s to name a few and not one of those parents would send their kids to the local state school if there was no government funding.

  12. Pegasus @ #1692 Tuesday, March 10th, 2020 – 3:05 pm

    Labor defends $1.2bn private school package it previously called a ‘slush fund’

    ALP will not support a bid to shut down Coalition’s ‘choice and affordability’ fund and welcomes restored funding

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/sep/10/labor-defends-12bn-private-school-package-it-previously-called-a-slush-fund

    Labor has ridden to the defence of the Coalition’s $1.2bn Catholic and independent school package it formerly labelled a “slush fund” after the Greens revealed a plan to shut it down.

    Guardian Australia understands Labor will not support the Greens’ move to disallow the “choice and affordability” fund, with the shadow education minister, Tanya Plibersek, instead welcoming the fact the Morrison government has restored funding for Catholic and independent schools.

    The Greens education spokeswoman, Mehreen Faruqi, blasted Labor for joining the government in “setting up a private school slush fund that has no justification, no accountability and no guarantee the cash won’t go to subsidising fees for wealthy private schools”.

    Weeks after becoming prime minister in September 2018, Scott Morrison announced a 10-year $4.6bn funding package to settle a bitter dispute with the Catholic school sector, including the $1.2bn fund which was not on the table before Dan Tehan took over from Simon Birmingham as education minister.

    Labor and several states – including the Coalition government in New South Wales – were highly critical of the choice and affordability fund, which Plibersek said “looks very much” like a $1.2bn “slush fund” for non-government schools.
    :::
    On Monday the Greens lodged a disallowance motion, providing the Senate an opportunity next week to vote down the regulation setting up the choice and affordability fund – a move now doomed to failure given Labor’s opposition.
    :::
    Faruqi said the choice and affordability fund is “a perfect symbol of educational inequality in Australia”. “All of this money should be going to underfunded public schools, not private schools.

    “This slush fund will only serve to widen the already extreme gap between public and private schools in Australia, fuelling inequities introduced by Labor and Liberal governments in one special deal after another.

    “It’s thoroughly disappointing, though not surprising, to see Labor reject this opportunity to stand with the students, teachers and parents struggling in public schools around the country.

    “We are committed to reversing the grubby Labor and Liberal deals that keep private schools overfunded at the expense of public schools.”

    The Greens went to the 2019 election calling for public schools to receive 25% of the schools resource standard – up from the 20% provided by the federal government under the Coalition’s Gonski 2.0 package – at a cost of $20.5bn over a decade.

    No passion
    No guts
    No enthusiam
    No rage
    No commitment

  13. In Europe coronavirus cases increasing by 30% a day (doubling every 3 days) and 15% death rate for those over 70 who get sick.

  15. Mexicanbeemer @ #1715 Tuesday, March 10th, 2020 – 2:32 pm

    I know a number of parents that send their kids to the elite private schools – Trinity Grammar, Scotch, MLC, St Catherine’s to name a few and not one of those parents would send their kids to the local state school.

    Yes, I don’t doubt there are such people. Their superior attitude is a choice as well. Let them fund it themselves. 🙂

  17. yabba,

    From your article which I am very familiar with:

    “But, on average, public funding makes up 95 per cent of the typical public school’s total income, compared to 73 per cent for Catholic schools and 43 per cent for independent schools.“

    Also:

    “ Average figures tell us Catholic school students receive 84 cents for every taxpayer dollar spent on public school students and independent school students receive 69 cents.”

    What the article fails to do is make the very specific distinction in the government sources for the different sectors. Federal Government Funding through the Gonski reforms have flowed into the private system with low-socio-economic Catholic Schools receiving the greatest benefit.

    If you have a problem with the funding of State Schools then take it up with the State Governments- they are the ones not funding ton109% of the SRS.

  18. It’s certainly an ill wind that blows no good.

    I am enjoying Buce trying to make out that having private schools is fair. Totally ignoring Finland.

    Finland has the world’s best education results. To be fair and have Australia rank at elite levels we should follow Finland and only have public schools. That is education all run and funded by the government.

    When Finland has gone down the education tables Buce might have a defensible position.

  20. P1

    I agree. However I think we would soon be in the Finland position as parents vote with their feet.

    After all we want our students to be at the top not the bottom of world rankings

  21. Player One:

    guytaur @ #1718 Tuesday, March 10th, 2020 – 3:40 pm

    I am enjoying Buce trying to make out that having private schools is fair.

    Having private schools is fine. Governments funding them is not.

    Having private GPs is fine. Governments funding them is not?

  23. Guytaur:

    P1

    I agree. However I think we would soon be in the Finland position as parents vote with their feet.

    After all we want our students to be at the top not the bottom of world rankings

    That’s not why parents send their children to private schools…


  24. Diogenes says:
    Tuesday, March 10, 2020 at 2:59 pm

    ….

    fred
    “ So why is it the governments fault they have no N50 masks?”
    The government told the GPs they would provide them (there aren’t any available except from government stockpiles).

    Fair enough. The government should perform as promised then and clearly they are not. You can’t expect a private practice to assume the government is totally incompetent and stockpile their own.

  26. EGT
    “Having private GPs is fine. Governments funding them is not?”

    Are you having a lend?
    Situations are not analagous, as I’m sure you know.

  27. mundo,

    Lots of Catholic School parents and past students are ALP voters. You think Plebs is wrong then try getting the ALP to change policy. Good luck. Perhaps run for preselection.

  28. E. G. Theodore @ #1721 Tuesday, March 10th, 2020 – 3:46 pm

    Player One:

    guytaur @ #1718 Tuesday, March 10th, 2020 – 3:40 pm

    I am enjoying Buce trying to make out that having private schools is fair.

    Having private schools is fine. Governments funding them is not.

    Having private GPs is fine. Governments funding them is not?

    Is there such a thing as a “private GP”? If the GP works in the public health system, they should be government funded. If – as you seem to be suggesting – they work entirely in the private health system, then of course they should not be government funded.

  29. a r

    But wouldn’t you ban all private schooling because of “inequality “? No?

    If you’re going to do it then do it properly.

  30. GPs are essentially private, but they are able to bill an insurer (Medicare) for every service they provide. Every service has an item number.
    They can choose to accept the Medicare payment as the full and final payment, or they can bill the patient an additional amount.
    None of this makes them ‘publicly funded’. The insurer, Medicare is publically run and funded from taxes; not the GP.

  31. Guytaur

    To be fair to Bucephalus he also left out Singapore and Estonia… wait a minute. Singapore and Estonian schools are nearly all public and get excellent results too. Hmmm, could the evidence suggest Bucephalus is wrong?

    Bucephalus

    Your reference to banning private schools is a straw man. Almost no country does that. But once you stop giving private schools disproportionate cash and fund the public schools properly, most parents no longer care about sending their kids to private, other than a small % on religious grounds. Hence the tripe that the IPA and yourself trot out forever, in the hope that one day Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose, will turn out not to be a load of unscientific, ideologically driven nonsense.

  32. Ah now I see it.

    There is a third way to create money – the way of the Nugan Hand Bank – State Governments could try that (after all, Dopey probably wouldn’t notice)

  34. Iran released 50,000 political prisoners. Boom tish.

    The Italians appear not to be releasing anyone. So let’s all get together in a close mob and protest. Or get together in a close defensive phalanx:

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51810673

    On an entirely separate matter, the US signed an agreement with the Taliban that depended on the Afghanistan Government, which was neither a Party to the negotiations nor to the Agreement, releasing 5,000 Taliban captives.

    This release was a pre requisite for negotiations to open between the Afghanistan Government and the Taliban.

    The Afghanistan Government did not fall to earth in the last shower. They are releasing no-one.

    Is plenty of fuck ups.

  35. guytaur

    If you watched the QandA program you would have seen Dr Woo deftly deflect the question of why the Shanghai system with much less funding is so much better performing than Australia’s very well funded system – culture, expectations, employment law etc. Same applies when comparing Finland to Australia.

    I always think it’s funny when people say Finland in the education debate but if you point out Shanghai you get shut down.

  36. Player One:

    E. G. Theodore @ #1721 Tuesday, March 10th, 2020 – 3:46 pm

    Player One:

    guytaur @ #1718 Tuesday, March 10th, 2020 – 3:40 pm

    I am enjoying Buce trying to make out that having private schools is fair.

    Having private schools is fine. Governments funding them is not.

    Having private GPs is fine. Governments funding them is not?

    Is there such a thing as a “private GP”? If the GP works in the public health system, they should be government funded. If – as you seem to be suggesting – they work entirely in the private health system, then of course they should not be government funded.

    I am not suggesting anything.

    I have previously proposed that private schools should be funded in the same way as GPs, and have seen nothing to contradict that proposal.

  37. Half the posters here don’t appear to understand how GPs are funded. Medicare is government money. You know that amount above the Medicare Rebate that you pay if you aren’t bulk billed? That’s private money – just like a private school fee.

  38. If schools were to be funded in a way similar to GPs then every service provided by schools would need to have an item number, and designated fee. Short or long consultation = different item numbers.
    Every teacher would need to be familiar with a ridiculously large list of item numbers and definitions.
    Everytime a teacher has a special interaction with a student, every marking of an assignment (short or long?), every counselling session (why were you unable to submit on time?), every playground incident written up, ……. An impossible task.

    “Private” schools analogous to GPs? You’re dreaming.

  39. Maude Lynne @ #1730 Tuesday, March 10th, 2020 – 3:58 pm

    GPs are essentially private, but they are able to bill an insurer (Medicare) for every service they provide. Every service has an item number.
    They can choose to accept the Medicare payment as the full and final payment, or they can bill the patient an additional amount.
    None of this makes them ‘publicly funded’. The insurer, Medicare is publically run and funded from taxes; not the GP.

    I believe we are saying the same thing. Our health system is publicly funded. If a doctor works in that system, he entitled to charge the public purse (in this case, the public insurer) for it.

  40. Christian Porter is answering PK’s questions in such roundabout terms and with so many qualifiers that so far I don’t think he has given a single answer.

  43. Sadly if there is one country that really proves how wrong headed is the idea that pouring money into private schools solves anything, it is Australia. The higher the proportion of federal education budgets poured into private schools has become, the more we have slid down the rankings in PISA testing. Now we are down to 18th, barely mid-field in the OECD,and in the bottom half of OECD nations for the first time since testing began.
    https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/10-countries-with-the-best-education-systems.html

    Japan is another country with excellent education results and almost entirely public schools.

  45. Maude Lynn

    Schools are required to deliver a scheduled service – it’s called The Australian Curriculum and schools are required to comply with that as part of their registration.

  46. Porter says everyone has a duty not to risk the health and safety of co-workers and he’s quite sure everyone will obey recommendations to stay home. He doesn’t seem to have any concept of people living from wage to wage.

  47. Bucephalus
    “they pay most of the tax in nominal and absolute terms.”

    Cry me a river. Many of them still have enough money left over to send their kids to elite private schools.

  49. Everything in Porter’s world seems to be a hypothetical and the gov won’t do anything until all information has been collected.

    A snail-like response?

  50. We are about to reap the whirlwind….
    25 years of increasing casual employment….
    Or self-employed contract workers…..
    Workers have no way of making a living if they forced to stay home….
    Maybe they can put them on sick allowance from Centrelink…..
    Except that $280 a week is not going to be enough given that the minimum wage is $19.50 per hour.
    Plus there are far more non-permanent resident workers who can’t claim welfare who now in Australia….
    They’re not staying home if they are sick…..

    You reap what you sow.

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