Students will be asked to pay more for higher education under the Federal Government's proposed legislation introduced into Parliament today.

Education Minister Christopher Pyne introduced the legislation this morning, saying it is a "good deal" for students.

The main aspects include the deregulation of university fees and changes to interest rate arrangements for student loans.

Mr Pyne says the legislation will ensure Australian universities can compete globally by setting their own course fees and choosing which courses they offer.

"Deregulation is the only way to respond to what students and employers want," he told Parliament.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-28/students-to-pay-more-under-higher-education-changes-pyne/5702496

Pyne is a shocker of a minister for educashun...

• Christoper Pyne wins Ernie Award 2014 for his comments on the impact of uni fees on women

THE COMPLETE LIST OF ERNIES 2014

GOLD ERNIE and Political Silver Ernie

Christopher Pyne

For claiming that increases in uni fees won't disproportionately affect women because - "women are well represented amongst the teaching and nursing students. They will not be able to earn the high incomes that dentists and lawyers will earn."

Media Silver Ernie

Piers Akerman

"The ABC has tried to foist its left-wing agenda on the nation. Even the cartoon character Peppa Pig pushes a weird feminist line that would be closer to the hearts of Labor's Handbag Hit Squad than the pre-school audience it is aimed at."

Judicial Silver Ernie

Philip Strickland SC 

For suggesting that former MP Jodie McKay's recall of a conversation might not be accurate because she was in "an emotional state".

Industrial Silver Ernie

Wicked Camper Vans

For slogans on their vans:

"Fat girls are harder to kidnap."

"In every princess, there's a little slut who wants to try it just once."

"Life sucks if your girlfriend doesn't."

Sport Silver Ernie (The Warney)

South Coast Winter Swimming Association

in response to women swimmers wanting to join the club moved the following motions:

"That the name of the South Coast Winter Swimming association should be changed to the South Coast Men's Winter Swimming Association."

"That member affiliation of the South Coast Winter Swimming Association is limited to males."

 

read more: http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/news-features/christoper-pyne-wins-ernie-award-2014-for-his-comments-on-the-impact-of-uni-fees-on-women-20140925-3gjsu.html

A new scholarship scheme promoted by the Abbott government will be “peer-sourced” and not all universities will be able to set aside funds for the purpose, a vice-chancellor has said.

Prof Jan Thomas, who leads the University of Southern Queensland (USQ), said the “Commonwealth scholarships” would be available only at universities that increased their fees more than required to recoup federal funding cuts.

The education minister, Christopher Pyne, and several other universities have sought to win crossbench support for the government’s deregulation of fees by pointing to the scholarship scheme as a way to help disadvantaged students.

The bill, which senators will continue to debate next week, includes a requirement that universities set aside 20% of revenue from any additional fee increases for targeted assistance.

The University of Western Australia (UWA) said it would target its scholarships towards supporting rural students, as part of its plan to set tuition fees at $16,000 a year.

“We estimate we could add another 500 scholarships under this proposal, which would more than cover all rural students currently enrolled at UWA,” said the deputy vice-chancellor, Prof Alec Cameron.

He said the focus of the scholarships would be on living costs, not tuition fees, because the latter would continue to be covered under the Higher Education Loan Program (Help).

“All students will face higher tuition fees, but these will be collected when and if their salaries exceed $50,000,” Cameron said. “All studies have shown that university education provides a substantial increase in lifetime earnings, well in excess of increased tuition fees proposed.”

A Senate estimates committee has previously heard that the government has not budgeted any of its own money for this scheme, and that the requirement for funds to be set aside begins only after universities have increased fees to make up for government cuts.

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/nov/11/coalitions-scholarships-to-be-offered-only-with-extra-fee-increases

Lambie savages 'born to rule' Liberals

Earlier Senator Lambie denounced the proposed higher education changes.

"The haves in a future Australian society dominated by Liberal policies presented to this Parliament in recent times will be guaranteed to have more, and the have-nots will be forced to fight among themselves for a fair go and a smaller share of the Australian common wealth," she told the Senate.

The Government is continuing to negotiate with crossbenchers, but Senator Lambie said she was not impressed with Education Minister Christopher Pyne.

"The haste in which the current Education Minister is pushing this deal reminds me of a dodgy used car salesman trying to flog a lemon in Sydney's western suburbs, and I'm not buying it," she said.

Senator Lambie said fellow crossbencher Ricky Muir's decision could be crucial, and urged him to think carefully.

"I ask that before Ricky votes, that Ricky consider the tens of thousands of children who come from working-class backgrounds who will never be given the opportunity to better themselves and improve their lot in life through a university education because the Liberals' cost will scare them and stop them from even dreaming of a uni degree," she said.

"This legislation is deliberately designed to keep working-class people in their place by Liberals who think they are born to rule and lord over normal Australians."

But Liberal senator Cory Bernardi rejected that view.

"I support this bill, not because I am part of the landed gentry seeking to oppress the working class or to stop the impoverished from receiving an education. Such nonsense doesn't reflect any of the facts within this bill," Senator Bernardi said in response to Senator Lambie's contribution.

University of Canberra vice chancellor Stephen Parker has also denounced the plan.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-02/government-struggles-to-get-higher-education-bills-through-the-/5932624

Gus says Lambie is doing a far better job than Tony Abbott and his grinding monkeys... Lambie is saying the REAL things than the common folks think... Bernardi has "beliefs" possibly shaped by Opus Dei between his ears... He would have little clue on how unfair Pyne's elitist education policy is...

Meanwhile Barnacle Tony's submarine payola — er I mean gift, er I mean "intent of giving the job without any proper tender" — to the Japanese is back on the drawing board... It hit a shifting sand bar somewhere created by the removal of red tape.

 

Palmer United Party senator Glenn Lazarus has told Education Minister Christopher Pyne to "stop harassing" him over the Government's contentious overhaul to the university sector, saying the changes are "bad to the core".

His statement means the changes are destined to fail in the Senate, where the Government has been trying to secure the six votes it needs from the crossbench.

The Government wants to cut funding for courses by 20 per cent but allow universities to set their own fees.

Mr Pyne this afternoon announced further changes in a last-ditch attempt to get the crossbench to support the bill.

He said the Government would set up a structural adjustment package to help universities that enrol a higher number of disadvantaged students.

He also gave a commitment that domestic student fees will be lower than international students.

At this stage the Government's plans are facing almost certain defeat because four crossbench senators have declared their opposition to it.

Senator Lazarus said he and fellow PUP senator Dio Wang would vote against the changes.

"Christopher Pyne is embarrassing himself and needs to stop harassing me and other crossbenchers," the former State of Origin star said in a statement.

"I am being inundated with text messages from Christopher Pyne virtually begging me to support the Abbott Government's higher education reforms."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-02/glenn-lazarus-christopher-pyne-back-off-uni-reforms/5933840

See toon at top...

 

 

Where to start with the uni deregulation mess?

 

By Stephen Parker

Updated yesterday at 12:16pmTue 2 Dec 2014, 12:16pm

 

Thank you for inviting me to speak here at one of the oldest public spaces in Australian higher education. Let me say what other vice-chancellor's haven't: the deregulation of university fees is about ideology, not budget savings, and it will only hurt students. Stephen Parker writes.

Had someone told me last summer that I would be speaking in the Quadrangle on the first day of next summer to defend public universities, I would have ridiculed the idea.

Somehow I believed what the Coalition wrote in early 2013, that there would be no change to university funding arrangements.

Somehow I believed what Tony Abbott said to the Universities Australia conference in March 2013 that we could expect a period of benign neglect from an Abbott Government.

And somehow I believed what he said two days before the election in September 2013, that there would be no cuts to education.

It is the last of these canards that is so shocking. He knew he was going to win, so he didn't even need to promise it to gain votes.

But here we are and here I am.

A further surprise has been to find myself the only vice-chancellor to say publicly what at least a few actually believe.

I have tried to understand other vice-chancellors' perspectives. I've worked at Group of Eight and more modern universities. I was the senior DVC [deputy vice-chancellor] at Monash. I know the pressures: but nothing justifies the position that they and UA have taken.

These reforms are unfair to students and poorly designed policy. If they go through, Australia is sleepwalking towards the privatisation of its universities. And ironically they will be the death knell of our peak group, Universities Australia, which could not survive them for long.

Let me explain.

Unfair to students

These reforms are unfair to students - the constituency to which I have devoted 35 years of my working life.

They have to lead to significant increases in student debt; because this is part of the Government's case for them.

Minister Pyne says the reforms are a way to bring fresh funding into universities, so he must assume that we will go further than just replace government cuts with higher tuition fees.

Australian students already pay a higher proportion of their tuition than those in most OECD countries. This will blight the lives of a generation, unless Australia comes to its senses. Today [December 1] Mission Australia released its Youth Survey showing that most teenagers rank career success as their top aspiration, but only around half feel the goal is attainable. It will become a whole lot harder under these changes.

And the impact on women and certain professions will be worse, as Ben Phillips and I have demonstrated inarticles in The Conversation, when we modelled the likely HECS debts of female scientists, nurses and teachers based on typical career trajectories.

Poor policy design

These reforms are poorly designed policy. Where do I start?

They emerged as a budget measure, but they won't save the taxpayer money in any real sense.

A fundamental feature of HECS is that the Government forwards all the money upfront to the University. So if fees go up by more than the cuts, the Commonwealth shells out more from day one. Default will rise. More students will work overseas - legitimately, this is not evasion - and so only through some arcane aspect of accounting standards can this even look as if it is a savings measure.

This isn't a savings measure: it is ideology in search of a problem.

But it gets worse. Bizarrely there is no guarantee that a single cent of the extra money will go into the student's course: it could go into research, infrastructure, paying for past follies or current cock-ups. It's tempting, believe me, I make them too, but it's wrong.

The internal equity aspect of the policy design is laughable: why should the second poorest quartile of students subsidise the lowest quartile?

So I ask myself which policy amateur came up with the scheme in the first place?

Sleep walking towards privatisation

In June this year I wrote in The Conversation about the slide towards privatisation. I compared universities with public utilities where the then managements were initially encouraged to be "commercial" and "competitive". Then they were actually pitted against private providers. Then the utilities were privatised themselves, and required a complete focus on private profit.

The privatisation that we are sleep-walking towards may or may not involve shareholders and the stock market - but it will involve the removal of the public voice.

I can hear the argument in my head already. Some vice-chancellor, perhaps one who has championed competition reforms in an earlier life or been the CEO of a large public company, will say: now that universities compete for places and on price, and they compete with private providers, including multi-nationals, we need a level playing field.

"We have one hand tied behind our backs. We need to be 'set free', so let's get auditor-generals out of the place, let's stop state governments appointing our Senates and Councils, and let's get staff and students off them whilst we are at it."

And so on. It will all have a compelling logic because of the corner we have boxed ourselves into.

Death knell of Universities Australia

These reforms also ring the death knell of our peak body - Universities Australia. The support that UA is giving them is a strange form of suicide ritual.

Older universities, which have benefited from decades of public money, built a brand at taxpayer expense and who now want to run away with it, will raise their fees more, the stratification of institutions will intensify, competition and dog-eat-dog will be the order of the day: and when they have milked the peak group for what they can get out of it, the elites will dance away in a figure eight formation.

We have just seen a week of bizarre national adverts from UA, presumably aimed at six cross-bench senators at the most, full of Orwellian doublespeak that the reforms are fair to students.

Whether it breaks up soon because the tensions are too great, or it survives until the interest group factions have no more use for it and spit it out, UA is doomed because it has lost its moral compass.

I personally will not attend a further meeting of an organisation with necrotizing fasciitis; the condition where the body eats its own flesh.

Wake up

So wake up Australia if you want to preserve your children's life chances.

Wake up academia - especially those of you who write about public policy but have been strangely silent on this issue.

Wake up senators - you know not what you are playing with - you are aiding and abetting a fraud on the electorate.

Maintain the fight everyone. If the Government won't take the honourable course of acknowledging these reforms are a gross violation of pre-election promises and put them before the electorate, then we must make sure that they lose that election because of them. And I believe they will, as the Victorian state election on Saturday indicated.

Stand up everyone for public universities, reject the reforms, join us at the table for a sensible conversation, without a gun at our heads, about how to make Australian public higher education great.

Congratulations to NAPU; you are doing what your seniors are too complacent to do.

This speech was delivered at the National Alliance For Public Universities Forum at the University of Sydney on December 2. It was originally published on the University of Canberra website.

Professor Stephen Parker is vice-chancellor of the University of Canberra. View his full profile here.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-02/parker-uni-deregulation-speech/5933302

 

 

The Federal Government has given up nearly $3.5 billion in potential savings in a renewed effort to get its higher education overhaul through the Senate.

The Senate last night voted down the Government's legislation to deregulate universities, but this morning Education Minister Christopher Pyne introduced a revised bill into the Lower House.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-03/government-sacrificing-billions-uni-reform-through-parliament/5936254

If you believe this, you are being conned by Pyne and Abbott... Remember the promises made before the elections? Well take a second look at this new model of lies... As soon as the "education overall" gets through the figures will be fiddled by the Abbott Regime to get what you don't want... An elitist university system and religious education in public schools plus a bad revision of the curriculum to favour the old whitey neo-fascist views. Don't pass this new sneaky package... It still contains the poison of "deregulation".

 

 

 

From John Birmingham

 

There have been some cruel and stupid things said about Glenn Lazarus and Jacqui Lambie since they arrived in the Senate. There's probably been some hard words between them too, since Lambie opted out of Clive Palmer's excellent adventure. But these two newbie Senators covered themselves in glory this week, speaking the plain truth about Viscount Christophe du Pyne's scheme to turn Australia's public universities into private businesses where only the monied elite may soon dare tread.

Some may hold Lazarus' history against him; one of the most punishing players in one of the hardest, most violent professional sports in the world. Who is this Neanderthal to presume that he might add anything to the public discourse? And Lambie, with her rank suburban ignorance, her gauche and brazen manner – who the hell does she think she is, having that tiny mind of her own?

They're Senators, that's who and this week they helped put an end to Pyne's egregiously cruel and stupid "reform" plans for higher education. The air quotes are necessary because as ever when dealing with Pyne, his idea of reform is to take a rubber hose to the lower orders, thrashing at the dumb brutes until they finally lumber off, leaving him to dab with a silken kerchief at the thin trickle of sweat emerging from the crinkle-cut forest of his hairline.

Oh, how much nicer it will be when those horrid proles are put back in their place and venture onto the manicured grounds of the university only to rake leaves and clean toilets for the right sort of people.

People like Viscount Pyne.

Lazarus, a father of two children recently graduated from university with their very own HECS debts, was having none of Christophe's weasel words. A Brick with Eyes he may be, but those eyes see well enough the ball and chain his kids now carry. Turn the universities into corporate entities, seeking profits before knowledge, and seeing students as mere income streams, and those debts will quickly balloon, exactly as they have in the US, into crushing financial millstones that normal people simply cannot bear.

As Lambie put it brutally and honestly, this isn't about reform. It's about making sure working people never get ahead. About making sure they never even get a chance.

***

I made a mistake in last week's column about the ABC and CSIRO cuts, when I emphasised how awful it would be for the hundreds of people who faced the Christmas season not knowing how they'd pay their bills.

Somebody mentioned in the comments that the greatest loss for many would be the work itself. Not the pay cheque that came with it. And the sad truth of that revealed itself this week in the story of Dr San Thang, an organic chemist with 30 years of honourable service to his adopted country. The CSIRO scientist has been tipped at short odds for a Nobel Prize based on his research, which has already been exploited by companies like Dulux, L'Oreal and IBM.

His reward for this service? The arse.

Dr Thang was made redundant in September. The 60-year-old researcher was  "rewarded" with an "honorary" fellowship, however, allowing him to keep using his lab and teaching his students, but not for anything so tawdry as a pay day. The shame of this grows hotter because Thang refuses to express anything other than humble gratitude for the opportunities extended him by the CSIRO.

"In Australia," he told Fairfax this week, the doors opened [for me] and I still want to be part of CSIRO and elsewhere to make use of my knowledge, I want to inspire people. Being a scientist, that's what I love to do."

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/senate-v-pyne-a-victory-for-the-people-20141205-11zd9v.html

 

See toon at top...

 

The Federal Government has rolled out an advertising campaign spruiking its proposed changes to universities just days after the Senate defeated its plan to deregulate the sector.

The television and radio advertisements are set to an upbeat tune and tell the audience "Uni graduates can earn 75 per cent more than school leavers and have more career opportunities" and "That's why the Australian Government will continue to pay around half your undergraduate degree and HECS covers the rest".

"So you pay zero course fees up front," the ads say.

Last Wednesday, the Senate voted down the Government's proposed changes, which included allowing universities to set their own fees and a 20 per cent cut in funding to the higher education sector.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-08/coalition-rolls-out-ad-blitz-promoting-proposed-uni-changes/5951888

 

Read from top... Pyne could not run a kindergarten... Not even behave in one, as an inmate... Meanwhile at the dark face of poetry:

A news website has agreed not to publish any further emails written by Professor Barry Spurr, who was suspended by the University of Sydney in October for making racist and sexist remarks.

But New Matilda has been allowed to keep already published emails online under a settlement between the site and Professor Spurr's lawyers.

Professor Spurr took the publisher and editor of New Matilda to the Federal Court in October over one of its stories, which revealed emails he wrote that referred to Prime Minister Tony Abbott as an "Abo-lover" and Nelson Mandela as a "darky".

He also described Aboriginal people as "human rubbish tips" and reminisced about the 1950s, when there were not so many "bogans", "fatsoes", "Mussies" and "Chinky-poos" around.

A poetry specialist, Professor Spurr defended the emails, telling New Matilda they were mainly to one recipient and were part of a "whimsical" game.

During a hearing in October, lawyers for Professor Spurr told the court he was collateral damage in a political attack on the Federal Government by New Matilda over the national English curriculum review.

Professor Spurr was a consultant to the Government over the review.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-08/barry-spurr-new-matilda-can-keep-racist-emails-online-court-says/5950784

----------------------------------

The verses, when they were written, resembled nothing so much as spoonfuls of boiling oil, ladled out by a fiendish monkey at an upstairs window upon such of the passers-by whom the wretch had a grudge against.

                                         Lytton Strachley (1925)

 

 

Tho' Theban taste the Saxon purse controuls,

And pensions Tennyson while starves a Knowles.

                  Edward Bulwer-Lyton...

 

Who kill'd the girls and thrill'd the boys,

    With dandy pathos when you wrote,

A Lion you, that made a noise,

    And shook a mane en papillotes ...

                    Alfred Lord Tennyson

 

The four lines from Tennyson are contained in a poem he wrote to chastise Bulwer-Lyton for attacking him, but someone "stole it from him" and published it in Punch. Tennyson was mortified by what he had written and sent two stanzas of recantation called "An Afterthought".

 

-------------------------------

Meanwhile, in modern poetrical circles:

 

The University of Sydney professor Barry Spurr has resigned from his post after racist and sexist emails, sent from his work account, were published by a news website.

Spurr last week reached a confidential agreement with New Matilda, the independent news website that published the emails, after taking the case to the federal court and demanding the emails be returned to him.

He had also demanded no further correspondence be published and that the emails published on the news website be taken down. The court ordered that New Matilda be allowed to keep already published emails online but that no new emails be published.

In October Spurr dropped a bid to have the source of the emails revealed.

A two-sentence statement released by his employer on Thursday morning said: “University of Sydney announced that Professor Barry Spurr has submitted his resignation and the university has accepted it.

 

“At Professor Spurr’s request, the university will provide no further comment on this matter.”

Spurr had been under pressure to resign after calling people racist names in the emails such as “Abo’s” and “chinky-poos”.

He described the prime minister, Tony Abbott, as an “Abo lover”, writing that he would have to be surgically separated from his “Siamese twin”, Australian of the Year and Aboriginal, Adam Goodes.

He also labelled Indigenous Australians “human rubbish tips” and described Nelson Mandela as a “darky”.

In his submission to court, Spurr repeated his argument that the emails were a “whimsical” word game with colleagues and friends. He argued New Matilda was in possession of “stolen” information as he did not believe the emails were forwarded to the news site, but rather hacked.

Spurr was a “special consultant” on the government’s curriculum review, in which he recommended that the English curriculum place more emphasis on western literature and said Indigenous culture had little impact on Australia’s literature.

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/dec/18/barry-spurr-resigns-after-publication-of-racist-and-sexist-email

 

 

 

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten should adopt a less negative stance and try to cut a deal with the Abbott government on higher education policy, according to former Labor MP Maxine McKew.

Ms McKew, who unseated then Prime Minister John Howard at the 2007 election, said Labor risked losing its "pre-eminence" in education policy unless it presented a compromise plan to overhaul university funding.

Ms McKew, an Honorary Fellow at the University of Melbourne's Graduate School of Education, said she despaired in December when the Senate blocked the government's higher-education package, which includes a full deregulation of university fees.

"It was the worst of all worlds – it left a critical social and economic sector at a total policy impasse," she said.

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"I'm looking for the Labor party – which has always had pre-eminence in education policy – to find a way through the impasse.

"I want Labor to be a positive player, not just a blocker."

 

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/maxine-mckews-message-to-labor-strike-a-deal-on-uni-reform-20150118-12rlfl.html

 

-------------------------

 

Max! dear Maxine... Dealing with Christopher Pyne is like dealing with Monty Python's department of the absurd. Yes I know, you and him and his turdy chief Abbott are all Catholics (devout), thus you see education from this narrow slit in the castle wall.

Pyne's education policy (if one can call his abortion, a "policy") is retrograde, idiotic and pseudo-market driven on an uneven playing field, full of pot holes, prejudices and idiosyncrasies — designed to keep the poorest amongst us out. This does not mean we should not encourage people to become plumbers. But this encouragement should be made across the entire spectrum of the social base. Say no to "elitism" by default...

One has to entirely oppose what Pyne is proposing.

 

Education Minister Christopher Pyne has declared he is "contemplating victory" on the Government's plan to deregulate universities, despite continued opposition in the Senate.

Mr Pyne says the Government is preparing to put the changes to a vote in the upper house on Wednesday.

The Coalition is still search of crucial crossbench votes, but Mr Pyne told the ABC's Insiders program he has "never left the battlefield".

"I always fought right through to the end and we will fight right through to the vote," he said.

"It's too important not to win for students and for universities and for Australia."

The Government has threatened to reduce scientific research funding if the legislation is defeated, arguing the Coalition would have to seek savings elsewhere if deregulation is not embraced.

"There are consequences for not voting for this reform and that's very important for the crossbenchers to understand," Mr Pyne said.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-15/pyne-declaring-victory-on-university-deregulation/6320478

--------------------------

Pyne is a little shit, in the mold of the greater turd Abbott who is black-mailing the senate into submission to change higher education into an elitist bastion. Kick him in the balls... 

 

See also: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/1700-researchers-become-the-bargaining-chip-in-government-fight-to-uncap-university-fees-20150314-144ckd.html

 

Key crossbench senator Nick Xenophon has accused the Education Minister of "holding 1,700 scientists hostage" by threatening science job cuts if his university deregulation bill fails.

Christopher Pyne said the Government was preparing to put the changes to a vote in the Upper House on Wednesday.

Labor and the Greens remain staunchly opposed to the proposal and the Government is yet to secure crossbench support.

Mr Pyne has threatened to reduce scientific research funding if the legislation is defeated, arguing the Coalition would have to seek savings elsewhere if deregulation was not embraced.

"There are consequences for not voting for this reform and that's very important for the crossbenchers to understand," Mr Pyne told the ABC's Insiders program.

"The consequences are that potentially 1,700 researchers will lose their jobs."

Senator Xenophon said cuts of that size would turn Australia into a "dumb country" and send Australia's best scientists overseas.

"I just can't believe that Christopher Pyne is holding 1,700 scientists hostage to this policy," he said.

"This is not the way to negotiate with the Senate, it is reckless, it is irresponsible."

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-15/xenophon-critical-of-pyne-science-job-cuts-linked-to-reform-bill/6320478

 

A discussion paper's proposal to make wealthy parents pay to send their children to public schools has been rejected by Education Minister Christopher Pyne.

The idea was among the options floated in a Federal Government discussion paper considering a radical overhaul of the nation's education system, which has been circulated to state and territory governments.

The paper suggests four options:

• Giving states and territories full responsibility for all schools
• Making states and territories fund public schools while the Federal Government funds non-government schools
• Reducing Commonwealth involvement in schools
• Making the Commonwealth the main funder of all schools

The last plan, part of the green paper on federation reform, would see funding "adjusted for student need and the ability of families to make a contribution".

But this morning Mr Pyne said the Federal Government would not support a means test.

"Charging wealthy parents for their children to attend public schools is not the government's policy. I don't support it," he tweeted.

"If the states and territories want to charge wealthy parents fees for public schools that's a matter for them.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-22/government-rejects-proposal-to-means-test-public-schooling/6562562

------------------------------

WHY WASTE TIME AND MONEY ON such STUPID PROPOSALS?... I know the Liberals (CONservatives) may do this to test the "water" and look busy. But I have the sneaky feeling that it's another Trojan horse devised by Turdy's men. See How Pyne flicks the ball like a midfielder to a "state" forward for whom it becomes the responsibility to make a choice and shoot a goal... It's "delegated hypocrisy"... Making sure someone else is blooded to think about doing the bad deed which for the state would mean more cash but in real term less cash from Canberra for education...

Sneaky little bastards...

See toon at top

 

Tony Abbott applauds 'creative thinking' behind means-tested public education proposal

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has not ruled out a controversial idea to make wealthy families pay for their children to attend public schools but says it would be a decision for the states and territories.

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-applauds-creative-thinking-behind-meanstested-public-education-proposal-20150622-ghtz4x

 

-----------------------------

 

This of course is a sneaky way to destroy the universal Public School system in this country... Something that Turdy would be proud of achieving by trickery and delegation, so none of the crap would fall back on his turdy face.... Turdy Abbott is a through and through UGLY CAPITALIST with a dash of religious idiocy flowing in his shitty blood... Any public organisation is an anathema to this shitty little man. He is pushing for Chaplains in public schools... and don't forget that his daughter may have got preferential treatment from a private school that gave cash to the Liberal (CONservative) Party... 

He has to go... Turdy has to go... He is a liar a thief and a dishonest disgrace to this country. We need you Malcolm... Rise to the F%$#@&ing occasion Malcolm... Stop being a poltroon and a coward... 

 

The federal government has incurred more than $20,000 in legal costs fighting the release of figures showing the impact of removing limits on university fees.

The government also reaffirmed its plan to bring its higher education overhaul back to parliament before the end of 2015, despite the Senate’s decision to block the unpopular policy twice in the past eight months.

Officials revealed the cost of the freedom-of-information battle and declared the government’s intention to press ahead with deregulation in newly tabled answers to outstanding questions from budget estimates committee hearings.

The Department of Education and Training said: “The department engaged the Australian Government Solicitor to represent it in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal [AAT].”

“The cost for this service was $20,932.78.”

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/aug/04/university-fee-deregulation-coalitions-20000-fight-to-keep-modelling-secret

 

Pyne and Turdy are like two rotten bananas on the same bunch...