Oh I see. So because receive a free education he should be prevented from making sensible policy decisions? So does that mean we should tear down hecs /help because Bob Hawke got his degree for free?

Deregulating the university system is the next evolution in higher education, it's going to make universities more competitive and therefore raise the standards of teaching and learning. America has about 20 of the worlds top 50 universities, clearly they got their shit together over there, but somehow that message and and all it success gets lost because a few poorer kids get priced out of the system. We should look to America for guidance on how things should be done (ie deregulation) while ensuring that poorer folk can defer paying for their loans until they are earning a high enough income to do so (ie hecs).

Unfortunately that mathematics modelling is piss poor. $200k plus might sound like a whopping big amount in today's terms but in 48 years it's going to seem more like say, $48k in today's terms, maybe a little higher.

Fucking lol.

Yes let's look at America for their model on University fees.

Classic.

-PB

Most people apart from the richest one percent would be unable to afford university education without HECS. Most people would need it.

Haha, oh boy, saying that a huge debt now won't look so bad in the future because of inflation is definitely a new way of looking at things.

Awful, ridiculous and scraping the bottom of the tory apologetic barrel sure, but it's new all the same.

Mine aren't, depending on who's definition you go by.

Afropedia says my parents are baby boomers.

It's not really a new way of looking at things, it's pretty much a basic economic formula, net present value.

I can understand though how pulling out big scary numbers with lots of digits might influence the perceptions of some.

Yeah how dare beneficiaries of higher education should pay for it. Make fuckn sparkies and garbos pay for that shit.

People on apprenticeships (e.g. sparkies) are subsidised by tax payers too ;)

Why not extend this logic to primary/secondary education? Why should I pay for someone else getting sick?

And garbos rightly won't be paying as much income tax as people with higher incomes, namely people who also got higher education degrees to get to that level of income themselves.

Why should I pay for the dole? I have a job.

Why should I pay for child care? I don't have kids.

Why should I pay for the ABC and SBS? I don't watch TV.

Why should I pay for tollroads and freeways all over the country that I'll never drive on? I catch the train.

Why should I pay for old person's homes and palliative care? I'm not old or dying.

Why should I pay for fire brigades? My house isn't on fire.

Why should I pay for cops to catch murderers and rapists? I've never been murdered or raped.

Why should I pay for this country to be defended? I have another country's passport as a backup anyway.

Where do you draw your line?

What blows me away is that the universities tell us all that they will have to charge way more for their services and they can't afford to fund themselves, but at the moment i am carrying out work for a university that has well over $500 million worth of properties, has further millions upon millions of $$$$ tied up in stocks bonds and shares, so where did all this money come from.....?? it also has so many layers of management and so many parasites in the system that is is just ludicrous.........also a good friend of our family is the main accounts administrator for another leading university and her budget each year is $700 million...!!!!!! i was gobsmacked......

yeah so deregulation may not be the answer , but we need the $ going into the uni system to be spent on the education of the people paying those funds

I just realised that we haven't even had 12 months of this government yet and it's a fucking trainwreck. Imagine another 3 years.

[youtube]aUGScmgAOtE[/youtube]

The Libs are getting a bit of a boost in the polls with all this fear mongering. Oldest trick in the book. Labor and Shorten are trying their best to look "statesmen-like" too. All quite sad.

Yep.

Haha it's like they said, Budget is going bad so distract the public with Terrorism :lol:

-PB

Here’s the interesting bits from the article below -

-   Current Western Bulldogs President Peter Gordon (of Slater and Gordon fame, the actual 'Gordon' himself) has been called to give evidence at the Trade Union Royal Commission (into the mid 1990s AWU Slush Fund).
-   Research shows that Peter Gordon sacked Julia Gillard from Slater and Gordon in 1995 for alleged Union fraud.
-   It is interesting to note that Peter Gordon became Western Bulldogs President in the time that Gillard was Prime Minister. It's also well known that Gillard is a Western Bulldogs fan.
-   This information, goes with previous data dropped here about strong ALP/AFL links. Examples include the Bill Kelty/ACTU/AFL Commission/Evans and Partners links, the Justin Madden/Mark Thompson/Armstrong Creek property deal links.

Thanks,


http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/investigations/awu-slush-fund-in-spotlight-as-royal-commission-calls-julia-gillard/story-fng5kxvh-1227039326535


AWU ‘slush fund’ in spotlight as royal commission calls Julia Gillard
THE AUSTRALIAN AUGUST 28, 2014 12:00AM

National Chief Correspondent
Brisbane

THE royal commission into union corruption is calling Julia Gillard and a serving Federal Court judge, her former boss at law firm Slater & Gordon, to give evidence about allegations of fraud in the AWU slush fund scandal.

The commission, headed by retired High Court judge Dyson Heydon QC, has advised lawyers for the former prime minister and judge Bernard Murphy that they will be questioned under oath.

Other witnesses asked to provide statements and give evidence include one of Ms Gillard’s best friends, Robyn McCleod, senior solicitor John Cain junior, Queensland millionaire coal¬miner and marina owner Paul Darrouzet, former AWU Victoria boss Bob Smith, and former heads of building company Thiess.

The hearings will occur over three days from September 9 when the anti-graft probe returns to its investigation of a union slush fund, which was established with legal advice from Ms Gillard to her then boyfriend, allegedly corrupt Australian Workers Union boss Bruce Wilson.

Justice Murphy headed the industrial unit at Slater & Gordon until he and Ms Gillard left the firm in 1995 amid a breakdown in trust among the firm’s partners over the discovery of the fund and a public controversy over another matter. The fund, called the AWU Workplace Reform Association, received large sums of money from Thiess in the 1990s. Shortly before she left the firm as a salaried partner, Slater & Gordon’s then boss, Peter Gordon, conducted an internal probe into the fund amid concerns that Mr Wilson, whose union was a significant client of the firm, had used it in a large fraud.

The AWU Workplace Reform Association registration documents that went to the West Australian government claimed its role was work safety and training.

During the confidential internal probe, Ms Gillard told Mr Gordon in a tape-recorded interview in 1995 that the association was really a “slush fund” for union elections. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were paid by Thiess into the slush fund.

Ms Gillard has vehemently denied wrongdoing, saying she had no knowledge of the operations of the fund. Mr Wilson has also denied wrongdoing.

In June this year, several witnesses at the royal commission — former AWU staff member Wayne Hem, former AWU official Ralph Blew¬itt and retired builder Athol James — testified that Mr Wilson was behind the payment of thousands of dollars to Ms Gillard, including for the costs of renovating her home in inner Melbourne. Ms Gillard has emphatically and repeatedly declared since 2012 that she paid for her renovations.

An ongoing Victoria Police Fraud Squad investigation, which has executed search warrants at the law firm, the AWU’s offices and other venues, has been sharing some of its evidence with the royal commission.

The decision to call Justice Murphy, a solicitor who was appointed to the Federal Court by Ms Gillard’s then attorney-general, Robert McClelland, will surprise many lawyers as it is rare for senior serving judges to be called to a royal commission.

Ms McCleod, who recently left her South Australian government-appointed role of Water Commissioner, is understood to have been asked to provide evidence about her knowledge of a separate Victorian slush fund controlled by Mr Wilson.

It is understood that Mr Cain, the Victorian government’s former top solicitor, will be asked about his role as a lawyer at the firm, Maurice Blackburn, in 1995 when he was involved in helping Mr Wilson repay tens of thousands of dollars to other companies, including Woodside, which had poured money into accounts tied to a Victorian slush fund. This action came after Slater & Gordon had sacked Mr Wilson as a client at around the time Ms Gillard and Mr Murphy departed.

Ms Gillard has previously said that nobody at Slater & Gordon was aware of her work in helping establish the AWU Workplace Reform Association slush fund, and Justice Murphy is likely to be questioned about this. Ms Gillard’s legal work for the slush fund was not apparent because she did not open a file at the firm.

The Australian understands that Mr Darrouzet, who was a human resources head at Thiess in the 1990s, will be questioned about his knowledge of payments Thiess made to the Victorian slush fund, and the relationships between Ms McCleod and the building company. Bob Smith is expected to give evidence about the concerns within the union at the time Mr Wilson’s secret accounts were discovered and the actions taken at the time by himself, former AWU national head Ian Cambridge, now a Fair Work commissioner, and the AWU’s former head, Bill Ludwig.




Edited by wamackie: 29/8/2014 11:05:26 AM

Weren't you the one making the ALP/AFL "links"? :lol:

-PB

You've got high level back up here PB http://michaelsmithnews.typepad.com/.a/6a0177444b0c2e970d01b8d05dc5d8970c-pi

Edited by wamackie: 29/8/2014 01:55:50 PM

Green Politics: Use the armed forces to stop whaling but don't use them to assist people getting slaughtered in the middle east.

What a joke of a political party!

so you think the Greens should support another Aussie invasion of Iraq...

So you're happy to sit back and watch ISIS commit genocide?

i'm not watching, why would i waste my time...

:lol: Sorry i forgot i'm not allowed to comment because you know more than me on the subject.

Western Intervention in Iraq caused this shitstorm in the first place, how outrageous it is to suggest that doing that again might be an unwise risk of Australian lives! Invading Iraq again will mean committing to another conflict that is significantly more complicated than just ousting a ruling regime. It is the neighbouring nations of Iran, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon that need to be taking more responsibility in stabilising the region.

At least using the armed forces to stop whaling is an action that protects Natural resources in Australian territory.

I'm a bit split on the whole ISIS thing and how to handle it. On one hand I don't want to see innocent people being killed, on the other I don't believe we should be committing troops on the ground to try and solve the issue (as it was our intervention last time that created groups like ISIS).

Maybe we sit back and let the snake eat its tail and things just run their respective courses? At some point the world will be off the crude oil teat and then countries like Iraq will go back to being how they were 100-150 years ago (from a western point of view) but I guess in the meantime we just commit to surgical bombing.

Either way I'm sceptical. It's hard finding any decent information about a resistance to such a wave of evil (and that's without having the western media distorting it). Surely if people hated this incursion so much they would fight back, how is it that a hundred or so ISIS troops could roll into a city like Mosul and just take it over without resistance?

Maybe people in Iraq want to live this way in a Caliphate under ISIS rule? Maybe they should be polling that?

Jokes aside, while I feel there is a need to do something, it is at least good to see the rhetoric this time round (from the US) change to be something of taking their time rather than rushing in Bush style (although that is probably because the US is still feeling the financial sting of things). While the beheading of a reporter is terrible, don't think it's worth committing to another 5+ years of war over.

-PB

I agree.

I still think we should open the doors up to refugees that want to leave, then leave the IS the fuck alone for them to either prosper as a self sufficient state, or to self implode (which is more likely).

inb4 rusty "THEY HATE OUR VALUES AND WANT TO KILL US"

Maybe if we left them the fuck alone they would want to kill us less.