Bald hypocrisy: the media on public funding of private schools

Over the past couple of weeks or months I've seen the occasional headline on how Kevin Rudd is pouring taxpayer dollars into the pockets of filthy rich private schools. 'Overpayment', as the Fairfax papers have been referring to the practice.

Here's the most recent, in the SMH:

PRIVATE schools in Australia will receive up to $23 million each in overpayments over the next four years because of the Rudd Government's commitment to a deal that John Howard struck.

It will cost the taxpayer $2.6 billion to maintain the funding of more than half the country's Catholic and independent schools above their entitlements.

An internal federal Department of Education review in December 2006 said the special funding arrangement ''entrenches purely historical inequities''.

Now, there happens to be something missing from this analysis. Indeed, the current system was devised under John Howard, a man whose mission in life was to dismantle the public institutions of education and healthcare in this country. A man whose mess in those departments Kevin Rudd is still mopping up (if not as quickly as he should be).

It is also true that the current funding arrangement entrenches historical inequities between rich and poor, and the quality of the education received by children attending the public system.

But something carefully omitted from the facts reported in the article was the reason why Kevin Rudd, who vocally championed the public education system during the 2007 election, would be desirous of funneling billions of taxpayer dollars into wealthy private schools.

That reason? The massive media campaign, for which Fairfax papers were side-by-side with the Murdoch rags, against Mark Latham's plan to remove these historical inequities by modifying the funding system and ensuring that greedy, rich private schools weren't sucking up undeserved taxpayer funding.

Labor's private school hit list

- was just one such example of the kind of reporting that the papers today decrying Kevin Rudd's continuation of the existing wasteful, unfair system, perpetrated in their own campaign to continue the system they now purport to condemn. In a 2006 article, Anthony Ashbolt of the Centre for Policy Development provided some analysis of the issue, including how the Labor Party bought into the journalistic hype on the issue- hype in the form of a tasty soundbite snaffled straight from the Liberal Party songbook. Obviously the fallout from the 2004 disaster continues to colour Labor Party policy today, and more's the pity, but it is too convenient for the media to be allowed to ignore the part they played in the continuation of excessive public funding of the nation's wealthiest private schools.

Breaking News - Turnbull Diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder!!!

"You need to look up narcissistic personality disorder. There's about 5 per cent of the population who are born with narcissistic traits, and about 2 per cent have narcissism. He's got narcissistic personality disorder.

"He says the most appalling things and can't understand why people get upset. He has no empathy.

"At first, I thought he was demonstrative, demanding, emotional and narcissistic, using his wealth and charm for seduction, and always with a sinister threat just beneath the surface."

Nelson cites the anecdote that Turnbull related to my colleague, Annabel Crabb, of how Kerry Packer had once threatened to kill him for pulling out of a business deal, and how Turnbull had responded by threatening to kill Packer if Packer's assassin missed.

"At first, I didn't think it was that bad. But it is. Most of the people who supported him [in the Liberal party room ballot for the leadership] voted for him to get rid of him," assuming that he would fail as leader and be discarded.

Ok, so it's from Dr Brendan, who has quite a bit to say about Malcolm Turnbull. Of course this blog posited NPD as a possible explanation for Turnbull's behaviour. I'm sticking to it, despite the generally dubious nature of personality disorders, a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Don't expect to see this as front page news. Party muck raking is only acceptable when it damages the Labor party. Kevin Rudd complaining about his meal is front page news but Turnbull's conduct towards his peers isn't.

Look over there! It's a distraction!

Anna Bligh is really tackling the hard issues this week. After moving to overturn Queensland's backward, barbaric laws that make abortion illegal and have seen the prosecution of a 19-year-old woman and her 21-year-old partner... oh wait, no, she hasn't done a thing about that, despite attempting a token gesture (aptly described as 'cowardly') in an effort to shut up concerned doctors and hospitals. As yet, thankfully the hospitals don't seem to have bought it.

Well, anyway, onto the real issue: Schapelle Corby should be brought home! Yeah! Way to attempt to distract Queenslanders from the unfavourable headlines focusing on how backward and stupid Queensland remains under its Labor government.

Allegedly Anna Bligh 'personally supports' womens' right to obtain safe abortions. Yet she has ruled out any change in the law in Queensland that currently makes these illegal. If she had an ounce of principle left in her she would ignore the nutbags in the LNP and the minority religious extremists and move to overturn those laws. But she doesn't, so she won't. What a sellout.

UPDATE 26/08/2009: Doctors have branded Anna Bligh a hypocrite for permitting more than 14 000 abortions every year to be carried out in Queensland while it remains illegal and she refuses to change the law. Obviously Queensland Health knows how desperately embarrassing it could be for the Bligh government if the situation arises where those 14 000+ women in need of the procedure are refused abortions by doctors:

Queensland Health officials will meet doctors in Brisbane today to try to convince them to continue providing both surgical and drug-induced abortions.

At least one woman has already been sent to a Sydney hospital for treatment.

[...]

Queensland doctors began boycotting abortions this month after police charged a 19-year-old Cairns woman and her boyfriend with criminal offences involving an allegedly self-administered abortion using the drugs RU486 and misoprostol, smuggled from overseas.

The state's biggest hospital -- the Royal Women's Hospital in Brisbane -- as well as hospitals in Logan, Mackay and Rockhampton have banned the procedure while Cairns Hospital is seeking legal advice.

CityCats sold to 'save money'

According to the Brisbane Times, the Brisbane City Council is set to:

reject offers from three banks and sell its CityCat ferries to the State Government, saving council between up to $19 million a year in running costs.

Really? Considering the state government will be leasing the ferries back to the BCC, it sounds like ratepayers will be paying the running costs and then some. If it were so unprofitable why would the state government be motivated to take this on? Obviously we're not getting screwed to the same extent as we would be if the BCC had gone with its original proposal of flogging the CityCats off to a private company, but this short-term cash-grab by Campbell Newman is only going to be bad for public transport users in the long run. I guess he needs the money to fund his stupid bloody budget black holes tunnels.

Too tired or lazy to put finger to keyboard...

I'd like to apologise for the dearth of recent posts... Of late my life has consisted of writing ethics proposals, paid casual data entry, attendance at a conference on fussy/problem feeders that entailed four consecutive ten hour days (eleven, once you count the ordeal of getting home in peak hour traffic), a couple of community nutrition presentations and, finally, house-hunting and the associated research entailed in that task. The house is filthy and frankly I'm a bit of a zombie. That means I'm able to read everyone else's blogs (including Gam's great posts) but pretty much can't muster up the brainpower to make m/any of my own. I'm not sick of blogging, I just don't have enough energy to procrastinate in the way I used to. Hopefully things will be back to normal soon :)

Screening kids for terrorist-potential vs Muzzling idiot politician

Labor backbencher Kelvin Thomson

Federal Labor backbencher Kelvin Thomson's colleagues must want to kick his stupid head in. Thomson yesterday told a foreign affairs forum that immigrants should be screened to weed out terrorists. Now, aside from the political stupidity of spouting the words 'immigrants' and 'terrorists' in the same sentence- a sure-fire way to send swathes of the bigoted voting public back into the arms of the Liberal National coalition- there is the pure unadulterated stupidity of Thomson's underlying assumption that the alleged terrorist-wannabes picked up in the Melbourne raids could somehow have been left on the shores of their native countries if Australia only had a Terror-Detector (TM) scan as part of our immigration screening process.

"Given time, it would be possible to get to the bottom of the background of applicants from Somalia and elsewhere to work out whether they have an association with fundamentalist groups and make a rational assessment of whether they pose a risk."

None of his colleagues seem to be willing to say it. Not a single journalist appears willing to say it, so I'll say it: BULLSHIT.

See, when you actually look at the ages of these alleged terrorists it appears that a good many of them came to Australia as young boys. This one, for example:

Mr Ahmed, who has been in Australia for 15 years, said his son and his family loved their adopted home: "We are very happy here ... we live among friends. How can my children do this? It's nonsense."

He said his son was married, had two children, studied engineering at RMIT and was due to graduate this year. He said the 25-year-old, who prayed at Preston Mosque, was hoping to get a job in the construction industry. The charges against his son had wrecked his life.

"It is very horrible," he said. "It destroys everything, even his choice of staying in Australia."

We all know you don't have to be particularly bright to be a politician- generally a good coating of slime will get a person where they need to be, should they choose that particular career path. So let's help Kelvin with some basic maths:

Problem:

Abdirahman Ahmed is 25 years old.

Abdirahman Ahmed came to Australia with his father 15 years ago.

How old was Abdirahman Ahmed when he came to Australia?


Answer:

25 - 15 = 10

Abdirahman Ahmed was 10 years old when he came to Australia

I'd like to see Kelvin Thomson propose a realistic solution as to how to assign immigrants of any age an individualised 'TerrPotential' score, let alone how to do it for small children. Let some intrepid journalist ask Kelvin just how he plans to delve into the background of every swarthy under-12-year-old entering the country (let's not pretend he's talking about pasty little British kids or even pasty British adults, for that matter). Come on Kelvin, out with it. How are you going to interrogate these potential mini-terrorists to ascertain their intentions a decade or two down the track?

His speech came as the Race Discrimination Commissioner, Graeme Innes, called for calm amid reports of a backlash against the Somali community in the wake of the arrest of the suspected terrorists.

His name is Kelvin, and he's not here to help.

Rudd-Rage: A Case study

Some of the emails from Grech released by a cowardly, arrogant Turnbull seeking to throw him to the wolves, are quite revealing.

From: Godwin Grech

Sent: Friday, 5 June 2009 10:41 PM
To: Malcolm Turnbull

Malcolm

Perhaps one way of getting me before a Committee to give evidence is to refer the OzCar Guarantee Bill, which is scheduled for Senate consideration in just over a week, to a Committee Inquiry.

Although we will be silly not to allow the Bill through, a short Committee Inquiry could be useful.

But it is important that any inquiry involve only me from Treasury.

Once this gets more momentum, they may try to stop me from appearing and send up one of my bosses instead.

I am the only person in Treasury to have worked on OzCar - quite remarkable really given that they normally allocate teams of about 10 people to such projects; but I have carried this on my own from the very start.

My point is that you will be on firm ground if you demand that only I appear.

I am happy for you to start using my name in Parliament or in media interviews when pressing for this.

In your interview with the ABC this morning, you referred to a Treasury official. I am OK for you to refer to me publicly to make it clear who you are after.

Also, with Swan daring you to haul up the relevant Treasury staff for investigation in Parliament on Thursday - you can simply dare him to follow through with his 'offer'.

I really do believe there is meat in this one.

Swan is probably more exposed than Rudd. Sure he disclosed the fact that he was making representations for Grant - but what is not appreciated is what I did - with the approval of the TO and Swan - in trying to get finance for Grant.

Ford Credit and the subsequent decision by ERC to allow Ford Credit to participate in OzCar - with Swan as ERC chair - is relevant to all of this.

Perhaps we should talk to sort out next steps.

Also, I am happy to meet with you and perhaps Abetz (no staffers) - to show you the various emails I have.

This may help you decide how strong you may want to push.

Let me know what you want to do.

Godwin

Ah Godwin and Malcolm. Does that sound like a whistle-blower or the Liberal party's go-to mole preparing to grease up the government?

It gets better though. Grech had a list of questions he fed to Turnbull and Abetz. Turnbull, being the self-aggrandising attention whore he is, hogged this line of questioning for himself, which he ran with in parliament. He didn't even have the brains to hand it to Tony Abbott or Joe Hockey, or even Julie Bishop. Oh no, Rudd's scalp was going to be all his. Either that or he tried to get Bishop to ask the questions and she told him to get stuffed, in which case Turnbull must be the first opposition leader to be outwitted by a hair-do.

Here's an interesting look into the mind of a sufferer of Rudd-Rage:


Note how the original question, provided by Grech (we haatessss Mr Rudd, yesssss we do! Godwin! Godwin!), fingers Rudd and Swan. Someone, and I like to think it was Turnbull himself, feverishly scribbled out Swan so they could focus on Rudd, because they hate him so much. They have a mental illness, it's not funny. These people need help and Grech is at least where he needs to be in a psych ward (he should still go to prison though).

And the best question suggested by Grech has to be this one:



"My question is to the Prime Minister. Is it not the case that Mr Godwin Grech, who is apparently associated with the ACT branch of the ALP, was despatched [sic] to do a deal to look after Mr Grant? Is this not a stark illustration of the gross politicisation of the Treasury?"

We know now that Grech was a Liberal party member and supporter. That he had a history of breaking the law to serve his political masters and that he actually did favours for dealers who were liberals. How did he know they were Liberals? Don't wait for the media to tell you, they're still either lying or can't figure out what's going on. The fact that Grech was so delusional that he thought this flimsy pretence would survive the barest scrutiny must surely be a sign of mental illness. Also I think we can conclude that the problem with the liberal party wasn't John Howard, it was the Liberal party. Gross, just ew. Howard would have come out with some sort of mealymouthed semi-I'm-sorry-I-got-caught apology, the media would go, 'oh you! You know I can't stay mad when you do that thing with your eyebrows! Come here you evil little homunculus you!' and we'd move on with some of us slowly dying inside. Turnbull on the other hand CANNOT be wrong about ANYTHING. When asked for regrets at his press conference, where he blamed the tides, the orbital angle of mars and Rudd for everything, he had a little George W Bush moment and said it was that he ever met Grech. Scary. I think we've had enough of infallible leaders.

Finally, please Kevin, purge the public service. There's obviously way too much dead wood in at least the treasury department if no one could figure out that leaks were coming from the one guy running the project the leaks were coming from.

The Ute that keeps on giving

Even though you will try Malcolm, yes you will.

Fresh off the ute is confirmation that Rudd and Swan had nothing to do with any dodgy emails or representations on behalf of anyone. but there are a few interesting tidbits which the moronic media will ignore as usual in pursuit of easy scandal-meat.

Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan have been cleared of seeking special treatment for a Brisbane car dealer, a report released this morning by Commonwealth Auditor-General Ian McPhee has found.

But the report levels a number of criticisms at Treasury and its officer Godwin Grech, who was in charge of running the OzCar scheme to help car dealers attain finance.

The report says Mr Grech gave preferential treatment to one car dealer, because he understood that the dealer was "Lib".

Of the 12 representations made to Mr Grech on behalf of car dealers, the responses "varied markedly".

Some were not responded to and others were given extensive assistance.

"The variability in Treasury's response did not reflect any instruction on the part of the Prime Minister or his office, the Treasurer or his office, or senior Treasury management that some representations were to receive more favourable treatment than others," the report, from the Australian National Audit Office, said.

The Opposition had claimed the Prime Minister and Treasurer sought special attention for car dealer John Grant.

But that claim was dramatically undermined by the revelation that Mr Grech had concocted an email sent from Mr Rudd's office.

No, fools, it's undermined by the fact that the guy who fabricated (he fabricated the email and then concocted the lies to support them. Stop abusing the word!) the email was actually providing certain dealers with special treatment because they were Liberals.

This morning's report criticises Treasury for not giving enough resources to the OzCar scheme, placing "a considerable workload" on Mr Grech.

Treasury said Mr Grech was offered extra help if he needed it, but he "always gave the impression that implementation was on track".

I'll bet it was on track, just not the track anyone else thought it should be on. I would also bet heavily against a govt. department not providing adequate support to an employee in a situation like that and opening themselves up to an easy compensation suit. I'd be surprised if he didn't have adequate oversight.

Responding to the report, Mr Grech denied that he gave extra help to one car dealer because its owner supported the Liberal Party.

The audit office said preferential treatment was give to one dealer, "motivated by, amongst other things, the personal circumstances of the dealer principal and Mr Grech's understanding that the dealer principal was a supporter of and donor to, the Liberal Party of Australia, with other records made by the official stating that he was 'Lib'."

SMH

Apparently Grech was interviewed while in a psych ward, probably seated next to a lawyer. With regard to the Public Service Act, this guy is in serious trouble. And that doesn't take into account the other laws he's likely to have broken if even half of this is true.

Now all this looks quite scandalous but as usual it's not the real story. The real story is the interactions between Grech, the Liberals and News Corp. in the lead up to this story. There are reports that Grech showed the faked email to the libs, then asked them not to show it to anyone. He then rang Turnbull to tell him that an Opposition Orifice journo (Steve Lewis) was sniffing around asking about John Grant (the guy who supposedly swapped a used ute for preferential treatment). This was because the libs had gone and leaked the fake email to the OO, who they knew could be trusted to legitimise the fake by asking them about it and starting the Rudd destroying scandal they've been desperate for. This seems to have included faking the actual layout of the email in their papers. At this stage Turnbull was marching around demanding resignations and picking out curtains for the lodge.

Before they leaked the email to the OO, Turnbull and Abetz, a disgusting lovechild of Dick Cheney and a door to door insurance salesman, grilled Grech for over an hour. During this time he fed them questions to ask during the OZCar hearings. This was never an incident of whistle blowing, it was a scumbag who thought the machinery of govt. was the personal plaything of his political party betraying the people he worked for (you) to work with another pack of morons and arrogant born to rule toads and create a scandal. As usual the Opposition Orifice was central to this. In fact I heard on the radio that they're alleged to have leaked news of the terror-raids that happened today hours before they happened. Surely not in an attempt to swamp this story.

Somehow, knowing this, the media are letting Grech spin this debauched tale of treachery, political skulduggery and outright violation of the law and the trust of the public to push personal politics into one of an overworked public servant who should have had more help. Bullshit. He's lying again to cover the tattered hide of the libs. If he was under all this pressure, why not leak that? We'd already had the appalling scandal of Rudd actually expecting the public service to work for a living, so why not leak that? Of course the Orifice will run sympathy stories and will ask, in mock outrage, why didn't Rudd do something to help a beleaguered public service? How could he sit back and watch as the champagne fountains ran dry and high ranking officers were reduced to breaking the law for the party they supported with the aid of a biased media organisation?

You'll barely hear a peep about the Grech, OO, liberal party triangle because the media would have to take a look at themselves and their miserable habit of constantly trying to insert themselves into stories so they can pretend to be movers and shakers as opposed to trained housepets of very rich men. Certainly the most we can hope for is that Grech goes where he belongs, which is prison. This needs to happen as an example to others who think that this is an appropriate use of their office. There is a massive difference between whistle blowing and this kind of disgusting, insidious bastardry.

Finally this entire affair has been a real insight into the personality of Malcolm Turnbull who appears to be every bit as arrogant, smug, self-serving and bullying as he seems. From bullying Grech to pony up info, then using fraudulent info to demand Rudd resign, refusing to accept any responsibility and then finally tossing Grech to the sharks when he could save him by admitting he pressured him. Pathetic. Just piss off back to the oak paneled boardrooms you came from.