Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott just demolished one of his latest reasons for proposing deregulation of university fees

This was Prime Minister Tony Abbott being quoted in The Australian on 14 March 2015 concerning his desire to deregulate university fees:

Mr Abbott said just one Australian university was now ranked in the world’s top 50.

“Why not try to get two in the top 20. Unless we take the dead hand of Canberra away that is going to be extremely difficult,” he said.

It seems Mr. Abbott has either not bothered to research the issue and relied on a single recent newspaper report or he is just making things up again because he knows News Corp media is not going to challenge the nonsense he spouts.

The 2014-15 Times Higher Education world university rankings survey (covering 400 universities) lists five Australian universities in the top 100 and two, I repeat two, in the top 50 universities.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2014-15/world-ranking

In which Australian Education Minister Christopher Pyne's nose grows longer and longer.....

The Australian depiction of Christopher Pyne and his deregulated university course fees

This was the Australian Education Minister Christopher Pyne being interviewed by The Insiders program on 15 March 2015:

Labor of course are the only reason why the crossbenchers are where the action is because Labor's taken themselves out of the conversation by being political opportunists, except of course we now see that they represent an existential threat to universities because of Kim Carr's policy of putting caps back on, paying on outcomes and shutting out low socioeconomic status students from university.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics Education and Work, Australia, May 2014 clearly states that:

Of those engaged in formal study, approximately 1.2 million (40%) were attending a higher education institution….

More than one third (39%) of people aged 15–64 years who were enrolled in a non-school qualification were studying for a Bachelor Degree….

Leaving aside the fact that is was past Labor federal governments which introduced first free university education then later low, no-interest loans to meet the shortfall between government funding of university places and course costs and, even adjusting this attendance figure for overseas students studying in this country, that still leaves an est. 1 million domestic university students of which an est 17.5% are from low socio-economic backgrounds.

In fact, the reason that the percentage stands nationally at an est. 17.5 is because the former Gillard Labor Government uncapped Commonwealth supported student places at Australian universities under the demand-driven system in 2012 and, this led to an immediate 0.5% enrolment increase within twelve months of low socio-economic students [Socio-economic Status of Schools and University Academic Performance: Implications for Australia’s Higher Education Expansion, December 2014]

Some universities can now boast 20% or more students from low-income family backgrounds.

When comparing the percentage of such students in the final years of the Gillard Government with percentages during the Howard Coalition Government, it is clear that numbers being admitted to university from this group were lower during the Howard years – in the first three years the percentage never rose above 14.7% [Socioeconomic Background and Higher Education Participation, 2002] and didn’t reach 16% until the early 2000s.

Mr. Pyne appears to have offered up his strange claims to voters before this.

As Labor’s higher education policy, the Shadow Minister for Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Industry Kim Carr pointed out at a Universities Australia conference on 12 March 2015.

The Minister and some supporters of deregulation have chosen to wilfully misinterpret my past remarks as a signal that Labor intends to impose an enrolment freeze.

Let me categorically reject that claim.

Mr Pyne’s so-called analysis of these claims is based on a lie.

Under Labor, the number of student places will continue to grow. Under Labor, universities will be properly funded.

Captains Catholic strike again! OR Are Abbott & Pyne yearning for papal knighthoods after they retire?

In a move bound to incense many of the 22 per cent of all Australians (4,796,791 people) who declared they had no religion in the 2011 national census and one confirming a disturbing pattern of behaviour, Messrs Abbott and Pyne have decided that taxpayers will now help fund the religious training of clergy in this country.

The Age 5 December 2014:

Taxpayers would subsidise the training of priests and other religious workers at private colleges for the first time under the Abbott government's proposed higher education reforms.  

As well as deregulating university fees and cutting university funding by 20 per cent, the government's proposed higher education package extends federal funding to students at private universities, TAFES and associate degree programs.

Religious teaching, training and vocational institutes would be eligible for a share of $820 million in new Commonwealth funding over three years.

Labor and the Greens attacked the policy, saying it breaches the separation of Church and State. Earlier this year the government controversially announced it would provide $244 million for a new school chaplaincy scheme but would remove the option for schools to hire secular welfare workers……

Eleven theological colleges are currently accredited by the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) to provide courses designed to prepare students to enter religious ministries.

Institutes such as the Sydney College of Divinity, Brisbane's Christian Heritage College and the Perth Bible College, which currently charge students full fees, would be eligible for an estimated $4214 funding a year each student under the reforms.

The John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family in Melbourne, which offers course units including "Theology and Practice of Natural Family Planning" and "Marriage in the Catholic Tradition", would also be eligible for federal support….

The government's reforms were voted down by the Senate this week but will return to Parliament, with some amendments, next year. 

"My comments get on the tellie - yours don't. You can't be heard!

YouTube may not be the tellie, however it records the Australian Education Minister Christopher Pyne for posterity just the same....

http://youtu.be/xt7CxXh5nQw

Has 'Captain Catholic' and his merry band of Christian fascisti finally wrecked a proud tradition of secular public education in Australia?

The Sydney Morning Herald 27 August 2014:

The Abbott government is pushing ahead with a religious-only school chaplaincy scheme following a cabinet debate over whether secular welfare workers should be included in the program.

The government was forced to redesign the $224 million scheme after the High Court ruled it invalid in June for the second time in two years. The court found the Commonwealth had over-reached its funding powers by providing direct payments to chaplain providers.

In a bid to prevent another High Court challenge, the federal government will provide funding to state and territory governments to administer the scheme. This new arrangement strengthens the hand of the states and could see some demand an option for secular welfare workers or tougher qualification standards.

In a cabinet meeting on Monday, Abbott government ministers explored options to extend the scheme to include funding for secular welfare workers. This would have reversed the government's existing policy that funding should be restricted to religious chaplains. 

During the cabinet discussion, Mr Abbott argued that the government should stand by its existing policy. Mr Abbott argued the scheme's original intent was supporting pastoral care in schools and that should remain its focus….

The chaplaincy scheme was introduced by the Howard government in 2006. Labor expanded the scheme to include funding for secular welfare workers in 2011 – an option the government scrapped in this year's budget.

Both challenges in the High Court were brought forward by Toowoomba father Ron Williams, a secularist opposed to public funding for religious workers in public schools.

The government rushed forward its announcement about the new scheme on Wednesday afternoon after Fairfax Media revealed the story online. The government had hoped to avoid a distracting debate on chaplains during the introduction of its sweeping higher education changes into Parliament on Thursday.

The Australian newspaper outs Federal Education Minister in "Christopher was so tied to the new school funding model we thought his name was Pyneski"

Is the Murdoch media now genuinely in two minds over the Abbott Government or has it decided that mirroring growing public anti-Abbott sentiment will sell newspapers?

Christopher was so tied to the new school funding model we thought his name was Pyneski, 2 December 2013:

THE Coalition was on a unity ticket with Labor on the Gonski reforms -- and then suddenly it wasn't.

Christopher Pyne tells the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute forum, February 2012:

PARENTS and schools need certainty in funding arrangements. They need to know that their school's funding arrangements won't be prone to sudden change . . . I have seen first-hand just how angry parents and communities get without certainty.

Tony Abbott to reporters, August 2:

WE will honour the agreements that Labor has entered into. We will match the offers that Labor has made . . . but you won't get the strings attached so what I want to say today is that as far as school funding is concerned, Kevin Rudd and I are on a unity ticket.

Pyne's policy launch, August 29:

SO you can vote Liberal or Labor and you'll get exactly the same amount of funding for your school except you'll get $120 million more from (us).

Pyne at News Ltd forum, August 29:

WE have agreed to the government's new school funding model over the forward estimates, because we believe that the debate about funding was becoming something of an asinine distraction from the issues.

Pyne on Radio National, August 30:

WE are committed to the student resource standard; of course we are. We are committed to this new school funding model. It will be up to the states to decide whether they spend their money or not because they are sovereign governments and should be treated like adults.

Pyne, ABC1's 7.30, October 15:

OUR policy, very clearly before the election, was that we would honour the next four years of the school funding agreements.

Asked about a new funding model, Pyne to reporters on Tuesday:

I BELIEVE that the school funding model that was implemented by the Howard government, which was based on the socioeconomic status and qualifications of parents and went to the schools that were most in need, is a good starting point for a school funding model.

Pyne has a change of heart on ABC Radio in Adelaide, Wednesday:

I'VE never said that we'd be reverting to the Howard model, so I don't know where you've got that idea from.

Fran Kelly interviews Pyne on Radio National Breakfast, Tuesday:

KELLY: Kathryn Greiner was a member of the Gonski review panel. She's urging you not to walk away from their recommendations. She's asking if you'd sit down with the panel for a day so they can convince you of the system's benefits. Would you do that?

PYNE: No. I've studied the Gonski model closely.

But Pyne tells the ABC's Matthew Abraham in Adelaide, Wednesday:

ABRAHAM: Chris Pyne, you won't meet with the Gonski panel, I think that's correct, is it?

PYNE: No that's also not correct . . . I mean in this fevered reporting of these matters . . .

ABRAHAM: Or are you just all over the place? Is the media reporting your thought bubbles and you're then having to go around and correct them?

PYNE: No, no that's quite unfair . . . I never said to anybody that I wouldn't meet with the Gonski committee.

The Prime Minister on Ten Network's The Bolt Report yesterday:

ABBOTT: I'm happy to say that under the Coalition schools will get the same quantum of funding over the four years that they would have under Labor had it been re-elected. In fact, they will get a little bit more.

ANDREW BOLT: You just heard me play that promise . . . it was about each school getting the same money for the next four years. Will you repeat that promise? I don't know why you made it then and can't repeat it now?

ABBOTT: Well, I think Christopher said schools would get the same amount of money and schools -- plural -- will get the same amount of money. The quantum will be the same.

Laurie Oakes tells it straight on Pyne, Daily Telegraph, Saturday:

PYNE is still engaging in the moving-target trickery of opposition . . . lies were told before the election and lies are being told now.

UPDATE

The Sydney Morning Herald 2 December 2013:

The Abbott government has reversed its position again on the Gonski education funding, saying it will honour all existing deals for the next four years, and add an extra $1.2 billion into the system.

In a joint press conference held at Parliament House in Canberra, Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Education Minister Christopher Pyne sought to put an end to the damaging headlines about the government's ‘‘broken promise’’ on education. 

The Lies Abbott Tells - Part Five

In announcing the Abbott Government’s changes to education funding for Australian schools, neither Prime Minister Tony Abbott nor Education Minister Christopher Pyne would guarantee that individual schools, in those states which had entered into agreements with the Commonwealth under the former Labor Government’s legislated education reforms, would receive the funding levels expected over the next four years.

With Mr. Pyne apparently going one step further and implying that any cuts in funding to individual states would have to be met by reducing funding to schools in those states’ free public education systems, as non-government/private school funding levels were set in separate legislation.

However, Tony Abbott continues to insist that he is keeping his election campaign promise with regard to school funding.

He is not telling the truth.

THE LIE

ABC News 1 December 2013:

Mr Abbott maintains the Coalition is upholding its election commitment, saying it promised to match the funding total, not the model used to distribute it.

"Under the Coalition, schools will get the same quantum of funding over the four years that they would have under Labor had it been re-elected. In fact, they will get a little bit more," he told Channel Ten.

"I think Christopher [Pyne] said schools would get the same amount of money and schools - plural - will get the same amount of money.

"We are going to keep the promise that we actually made, not the promise that some people thought that we made, or the promise that some people might have liked us to make."

THE TRUTH

http://youtu.be/lbjxQvrJ12o

TONY ABBOTT: ...as far as I am concerned, as far as Christopher Pyne is concerned, as far as the Coalition is concerned, we want to end the uncertainty by guaranteeing that no school will be worse off over the forward estimates period. So we will honour the agreements that Labor has entered into, we will match the offers that Labor has made, we will make sure that no school is worse off...as far as school funding is concerned Kevin Rudd and I are on a unity ticket.

ABC NEWS 2 August 2013:

The Coalition has announced a turnaround in its support for the Federal Government's so-called "Gonski" school funding plan.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says if the Coalition wins government, it will honour Labor's funding commitments across the four years of the budget forward estimates.

Previously, he had promised only to guarantee any deals Labor struck for the first year.

Mr Abbott says the decision will help schools plan for the future.

Excerpts from then Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s official website, www.tonyabbott.com.au:

The Coalition's policy for schools: Putting students first

  Posted on Thursday, 29 August 2013

A Coalition government will improve Australia’s schools through improved teacher quality, greater parental involvement in decision-making, a sound national curriculum and deliver certainty over funding.

Our policy starts with a clear commitment to all Australian schools: your funding is certain.  The Coalition will match Labor dollar-for-dollar over the next four years......

Interview with Barrie Cassidy, Insiders, ABC TV

  Posted on Sunday, 1 September 2013

TONY ABBOTT:

I don't believe the additional savings to be announced later in this week, will impact on ordinary Australians. I want to give people this absolute assurance, no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no changes to pensions and no changes to the GST.

Address to the National Press Club, Election 2013

  Posted on Monday, 2 September 2013

.......No cuts to education......

Christopher Pyne confirms Abbott's election campaign commitment:

 On 4 August 2013: "schools need the certainty and states need the certainty to know that whether they vote Liberal or Labor they will get exactly the same amount of money''.

On 26 August 2013: So you can vote Liberal or Labor and you'll get exactly the same amount of funding for your school…

UPDATE

THE PARTIAL BACKDOWN

The Sydney Morning Herald 2 December 2013:

The Abbott government has reversed its position again on the Gonski education funding, saying it will honour all existing deals for the next four years, and add an extra $1.2 billion into the system.

In a joint press conference held at Parliament House in Canberra, Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Education Minister Christopher Pyne sought to put an end to the damaging headlines about the government's ‘‘broken promise’’ on education. 

The list of people angry with Prime Minister Abbott's inability to govern wisely grows

On Monday 25 November 2013 the Federal Minister for Education Christopher Pyne, after just sixty-eight days in office, announced the Abbott Government’s plan to abandon the ‘Gonski’ national education funding reforms.

This was Laura Tingle writing on the subject in the Financial Review in the wake of Pyne’s press conference on 26 November:

Two months after being sworn in, the Abbott government is now at war with conservative states, the Senate and parents across the country. Not only is the politics of education calamitous, the government risks a High Court challenge to any attempt to walk away from education funding agreements with the states, being blocked in the Senate, and has even raised questions of sovereign risk...

 It now seems the Coalition neutralised a positive issue for Labor by lying about its intentions. This is the only possible conclusion you can draw from Christopher Pyne’s attempts to rewrite the history of what he said before the election at a fiery Canberra press conference on Tuesday.....

The federal government cannot surely be serious in its assertion that it can simply walk away from a binding agreement with another government.

Maybe Mr O’Farrell is right and this is but another example of the Coalition failing to come to grips with the difference between being an opposition and being a government.

NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell reported in The Sydney Morning Herald on 26 November:

"Can I just make this point to the federal Education Minister," he said. "In all my years in politics, I have worked out that it is best to have respectful discussions and consultations in private, not through the media.

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"And secondly, when you move into government, you have got to stop behaving like an opposition."

Mr O'Farrell said the schools funding issue had been poorly handled by the Abbott government. He wrote to Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Monday to express his concerns.

Mark Kenny writing in The Sydney Morning Herald on 26 November:

Christopher Pyne is too occupied with ripping down the education funding architecture of the past Labor government to spend a bit of extra time studying it first.

An offer by members of the Gonski panel to take him through the detail before he begins the demolition job has been rebuffed.

Of all portfolios, for a minister of state for education to appear so wilfully uninterested in further evidence is concerning at several levels.

At stake is no less than the optimum usage of multiple billions in taxpayer funds and, therefore, the future productivity of the country.

His refusal to allocate the few hours needed to satisfy himself – and be seen to be satisfying himself – of the facts, exposes an emerging pattern for this government: that its primary energies are more often directed at undoing reforms rather than making them.

Support your local TAFE. Do your block from 11-17 November 2013

International Day of the Girl Child 2013

On December 19, 2011, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 66/170 to declare 11 October as the International Day of the Girl Child, to recognize girls’ rights and the unique challenges girls face around the world. For its second observance, this year’s Day will focus on “Innovating for Girls’ Education”.

The fulfilment of girls’ right to education is first and foremost an obligation and moral imperative. There is also overwhelming evidence that girls’ education, especially at the secondary level, is a powerful transformative force for societies and girls themselves: it is the one consistent positive determinant of practically every desired development outcome, from reductions in mortality and fertility, to poverty reduction and equitable growth, to social norm change and democratization.

While there has been significant progress in improving girls’ access to education over the last two decades, many girls, particularly the most marginalized, continue to be deprived of this basic right. Girls in many countries are still unable to attend school and complete their education due to safety-related, financial, institutional and cultural barriers. Even when girls are in school, perceived low returns from poor quality of education, low aspirations, or household chores and other responsibilities keep them from attending school or from achieving adequate learning outcomes. The transformative potential for girls and societies promised through girls’ education is yet to be realized. [United Nations 2013]