After having attempted to read this article and given up, I can now understand why at this time - some 14 hours after publication - nobody else has posted a comment.

Gosh that's cruel - but it's true.

I have no idea what opinion the writer was trying to convey. Never mind, maybe there'll be something better tomorrow. Ho-hum.

To Mr Gavin Moodie.

I suppose you may attack me for using your post to push my own agenda, but for me, the two are linked.

For a country with a small population, Australia punches well above it's weight when it comes to scientific research and technological innovation. I read one foreign news article once where the author was frankly amazed at Australian ingenuity. Now I am just as ardent as you are in seeking increased funding for Australian researchers and innovative inventors, but there is a problem or two.

The most important is that much of Australia's treasury is being looted in order to import people into this country who's attitude to work and who's attitude to correct behaviour is becoming a real problem. The AIC in Canberra has calculated that crime costs the Australian community an incredible $32 billion dollars a year. What is more, is that the link between crime and welfare payments is so strong that a reasonable case could be put forward that welfare payments causes crime. The link between criminal behaviour, welfare dependency and ethnicity is now so obvious that even a cloistered academic should be able to figure it out.

If academics wish to get hold of some money, could they please make the connection to the cause to consequence relationship between immigration, asylum shopping "refugees", crime, welfare dependency and lack of government money?

It is fine to rank universities by their research standing but most have a responsibility to teach as well. The Economist newspaper recently observed of the university that Jiao Tong ranks as best in the world in the world:

"[The tensions between former President Larry Summers and his critics] might be dressed up as ideological, but they were really about the privileges and perks of academic life.

"The most obvious was undergraduate teaching. Undergraduates get a raw deal for their $40,000 a year. The core curriculum is an antiquated mess. Star professors palm their pupils off on graduate students and then give them top grades to keep them happy (one survey found that 91% of Harvard graduates get honours compared with just 51% at Yale)..."

At http://www.economist.com/World/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=5557442

Is this the way to generate "national economic prosperity"?