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The Forum > General Discussion > Australia joins the

Australia joins the

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One more time, spindoc.

>>When you say “She finds herself in a position, unique in Australian political history,” you seem to imply that this was all someone else’s fault that she suddenly “found herself” there.<<

She is the first Australian political leader to find herself in the position, in the aftermath of an election, of having to negotiate for power with a bunch of random minor parties and "independent" ratbags.

Sure, she orchestrated the demise of Rudd. To that extent she brought it upon herself.

But the situation in which she found herself after the election was, I maintain, "unique in Australian political history".

Hindsight says that she should have left the ratbags for Abbott to manage, and simply watch him make precisely the same strategic mistakes. Fun, but not particularly responsible.

As I said, I don't believe she has made many smart decisions. But when there are no precedents, and you have to make five judgment calls where - managing as a single Party - you would previously only have to make one, the job is far from straightforward.

Abbott would have been in the same situation.

The biggest mistake was to allow a government to be formed at all. Quentin Bryce should have fulfilled her role honestly, and rejected the matzoh pudding of a coalition she was offered, on the basis that it would be unstable.

Which it clearly is.

Unfortunately, the country is still suffering from Gough-itis, even after all these years. Her options - agree to the lovely Julia, or force another election to be held - were circumscribed by the residual race-memory of Kerr. Any intervention by the Governor-General in politics would cause a riot in the streets, so she did the line-of-least-resistance bit.

A situation that we really have to resolve, if we are ever to become a Republic.
Posted by Pericles, Sunday, 10 April 2011 3:42:51 PM
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Indy you defame me, in that post.
Slander me in fact.
re look at your description of me and ALL THOSE WHO VOTED LABOR the last two elections.
Sir then surely.
I can say what I think of you.
No I will not, it would needlessly hurt you.
You are probable a good person.
But if ever you have an original thought, it will be your first.
Posted by Belly, Sunday, 10 April 2011 6:18:02 PM
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Belly,
Appologies if I offended you personally. I'd been under the impression you weren't a Gillard supporter.
What I mean when I rave on like this is that there are people out there who, despite knowing how much many people are worse off under Labor, they still support the party which creates that situation. If I knew of a situation when the Coalition does so much harm to the community then I will most certainly say so as well.
Posted by individual, Sunday, 10 April 2011 6:38:23 PM
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individual:>> It's not money that's needed there, it's integrity & sense that'll pull the education system out of the hole, not money. It's money that's made education what it is today, a hopeless waste of resources.<<

Individual, last year I heard an interview on the ABC with the president of the Australian Mathematical Society. In a nutshell she said that we have half the number of students going into courses that require higher mathematics than thirty years ago. She quite rightly prognosticated a dismal future for Australia in regard to becoming just a consumer end point for products and services, if the broader society can afford them at that stage she added. She was talking devolution.

I believe the gravity of the dumbing down is not adequately displayed in the above numbers, I take into consideration that our population has grown by 70% in the last fourty years, so the percentage of our population going into courses that require higher maths is a piddle compared to thirty years ago, it is frightening, the second and third world are getting educated and we have been strategically dumbed down. I personally see it as part of the NWO agenda.

Money is not the issue, curriculum is
Posted by sonofgloin, Sunday, 10 April 2011 8:11:53 PM
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sonofgloin,
Four decades ago the average labourer could spell three times better than todays teachers. One incident springs to mind, about 15 years ago in an Aboriginal community Post Office.
Grade 3 kids put up drawings on the wall about volcanoes. One little girl had Lava written at the end of an arrow pointing to the slope of the volcano.
The white teacher, aged about 25, in front of several P.O. customers rubbed out the word Lava & re-wrote Larva. She had the nerve to tell the poor kid in front of everyone she couldn't spell. I just had to defend the kid & was told what would you know about spelling.
From my observations the standard of teachers in Qld hasn't improved since.
Posted by individual, Sunday, 10 April 2011 8:42:33 PM
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Indy it is a plan to make us helpless, totally reliant on others, for everything.

The better half works in the school system and I have one at uni so at the moment I get firsthand accounts of how inadequate to the task many lecturers are, and the shallow school syllabus which works on the premise that a tabulator will ease us of the burden of knowing and reasoning. The system needs a root and branch rework from infants up but no government state or fed wants to go against education protocols from Brussels, they tell us to teach the humanities and we focused on the humanities from 1980 onwards, just before we saw the higher math subjects start to loose the number of secondary students with an adequate UAI.
Posted by sonofgloin, Sunday, 10 April 2011 9:16:42 PM
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