Rechtub is right we are in for significant cutbacks over the next few years.
Note the signals; Germany is now believed to be in recession.
The US thinks it is in recovery. The people there are suffering falling living conditions and
are happy that oil prices are falling. It is just another trouble signal.
High volatility in oil prices was predicted and one little prediction of mine;
As oil prices are below shale oil well head costs the Ponzi tight oil business will collapse
and prices will rise again in six months.

The economists do not know whether to pump more pixel money out or to raise interest rates.
The Chinese government is now pumping Billions of pixel Yuan out because of failing debt.
Currently in Europe interest rates have turned negative.
US Banks are charging Euro deposits 0.1% just to give the banks your money !
Imagine you deposit your pay in the bank and they charge YOU !
If you don't think that makes hang on tight time what does ?
All these economic signals were predicted, but no one wanted to listen.

Yes Bazz, the ol 'shel be right mate' typical Aussie ' reactive attitudes are in for a serious adjustmeAll Mall that most worry about is the budget, and even that didn't go near far enough to fix our record debt, increased demands with a falling revenue base.

I see the figures just released suggest every single illegal is costing us a staggering SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS EACH, PER YEAR. That about 37 old aged pensions. I guess we are just lucky our pensioners paid tax, otherwise who knows where we would be now.

To think, when Rudd came to power we had THREE. THATS 3, not 3000, JUST THREE! Illegals in detention.

If ever there was a case for political negligence, that's it.

Rechtub wrote: "Cossomby, their official school day starts at 9 and finnishes at 2.45. Do you think they should do their preparation, do their marking, and teach the kids in this time."

The period 9-2.45 is the face-to-face classroom time. Do you think teachers arrived at five to nine, then when the bell rings at 2.45, they say, OK kids, I'm outta here - and walk off the school grounds at 2.50?

There's a ton of daily work needed in the lead-up to 9 and in the hour or so after school - classroom set-up for the lessons of the day, pack-up at the end, prep for tomorrow, daily paperwork etc. Yes, teachers can and probably many do some of the larger tasks at the end of the day at home or at school, but a full day class is pretty tiring. It would not be very efficient to do major jobs etc, piecemeal late in the afternoon each day. Then there's further training, curriculum development workshops, parent and teacher meetings, school excursion planning and running.

I am just challenging the idea that teachers have it easy with those short work days and lots of vacations. Necessary work (and I suspect a lot of excessive unnecessary administrative work) has to be done after the face-to-face school hours, at night, weekends and in vacations (the latter would be the only time for required further training, workshops etc.)

I have not worked as a school teacher but occasionally as TAFE teacher and in short workshops. My rule of thumb would be at least two hours prep for every face-to-face hour in the classroom

Our record debt ....

By comparison with the rest of the G20: see http://ieconomics.com/g20-government-debt.

Seventeen of the 20 countries, topped by Japan (227%) have a higher government debt than Australia (20.48%). only Russia and Saudi Arabia have less.

I agree it's important to manage the debt (and a lot of other countries need to take action fast), but if we run around like chicken little - the sky is falling! - and panic, we risk doing things that will cause other problems.

"Every single illegal is costing us a staggering SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS EACH, PER YEAR."

Well, it wouldn't be so much if we didn't set up expensive concentration camps in other countries and bribe those countries handsomely. On the other hand I wonder how much of that money is being paid to Australian companies with Australian staff to set up and run the camps? I imagine a case could be made for the boost to the economy!

.....Well, it wouldn't be so much if we didn't set up expensive concentration camps in other countries

Better yet, it wouldn't be a problem had one K Rudd not decided he would almost single handedly reinvent the wheel. We had policies that worked, we also had money in the bank and ZERO DEBT.

So while you talk of our debt being low compared to others, how do you think we would be now had Rudd not got his hands on the cheque book?

As for the sky falling in, how do you think we are going to be in a few years once we loose our car industries?

Do you think we should be concerned, or, would you prefer we just worry about that when it happens?

Personally, I would prefer a pro active approach, which of cause will be quite a challenge now we have no money.

Of cause one K Rudd will be fine!

Cossomby I lived with a school teacher for a number of years. She went on to be a very senior principal, so she was probably moderately good at least. She never brought work home, ever.

My wife & I introduced a school textbook hire program into our local 1700 kid high school, on behalf of the P&C, 20+ years ago, when such schemes were quite novel. It currently cuts the cost of books for parents quite dramatically, while putting $170,000 PA into the school coffers.

This was done for free in our spare time originally, but ended up with an employee at school from 8.00AM to 4.00 PM to facilitate class sets for teachers would not organise a day in advance.

To buy new books for any subject at the right price, & get them all covered, catalogued & ready for the new year, I had to order them in September, or early October each year. It took over 20 nights, with a dozen or more P&C members & many of their kids to do this work. There was also a similar amount of work repairing books, & removing obscene, [if sometimes very funny] comments added by students.

Getting the heads of departments to actually get off their slack butts & give me a list of what they wanted for next year cost so much of my time, that after 15 years I stopped doing it.

In my experience Teachers are about as slack a profession as there is, unless you count the rest of the public service. At least 20% of them are a waste of space, & not worth feeding.