Dear Shadow Minister,

The funding of private schools should be eliminated – not merely reduced.

Public schools educate. There is no need for governments to provide precious public resources to those who opt out. Those parents who want their children indoctrinated with some belief system should pay for it - not other tax payers.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/28/private-schools-do-not-deserve-a-cent-from-our-public-funds?CMP=share_btn_fb is the source of the following:

The Productivity Commission released a new report showing that over the past five years, independent and Catholic schools have been receiving greater increases in government funding per student than public schools. Private schools received real increases of 3.4% per year between 2007 and 2012, while government schools received increases of just 2.4% per year.

Public schools can give a good education even though some anti-public school propaganda denies it. A University of Queensland study of NAPLAN results recently debunked conventional wisdom that having a child in a private school leads to better academic results. Furthermore, there is a disadvantage in sending a child to a private school if they go on to university, as more drop out in their first year. The pattern is repeated overseas – students in Britain who get BBB grades and attend government comprehensive schools outperform students from private schools with A level grades on all measures.

In spite of this, governments continue to shove money into the private education sector, presumably to keep the well-to-do-swing-voter happy. It is time for governments to put the people’s money in the people’s schools, not in hungry elite private school systems using public funds to build a tennis court or state of the art facilities.

Australia has a problem in education funding, something which was made abundantly clear for some time – something which Gonski attempted to ameliorate. Government schools are ripped off. This needs to be corrected, and no cent of public money should end up in the private school system – especially when it can do so much more good for both pupils and society in a government school.

cont'd ...

And to top it all - wrong answers from the
"Catechism" solicited a beating with a lead-re-inforced
leather strap on the hands. A few times my husband's
hands were so badly swollen that his father immediately
went and confronted the school principal.

As a result my husband today avoids religion.

'Higher taxes for a fair society?'

Sounds good in Theory. Unfortunately tax isn't the real issue when it comes to creating a fair society. Just look at the sentencing of a banker w@nker caught with a bit of coke as opposed to a young unemployed guy.

What school you went to, who you know, what postcode you live in, how you dress, being brought up in an environment that teaches you how to behave in certain circles to get along, there are so many reasons society will never be fair. People generally stay in the class they were born into. Caged birds don't readily learn to fly.

With regards to tax though, I have come to the conclusion that even though it's regressive, flat based unavoidable taxes are the only way to get money from the rich. Even though this means they get taxed at a much lower percent of their income, you get more revenue.

Even the middle class business owners have many more vehicles for avoiding taxes, in fact it is the main reason people want to run a business, as a tax avoidance scheme. Then you can buy all sorts of things as part of the business and pay much lower than the highest tax rate.

3. Sporting clubs... should be financed by those who use them.

I agree, but does that go for the arts as well?

5. Have a graduated income tax sufficient to pay for public needs.

As I said the rich can so easily hide income so that is pointless. It would only nit middle and upper middle classes more. Maybe that would work but really all you do then is reduce the middle class and have only rich and poor.

There is no reason for any of the Family Tax and Childcare benefits, private health etc for anyone earning over $60k, they just produce churn. The reason for the very high cutoff for a lot of benefits to the middle classes is as a measure for Sydney people to be able to afford real estate and private schooling.

Dear David F.,

I would certainly welcome political party campaigns
that told the truth to people, and "Higher Taxes for
a Fairer Society!" would at least be honest. Much better
than "Tax Cuts For the Rich!" or "The Poor Don't Drive
Cars!"

I have always believed that unprofitable but socially
useful tasks is the responsibility of govrnment.
That governments should not be run for profit - like a
business. Many services have to be provided, even if they
profit nobody. Services like - public schools, sewers, police
forces, army, navy, air force, fire departments, libraries,
parks, to name just a few. These services should be provided.
And fairer equitable taxes would be a way of doing that.
I would be very disappointed if most thinking
Australians would not agree.

I get the impression that this is part of the current
political problem that the Abbott led government is currently
facing. It appears to be either deaf or indifferent to
voter's concerns. The savings measures in the May budget
were unfair and hurt the most disadvantaged - including the
unemployed and low-income families.

Decisions made in the kind of authoritarian and arrogant
manner demonstrated by both Mr Abbott recently and Mr Campbell
Newman over the past 3 years serve to erode the fragile trust
between government and the people. Hence public opinion
now dictates the removal of Mr Abbott as it did with
Mr Newman in the Queensland election.

When it comes to higher taxes and wealth re-distribution, I wouldn’t be talking about fairness so much as the sheer volume of benefits that better economic equality provides societies. Benefits that would somewhat address the inequality that Houellebecq mentioned as well. Talk of fairness can sound like a bit of a whinge that leaves the well-to-do wondering what would be in it for them, whereas the benefits of economic equality, in reality, benefit everyone immensely.

Richard Wilkinson gives a brilliant talk in the TED talk video at http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson#t-17210 with a ton of stats that demonstrate the consistent correlation between economic equality and societal health. The benefits of economic equality are things like improved life expectancy, literacy and numeracy, infant mortality rates, rates of homicide, rates of imprisonment, rates of teenage pregnancy, trust, obesity, mental illness, drug and alcohol addiction, etc.

Not to mention social mobility. As Wilkinson says in his TED talk, if you want to live the American dream, move to Denmark.

Houellebecq wrote:

Me - 3. Sporting clubs... should be financed by those who use them.

Houellebecq - I agree, but does that go for the arts as well?

I wrote a story published by Pascoe Press, and I was paid for it. When I got a copy from the publisher it contained: “Assisted by grants from the Victorian Ministry for the Arts and the Literature Board of the Australia Council, the Federal Government arts funding and advisory body”. I deposited the cheque but never knowingly submitted any other writing to an entity supported by a government subsidy. Dickens, Herman Melville, Dostoevsky and a lot of other great writers did without government subsidies so it didn’t seem reasonable that I or any other writer should benefit from one.

However, arts in the context of an educational institution should be subsidised as it is part of learning. Symphonies, ballets and the theatre should not be subsidised unless they give performances available to everybody. Otherwise they are a subsidy to the affluent who can afford tickets.

I have mixed feelings about support for the arts. It would take a long article to put forth all my feelings on the matter.

It is extremely hard to create a fair society. The attempt to do so can result in more unfairness that going along with what we have now.

Dear Foxy,

Parties in Australia are generally electoral machines. They say what it takes to get elected. If they are elected They will try to say or do things to win the next election. We cannot get them to put the well-being of their constituents, Australia and the world first. In the most recent commonwealth election both parties competed in scare tactics which painted the boat people as a looming menace and themselves as preventing the death of civilisation as we know it.

My view to what government should do is the same as yours, but I don’t see how one can get them to do it.

Dear AJ Phillips,

You’ve got it, but your facts and reason are no match for the Murdoch media