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Keywords: Coag

  • AUSTRALIA

    Closing the Gap won’t work without human reconciliation

    • Michael Mullins
    • 17 February 2014
    14 Comments

    The Prime Minister's Closing the Gap speech to Federal Parliament last Wednesday was a finely crafted piece of work that failed to hit the spot. It seems that 'Closing the Gap' is the Government's Indigenous policy. Yet it can be seen as a justification for getting out the big stick to achieve short term gains that will look good on the Government's own political report card. 

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  • EDUCATION

    Best of 2013: End of the education revolution

    • Dean Ashenden
    • 15 January 2014

    The backsliding began before Gonski even got started: his riding instructions were to ensure that 'no school will be worse off'. Since then one backward step has followed another. What the prime minister wants now from the state premiers when they meet on 19 April is not Gonski but the appearance of Gonski. She may not get even that.

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  • EDUCATION

    Pyne's Gonski shambles

    • Dean Ashenden
    • 02 December 2013
    20 Comments

    Federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne is correct in saying that the Gonski scheme is a mess, but culpably wrong to use that fact to ditch the whole idea. The Gonski mess shows few of the actors concerned in a good light, and some, including Pyne himself, in a very poor one. Pyne's contribution to this debacle was to act as spoiler from the day the Gonski report was released. In that role he has so far adopted no less than four positions.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    'Lame duck' governments and democracy

    • John Warhurst
    • 06 May 2013
    15 Comments

    The Coalition's characterisation of the Gillard Government as a lame duck is a tactic to slow down decision-making over the next four months. A government has every right not just to keep the wheels turning but to continue to try to implement its program even if it is just trying to improve its chances of re-election.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Australia in a sorry state as Gonski faces failure

    • Ray Cassin
    • 17 April 2013
    6 Comments

    If the states give Gillard's Gonski education proposals the thumbs-down, as is expected to happen at Friday's COAG meeting, it will not be the first time since Labor's return to office in 2007 that Australia's creaking constitutional arrangements have made fundamental reform impossible.

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  • EDUCATION

    End of the education revolution

    • Dean Ashenden
    • 08 April 2013
    9 Comments

    The backsliding began before Gonski even got started: his riding instructions were to ensure that 'no school will be worse off'. Since then one backward step has followed another. What the prime minister wants now from the state premiers when they meet on 19 April is not Gonski but the appearance of Gonski. She may not get even that.

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  • RELIGION

    Recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People in the Constitution

    • Frank Brennan
    • 21 March 2013
    1 Comment

    Frank Brennan's address 'Recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People in the Constitution' presented at the 18th National Schools Constitutional Convention, The Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House, 21 March 2013.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Sting in the tail of Gillard charities red tape reduction

    • Paul O'Callaghan
    • 07 November 2012
    2 Comments

    Last week, the Federal Government streamlined bureaucracy when it legislated for a single body to regulate charities and not for profits. But it is also pursuing a new charity tax under the guise of cracking down on abuse of the current system, by 'better targeting of tax concessions'. This could force agencies to downsize programs that support disadvantaged Australians.

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  • RELIGION

    Leadership for justice in health care

    • Frank Brennan
    • 21 August 2012

    Fr Frank Brennan SJ is board director of St Vincent's Health Australia and professor of law and director of strategic research projects (social justice and ethics) at Australian Catholic University. Text is from his address at Leading the Way, the Catholic Health Australia Conference, Perth 21 August 2012, Governance and Mission stream.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Hope beyond disability support flip-flopping

    • Moira Byrne Garton
    • 03 August 2012
    2 Comments

    Disability policy is no longer a short-term issue for political point-scoring, it is in the middle of the public policy sphere. While it is heartening that there is general consensus between political parties on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, some state premiers' bickering over funding has fuelled the distress of affected people.

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  • EDUCATION

    No easy cure for 'cost disease' in Australian schools

    • Dean Ashenden
    • 07 May 2012
    13 Comments

    The Productivity Commission Schools Workforce report released on Friday does contain evidence of the dire state of productivity in Australian schools, but it is largely neutered. It's as if the Commission was anxious to avoid stating too plainly a disease for which it can suggest only palliatives.

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  • EDUCATION

    Gonski process leaves schools in limbo

    • Scott Prasser
    • 21 February 2012
    9 Comments

    A two year process of research, consultation, public input and expert consideration and analysis is a reasonable route to follow for a government-appointed independent inquiry into a major policy issue. But when that process simply leads into a further protracted process, its value is questionable.

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