Do you disagree with cuts to health and education?

[donnashuggy]

Make sure you think carefully about who gets your vote then.

[freddie*rooster]

Why is eloi's post blank?

[not_an_eloi]

abbott's comments on private school fundin' should be a flamin' great worry, for parents on lower incomes.

LEIGH SALES: In your Real Solution plan it says, "We will work with states and territories to encourage state schools to become independent schools." Why do you want fewer state schools?

TONY ABBOTT: Well we don't want fewer state schools, we want to have a very vibrant public education system, but we are very attracted to the independent public school model which has been extremely successful in WA under the Barnett Government. Now, hundreds of public schools in WA are going down this path. If you're an independent public school in the west, the school council appoints the principal and the principal is essentially given a one-line budget that he and the council can then manage. Now, there are certain parameters within which they've got to operate, but it's a much freer system than that which operates typically in other states.

LEIGH SALES: But the Liberal NSW Education Minister, Adrian Piccoli, says the NSW Government won't back that because there's no evidence that independent schools improve student performance.

TONY ABBOTT: He has made some moves in that direction though and I think they're commendable moves and we're not going to be dictating to the states, but we are gonna be working with the states. And certainly in WA, both the parents and it seems teachers in these independent public schools are very happy with the outcome.

[lurker17260]

Speechless? 🙂

[poppasmiff]

Of course they will cut all the services--it has already started in Queensland. Wonder if Campbell Newmans job cuts have been put down as Labours 'jobs lost' figures--blame anyone else to make them look bad and you look good eh !!

[not_an_eloi]

not flamin' likely

[*crikey*mate*]

What is the difference between making cuts to education and health and introducing new or raising existing taxes to cover their costs?

By making the cuts, the onus of additional payment to compensate for any shortfall is incurred by the consumer who directly uses those services.

By introducing or increasing taxes, the onus of additional payment is displaced across all tax payers, regardless of whether they directly use those services or not.

It could be posited that even if a person does not directly use a particular service, that the whole of society benefits by providing equal access to all.

Australia needs to decide if they do want to provide equal access to all or continue along the user pays system of capitalism. I believe the current amalgamation of the two is discriminatory, inefficient and largely ineffective.

[monman12]

JMK: "Yeah I can. They've already told us, AND every liberal government has always done it. Why would this one not do it?
They will cut education, health and other community services. They'll slash the arts, public service jobs and abc funding. It's what they do."

Last try:

" Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said he has already announced the coalition would match Labor's school spending, move to community controlled hospitals, quarantine medical research from budget cuts, and get new drugs through pharmaceutical benefits committee process more swiftly.

"I don't rule out that we might be spending money more wisely in these areas, but certainly I don't intend to make cuts in these areas,"

Overlooking the ALP cuts to university funding,  and that the business community has called on the Coalition to drop its plan to tax Australia's biggest businesses to pay for its generous paid parental leave scheme, and that  the Coalition announced it would slash the tax rate for 750,000 businesses from 30% to 28.5% from 2015.

JMK : "do you have evidence to demonstrate this liberal government won't be like all other liberal governments. Proving a negative, and a  forecast at that,  is somewhat esoteric request  but not unexpected in this type of thread.

I forecast that a Coalition government will be a Coalition government and it will not have a leader prone to wailing Poor Me, and if it is an ALP government,  it also will not have a leader prone to wailing Poor Me.

NW, what are the betting odds?

[just_me_karen]

Well, it won't harm fundamentalist religious 'schools' that earn their money by praying on the weak and broken, but almost any other school would be better off under the Gonski plan. Privatising schools lowers educational standards, especially in poorer or rural areas, because principals are bound to power hungry school boards, it's usually the noisy, bossy, nutter parents that thrive on school boards.

[purplecarrot-top]

In Queensland a number of schools are marked for closure. However this has been put off for now. Nothing to do with the federal election of course. Yeah and pigs may fly.