Gillard praises Abbott In US

[icyfroth]

Former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard has praised the Abbott government for maintaining funding for a program designed to educate children in the world's poorest countries.

Gillard, speaking in Washington DC on Monday at the Brookings Institution, said she was pleased the change of government in Australia did not lead to a cut in the financial support for the Global Partnership for Education (GPE).

Gillard will take up the role of chair of the GPE's board next month.

"I am pleased that the allocations we made in government have been sustained by the current government even though they have made changes to aid arrangements in the aid budget overall," Gillard told an audience at a Brookings event titled New Ideas to Scale Up and Finance Global Education.

"So, it's good to see the GPE seems to have persuaded both sides of politics that it is a really important investment."

Gillard, as chair of GPE, will be responsible for leading fundraising efforts to provide education to 57 million out-of-school children worldwide.

The GPE, based in Washington DC, is the only multilateral partnership devoted to getting all children in the world's poorest countries into school for a quality education.

Established in 2002, the GPE is comprised of close to 60 developing countries, donor governments, international organisations, the private sector, teachers and civil society/non-governmental organisations.

Click Here To View Entire Article

That's nice

[polksaladallie]

That's how intelligent people behave, no surprises here.

What a contrast with what Abbott did in Switzerland

Tony Abbott uses global stage to take a swipe at Labor over financial crisis

[silverfaun]

Sometimes I wonder about Abbott. He should have scrapped this $300 million borrowed money largesse from Gillard.

We will pay for this come budget time then all the entitlements mindset will go into overdrive whinging about their right to government handouts.

[debra9275]

that's very diplomatic of her, quite a contrast to Abbott slinging domestic mud at the opposition at every opportunity

[lurker17260]

Sometimes I wonder about Abbott

Oh praise be, that it was only sometimes

[freakiness]

---

@debra9275 wrote:

that's very diplomatic of her, quite a contrast to Abbott slinging domestic mud at the opposition at every opportunity

---

Yes, it demonstrates who has class and who doesn't.

[icyfroth]

---

@silverfaun wrote:

Sometimes I wonder about Abbott. He should have scrapped this $300 million borrowed money largesse from Gillard.

We will pay for this come budget time then all the entitlements mindset will go into overdrive whinging about their right to government handouts.

---

Must agree with you there, Faun. It's all very well to throw money overseas to make yourself look benevolent, but you should look to your own country's needs first. Wer'e gettting to the point where students in the countries where our grants are going are outstripping our own in the education stakes. 

[boris1gary]

---

@silverfaun wrote:

Sometimes I wonder about Abbott. He should have scrapped this $300 million borrowed money largesse from Gillard.

We will pay for this come budget time then all the entitlements mindset will go into overdrive whinging about their right to government handouts.

---

Don't think the "entitlement mindset" has to worry, welfare for the rich is quite safe, the Prime Minister for Unemployment has assured the rich that there "age of entitlement" will carry on regardless.

[cherry*135]

Icy wrote: Wer'e gettting to the point where students in the countries where our grants are going are outstripping our own in the education stakes.

I would like to know more about that. Which countries are those? What level students are they outstripping..primary, secondary, tertiary?

How do you know they are outstripping our own? Do they make the students in the poor countries sit Naplan tests so they can compare them with Aust kids?

[silverfaun]

What about our own indiginous children? don't they deserve a first class education & support to get it. $300 million would go a long way to help them.

But as I said previously, this is borrowed money, working families will have to pay it back with interest to the detriment of the education of our own children.