Ahh, it makes a little more sense now. Well I had never known you to rant, so I’m glad I qualified by “as close to a rant”!

I am largely unfamiliar with Victoria and its education. My family has a tradition of teaching, originally hailing from Sydney where I saw catchments embed ghettos and foster educational classism in state systems.

I consider myself more appropriately “UK trained/experienced” so the whole Outcomes Based Education has largely passed me by, I admit. Queensland (where I am currently in Educational Leadership) has not been enamored by OBE and our system has not generally incorporated its doctrines.

You are also accurate about the nature of the site being technically psephological rather than political and also that you show honour and dignity with your posts. I use this site as much for sharpening my knowledge of issues and the history of them and your posts have enlightened me in that regard, so thank you!

Have you a title for your book, yet?

I never use terms like “Krudd” or “lying rodent” or abuse other posters, no matter what I think of their ideas. I was being jocular in calling you a thread-diverter. Yes, this site is overwhelmingly anti-Coalition, as is every forum I look at, except Andrew Bolt’s, where there are so many in denial that it’s overflowing. However, some of us can conduct a civil if passionate conversation with those of different views. I just skim over the usual ranting. On the very rare occasions on which others are uncivil to me, I ignore their incivility because, as far as I am concerned, it demeans them, not me.

As for education, I have spent more than 30 years reading the opinions of people who have not the faintest idea of what they are talking about – not putting you in that category – and I am very tired of it, because their thinking has caused so much damage to the education what was once a system.

If you want to now a little more of my background in education, you can go to he discussion forum on http://www.platowa.com and scroll back through the pages till you find the Farewell thread (which is probably somewhere back in April). It might also give a bit more insight into my beliefs regarding education. It was the Kennett Liberal Government which made me a committed ALP supporter. I watched the Liberals’ destruction of my profession and of the school system with incredulity, not only incredulity at what they were doing but also incredulity at how easily the media was deceived by it, and decided that such an appalling government just had to go – and I worked to that end. Now that it has gone, I am working to get rid of the residue of thinking that remains in power from that era.

Victoria hasn’t had zones (“fixed catchment areas”) for about 20 years, but the competitive model is far more than that and I can guarantee, as someone who held positions of leadership in Victorian schools for 28 years, the current leftover Liberal Government/IPA-devised model is inefficient and ineffective.

This site is supposed to be psephological rather than political, and I agree that Labor had to dump Mark Latham’s hit list.

Communicating vir the net can be brutal and one may offend without really intending so please take what I have to say in the manner intended i.e. politely and without intending to offend. If you think that I have overstepped the mark I apologise and put it down to my clumsy way with words.

I am afraid that you understanding of what is happening with the future fund (FF) and the purposed investment of the $6B by Labor is confused.

You are correct that the FF is a Capital asset in the hands of the Government and the purpose of the FF is to generate income to develop the fund till it covers the unfunded liability of Commonwealth Public Servants Superannuation It is well worth mentioning that this is a unfunded liability of the Federal Governments (of both colours) making and was allowed to developed because the Feds though that they could make a profit (or should I say a smaller liability) out of those same public servants. In fact the development of this fund goes well back before 1990 – in fact you can take it back well before the 1970.

To generate the cash flow needed to allow for a reasonable return the FF is put in the hands of a Manager. This manager (for a large fee – it has been mentioned in the press but I forget what it is now) invests this in business enterprises throughout the world. The usual vehicle for this investment is usually shares (but not exclusively) so when the shares go up or the Business pay a dividend the FF makes a profit. It is the basically the same method that you and I use when we invest our savings through a managed fund.

What Labor plans to do with the broadband is exactly the same except there is no middleman, no manager taking a huge fee. Just like the managed fund Labor plans to invest in an enterprise that will carry on the business of building a broadband system and subsequently charging users for the services provided.

The advantage with Labor’s plan is that the capital asset is invested in Australia and not some other country. There is no middle man creaming off huge fees, I understand that this middleman, appointed by the Federal Government, is a non resident so we the taxpayer don’t even get a chance to benefit through the fee being taxed in the hands of a resident.

I am unaware how you arrive at the conclusion that further funds will be required for “maintenance” The business like any other business is designed to make a profit to cover such things along with wages and materials and dividends which is just what you will get back for a managed fund.

Your comment “the funds are currently a publicly owned asset, which generate revenue for the purposes of funding future commitments.” This is exactly what Labor purposes for its broadband investment so instead of holding share in Telstra it will instead or also hold shares in a broadband business.

I am sorry that I find you first three (3) paragraphs to be irrelevant to anything to do with Labor’s broadband plan and the nature of the investment.

You comment suggesting that the broadband business will include a financial risk is spot on. However, what you failed to realise or mention was that the investment of the FF includes the same type of risk. Remember that there is no such thing as a risk free investment of for that matter a risk free business. The way to reduce risk is to “balance” your investment. However, investing such a large portion ($6B) of the FF will increase this risk. However, the likelihood of such a business going broke in Australia, I would suggest would be limited and akin to the risk of holding Telstra shares. (Remember that such a business would most likely be a monopoly). So without doing all the “sums” neither you nor I could be able to determine what a change in the risk would be if any.

I get the feeling that you concerns about Labor’s plan is based more on “political consideration” than on financial facts. As you can see that the only difference between leaving the funds in the FF and investing in infrastructure is the location of the investment and a reduction in management fees paid and the nature of asset held.

Now I hope that I have not been too blunt. As you can see I had a lot to say and I tried to condense it as much as I could.

This is about the closest I have seen to you “having a rant”, though I know this issue is close to your heart.

So it appears you and I both have a background in education. I have taught in some desperately underprivileged state schools and on “the other side of the fence” here and abroad in Asia. I have also taught students who are extremely wealthy, the likes of which Australia just doesn’t have. So we both have experience which affects our view of the world, Chris.

Queensland is very different to Victoria and I have no doubts that the Libs didn’t put the money into state education that they needed to, but the “competitive state school” model that operates in a lot of Queensland, whilst not perfect, does ensure better outcomes on average than fixed catchment systems. Again a debate not for here.

Actually, I didn’t “divert” this one, it was a response to Sideline (#295):

“On another issue, another front has opened up against Howard. I notice on the SMH website lately that the NSW Teachers Federation are running online ads getting stuck into Howard about giving taxpayers money to private schools.”

Though, I do confess I am often led off the topic title. To be sure, though, much of what I have read this weekend might be more reasonably placed in an ALP forum. It is little more than partisan gloating and personal insult (to leaders and bloggers alike).

I have never been censured once by William and would cop it sweet if I did but I thought the purpose of the forum on this site was to discuss politics and elections. For the ALP, economic credibility is a real and present issue, as is avoiding the accusation of class wars with criticism of funding for private schools (that Latham clearly did) is relevant, I would have thought.

Well at least more than stating that John Howard is a lying rodent, Dolly Downer is a sook and that Peter Costello is a gutless wimp, or do we have different definitions of what constitutes political discussion?

Is there a better Chris for informed comment on education? If there is I don’t know them.

It was a long thread and I’m thinking GO didn’t like the number at the top when it started.

But in future I’ll – bite my lip and buy what I’m told.

You are a thread-diverter – the most consistent thread diverter of all. You have not only opened up a can of worms but got Jasmine (332) to call on “Chris” (whom I take to be me) to give a “good answer”. For the moment, I will restrict myself to a few comments. Your statement that state schools “are nowhere near as efficient in terms of manpower” is not backed with evidence. I am in the process of gathering evidence for a book that I intend to write, but some of my figures are for some years ago and need updating. In 1999, the last year of the educationally vandalistic Liberals ruled the state, Victorian government primary schools had a PTR of 17.2:1, compared with Anglican primary schools with 12.9:1, Catholic primary schools with 19.9:1, other independent schools with 15.2:1. The secondary PTRs, in the same order were 12.6:1, 10.6:1, 13.4:1 and 11.2:1. The ratios of pupil to total staff in 1997 were for government primary schools 14.8:1 and for all non-government primary schools 15.4:1. The secondary figures were 10.4:1 and 9.4:1. It would be logical to assume that, if those figures had been broken down by private school sector, the Catholic system would be worse than the government one, and the other private schools better.

The voucher for a Victorian government school student is about $5,000, with some variation according to the student’s level. When you add in funding for other school programs, the figure increases somewhat. The last school I taught in had a total funding per student of just over $7,000 – woefully inadequate – thanks to the last Liberal Government’s staff cuts, which the current Labor Government has not reversed in secondary schools. There are very few out-of-school services in Victoria – thanks to the last Liberal Government. Over 90 per cent of funding goes to schools. Some of those out-of-school services are accessible by private schools in any case.

There has been a push to turn the government school system into a competing cacophony of small business run by supposedly entrepreneurial principals. It is not at all efficient. It is a complete mind-boggling disaster with all the business jargon: e.g., “transformational leadership construct”. If you want more examples, you can find hundreds from my old school on the BS Bingo section of the satire section of http://www.platowa.com. There are very fewer layers of administration in the government system, which simply means a greater burden has been placed on the staff of each school, who now have to do tasks that were once done for them. This detracts from the educational endeavour of the school. Don’t get me started. The story of education is the greatest example of mindless claptrap adopted in our history, a story of deceit and ignorance. Private profit partnerships are another con, which is why the Victorian Government has refused to adopt them in education.

I am going to stop now, except to stay I do not have an objection to government funding of private schools, though I do object to the Howard Government’s method.

Again apologies but as much as I disagree with some of your school stuff, there is an element of truth in what you say and that requires a discussion of appropriate funding balance without ‘class warfare’ being thrown at us. My answer to the class-warfare challenge is if we can’t discuss who needs what and who gets what, then they shouldn’t be getting it at all.

As for the future fund, surely you don’t buy Costello’s political spin and rubbish on these? The future fund is all about the superannuation problem he has ignored (surely not good economic management) for most the boom and the others are about the capacity of his economy to absorb the needed investment now.

Again please accept my apologies if I was a bit harsh can I blame the 100’s of accountants I work for (I’m a lawyer who’d know none of this accounting rubbish if it wasn’t for them).