THE SUBS 'N' DUDS | Number 6 |
REPORT | 20 June 1996 |
| Editor: Harold Hark | Melbourne, Australia |
Amanda the Hun Enlightens the Enlightened The following is a summary of Amanda Vanstone's comments at an after-dinner speech (April 6, 1996) to the National Conference of the Australian Association of Education of the Gifted and Talented (AAEGT). • I have only been the Minister for six weeks. I know nothing about this [gifted education] area. • I am not a very bright person. I don't know if I have ever met a truly bright person. Do bright people feel the same as ordinary people? Perhaps there are some bright people here tonight? • I am interested in perception. The perception of the media is that some politicians are not very bright, but I know there are really effective politicians in committees and forming policy. • When I left school and went into retailing my so-called friends who went off to university to do medicine and law thought I didn't know much. Retailing is a lot more involved than just selling bananas. • Later, when I started a BA and then a degree in law, some of these people thought I must know more. But I hadn't changed, I was still the same me. People thought I knew more with each degree and then even more when I went into parliament - but this was only a perception, not reality. • It seems quite unfair that today employment prospects are determined by a university degree. What about the 50% without degrees? Education has had it too good for too long. Why should the taxpayer on $400 per week pay for somebody to go to university to get a higher paying job? • Since becoming Minister my most important decision has been that the letterhead should be black to save confusion when changing trays of the photocopier. • The government agenda is to reduce spending. University spending is going to be cut. I am going to buy a Paddington Bear yellow mac because of the garbage that will be hurled at men when I visit universities. In response to a challenge from the floor that cutting university funding could hardly be compatible with a desire to reduce inequalities in employment opportunities: • I have no policy in mind. I am interested in the American model which compares faculties rather than institutions. Good faculties can poach good staff from the poorer faculties. • University funding, including research funding, should be allocated on an annual basis only, on the basis of faculty performance. STAND PROUD, MARGARET THATCHER. No one else can take credit for ruining Great Britain. A recent poll by a British national newspaper has shown a high percent of Brits are depressed about their future. Comparing statistics gathered in 1968 with those of 1996, the survey gave these results (Herald Sun, 4/6/96): • In 1968, 68% thought the nation's health was improving. • In 1968, 78% thought the standard of knowledge was improving. • In 1968, 66% thought intelligence levels were improving. • In 1968, 50% thought levels of honesty were worsening. • In 1968, 62% thought behavioural standards were worsening. With the Tories now governing Australia, we can look forward to the same future. Future? It's already here. The Goths in Canberra are softening up the public for a full-on assault of the ABC. They want to reduce it to the level of the brain dead commercial networks. That's where the profit lies. • To begin with, Jeff Kennett has prevented himself and his minions from being embarrassed by ABC's 7:30 Report for years and, before the election, said that if it were up to him the corporation would be cut off from public funding. • The Coalition has now joined the fray. They want to censor films on both the ABC and SBS. They know that viewers of the commercial channels are just killing time and could care less if Hollywood's trashy movies are cut. But the Government is mistaken about the rest of us. In the ABC and SBS, Australia boasts the world's best presentation of foreign films, documentaries and political commentary. Only a government of philistines would reduce their funding. The truth is, there is not a conservative in the Howard government capable of wading through the complexities of foreign cinema for snippets of naughtiness or violence. As for documentaries, if Clueless John has his way, you can be sure we'll see no more of John Pilger. • Brian Johns has strangely acquiesced to the mooted cutting of 300 jobs in the ABC and seems overjoyed at restructuring. Why? Wasn't he serious when he gave that wonderful speech last month? Something about maintaining the quality and integrity of? Or is he just another CEO, with no loyalties to staff or the public who depend on his product. • Richard Alston further softened Australians for the loss or diminution of their public broadcaster by questioning the financial competence of ABC's board. The response from the board is that their hands are tied until they know what the funding cuts are going to be. • Accusing the ABC of being 'politically correct'--which means all things to all people--the Prime Minister went on to condemn the ABC's "conventional view...that is absent in the other media," and that "there is an entirely predictable ABC view which comes out with complete predictability." Public broadcasters around the world suffer constant abuse and attack from politicians; perhaps those in government would prefer running a totalitarian country where the dissemination of information is under their direct control. The ABC could always do with a spiffing up, but the only predictability it suffers is a dedication to scrutiny of government policy--regardless of the party in power--and it does so without regard for the constraints of political bias from advertisers. Surely no one believed John Howard when he made all those pre-election promises. Politicians are born to break them. The ALP would have been happier with a nobbled ABC, and the Coalition is simply going to do it for them. The assault on brainpower continues. What kind of a country does the Coalition expect to have after they're done reducing us to Americans? DOUBLE DISSOLUTION NOW! WHERE'S ME TABLETS! From their ivory tower high above Melbourne's teeming ant populace, the Czars of Transurban toyed happily with the idea of charging commuters a $100 up front fee for using City Link's precious tollway. "Victorians will pay anything to improve our lifestyle," they said lovingly. "Look how they've fallen in line in the past. Why they even reelected the man who promised to make them as poor as a Bosnian!" We at the PPF have already worked out our alternate routes. Granted it will take a heck of a lot longer to get from A to B, but life in soon-to-be impoverished Victoria requires cleverness. And who knows? Getting up that hour earlier to get to work, may improve our lives by curbing those high civilisation indulgences at night. Maybe we'll drink a little less at the dinner table, watch a little less TV, spend more time cuddling our spouses and children. Hell, we've already cut down on movies, the theatre and going out to dinner thanks to Jeff's utilities taxes. And now that our gas meters have been refitted and we can count on paying an extra 25% every two months to cover the costs, why, we can cut down even more! |
SCUM AT THE TOP is not copyrighted and may be used in whole or in part for any purpose the reader chooses.
Published and distributed by the Political Prisoners of the Future.