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May 23, 2007
The penny had to drop sometime didn't it. Along with mining booms and prosperity goes the economic insecurity caused by high mortgages, Work Choices and global warming. Another advertising campaign to rebrand Work Choices into a goody goody brand to make us feel safe and comfortable in the Lucky Country isn't going to cut it.
Matt Golding
The realization is that its more than an ALP honeymoon. Something has shifted in public opinion at a deep level. Despite at the lack of overt antagonism to the Coalition unease is now working its way through the Coalition ranks as the clock ticks. The Coalition is looking embattled.
Standing on their economic credentials for a decade of sustained prosperity is not going to be enough. Nor will the fear campaign -'Rudd the destroyer' will tear down our Mcmansions and send us all to the workhouse --- bite deeply.
People must be concerned that federal funding for private schools will increase from $5.8 billion to $7.5 billion over the next five years, whilst funding to public schools will only rise from $3.1 billion to $3.4 billion over the next five years. After all 70 per cent of parents still send their children to government schools. As Ross Gittens points out in the Sydney Morning Herald:
Today, the budget shows public schools getting 31 per cent of the money while the private schools get 69 per cent. But public schools still have two-thirds of the enrolments. Mainly because of Commonwealth grants, funding for non-government schools is growing at three times the rate of spending on public schools, which is far in excess of the growth in the private sector's share of enrolments....Get this: the minimum grant per student paid to private schools ranked as the least needy is now far higher than the grant per student paid to public schools.
The education revolution is one where the commonwealth is quietly moving to a position where they look after the private schools and leaving the public schools to the states. It is a substantial public subsidy to private schools, who continue to charge big fees.
I presume that the anti-public pro-private prejudice of the members of the Coalition is such that it holds public schools are for losers whilst private schools are for winners. Just like public transport.
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Where theres smoke theres fire. I'm wondering with 4 months to the election if Costello does have time to establish himself....Rudds come a long way in a short time and all he has really done is stand around looking good and speaking eloquently. Costello has street cred!
Last week I was predicting that Aug 25 would be the date because there is a big chance that any momentum that the Coalition has gained with be trashed by all the September 11 stuff which will drag Iraq into the news for a week.
From memory Howard won the last count by 10. So it only means 6 change their minds.