Dingo bytes
Rich private schools are poaching students from public schools not only to increase student numbers but also to raise academic levels. Federal and state governments are moving toward a system of funding schools based on the number of pupils and on performance tables. So the rich private schools are out to lure students into their ranks with offers of scholarships, including the outstanding performers in sport (it's a prestige/PR thing). As the push to privatise education gathers speed, the majority of public schools will be cash strapped and marginalised. Thus equity will go out the window: public schools educate the overwhelming percentage of higher-cost disabled students as well as 88 percent of Aboriginal students and the vast majority of disadvantaged students.* * * In Victoria, the state police union apparently wants an all-out war on the streets, demanding that its 11,000 members be armed with semi-automatic weapons. The reasoning? "The crooks have access to these superior-calibre weapons." So the current gangland violence — with crims targeting each other — is to be used as a pretext to turn the state constabulary into a paramilitary force. The Police Association also wants officers to have as standard issue bullet-proof vests and stun guns.* * * The News Ltd gutter press on Sunday in NSW, the Sunday Telegraph, promotes itself as "informative, incisive, influential". It has as columnists the likes of religious fanatic Archbishop George Pell, reactionary windbag Piers Akerman, toady to the USA Greg Sheridan, and former-right wing federal Labor minister Stephen Loosley. The latter certainly deserves the "influential" tag. He stitched up a deal between the Carr Government and asbestos producer James Hardie that allowed Hardie to dodge paying compensation to asbestos victims by setting up a cash-strapped fund and skipping the country. For the Carr Government not putting a "legislative impediment" in Hardie's way, the company paid Loosley a $25,000 "completion fee".* * * Was anyone surprised when the Howard Government this month officially dumped as a goal reconciliation with Indigenous Australians? Howard has signed an order in the Commonwealth Gazette omitting "reconciliation" from Indigenous affairs. The move is part of the mainstreaming of Indigenous programs following the Government's gutting of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission. The Commission's chairman, Lionel Quartermaine, noted, "The Prime Minister is moving towards assimilation".* * * CAPITALIST HOG OF THE WEEK: is Kim Beazley. So, he's back, and Labor has a CIA defence spokesman, itself a sure-fire ticket into the White House. Bomber Beazley is so handy, interchangeable with, say, the current Defence Minister Robert Hill, or any other Howard Government minister; even with Flackjacket Johnnie himself. Beazley's appointment drew praise from none other than the US ambassador to Australia, Tom Schieffer, who enthused, "Kim Beazley is a great friend of the United States and is highly esteemed in Washington by both political parties".