Deja Vu

Stories about gun massacres in the US of innocent people going about their daily business are unfortunately almost run of the mill.
The latest tragedy in Nebraska follows a very sad and familiar pattern. What I find bizarre is the lack of response from the US authorities. It’s almost as if they’re in denial.
One of the elements of my army training that has stayed with me is the clear understanding of the lethality of modern weaponry, and the need for access to these things to be controlled.
Obviously, it’s not understood across the Pacific.
Today’s Australian editorial says it pretty well –
There was a morbid sense of deja vu about the murder of eight Christmas shoppers in a mall in Omaha, Nebraska, by a 19-year-old gunman who later killed himself. Robert Hawkins, who reportedly wrote in a suicide note that he wanted to “go out in style”, would no doubt be gratified by the global media coverage his gruesome crime received. Yet mass murder in the US has become horribly commonplace. The Virginia Tech massacre, the milk truck driver who murdered the Amish schoolgirls, the Minnesota high school massacre, the Columbine High School massacre, these are only the most gruesome cases that have made the headlines. In 2004, the most recent year for which figures are available on gun deaths in the US, there were 11,624 homicides and 16,750 suicides. The US has the highest rate of gun deaths in the developed world. In a 1994 comparative study of gun-related deaths in the 36 richest countries, the US came first with 14.24 deaths per 100,000 people compared with Australia which had only 2.65 gun deaths per 100,000.
The trouble is that guns are big business in the US. In the 20 years to 1996, the US manufactured more than 85 million firearms. So in spite of the fact that every two years more Americans are killed by guns than died in
the 10-year Vietnam War, the US Government remains the captive of the gun lobbies and refuses to increase gun regulation to protect its citizens. In contrast, in Australia, after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996 in which Martin Bryant murdered 35 people and wounded 37 others, then prime minister John Howard co-ordinated uniform gun laws in which all states and territories banned or heavily restricted the legal ownership of self-loading rifles, self-loading shotguns and pump-action shotguns, implementing a buyback program that destroyed 700,000 guns. Since then, the risk of dying by gunshot has halved and there have been no mass executions whereas in the decade leading up to Port Arthur there were 11 mass shootings, which killed 112 people. By 2003, the total number of gun deaths in Australia had dropped from 521 to 289 and gun-related homicides had dropped to one-fifteenth the rate of the US.
The Australian, more than any other paper in the country, champions individual liberty and freedom of choice, but we firmly believe that the right to life is the most fundamental freedom and it is clearly jeopardised in the US by the failure to heavily restrict and regulate gun ownership.
Pretty well said.

The Education Debate

Julia Gillard has blamed the Howard government for Australia slipping on the international league table of student outcomes.
Blame is a waste of time, but I’m feeling encouraged simply by the fact that education is where it should be - at the centre of national political debate. If the new government does nothing else, getting it up front is an accomplishment.
Back in the nineties, When Borbridge was in power in Queensland, there was an initiative called “Leading Schools”. It was decided that the best way to improve schools was to make them self managing. Schools were offered extra cash to sign up, and many did, especially high schools. At the same time as this was happening, research was commissioned which was supposed to show that self-managed schools would get better results for students. When the research was completed a few years later, it showed absolutely no correlation between how schools were managed and results for students. What it did show was a strong link between teacher performance and student results. “Leading Schools” was abandoned after two years.
This is a long winded way of showing that the best way of improving results for students is by improving teacher performance. So far, no administration has tackled this, except for the ill-considered notion of performance pay for teachers which has been shown time and again to be counter-productive.
Some suggestions from a teacher since 1968 -
Increase teacher pay by 25% immediately.
Transfer any teacher who has been on the same class or in the same school for more than three years to another teaching posting.
Mandate - by affirmative action - a minimum of 25% male teachers at every school.
Put the best teachers on the most difficult classes.
Fine parents whose children are suspended for bad behaviour - $1000 a throw.
Make TE scores for teachers 5 or better.
Mandate a post graduate qualification for all newly graduating teachers.
Introduce a statewide internship programme, so that graduating teachers spend their last year of training in schools day by day - same as medical graduates.
Provide realistic bonuses for teachers who work in difficult and challenging situations. I’m talking thousands monthly.
Make teacher registration dependent on continuing study - in other words, if you’re not studying, you can’t teach.
The unions would probably accept this conditional on the first suggestion (the pay rise).
I’d give it five years, and you’d see major improvements. Let’s see what Rudd does once the Trojan Horses (the laptops) are sorted.

Not Bread Alone

Now that the dust has settled since last Saturday, commentators are busy drawing conclusions about the state of the national psyche, as revealed by the strong swing away from the Coalition.

Many read much more into the result than it merits – I guess it sells newspapers, but some conclusions can be made. Obviously, my take is based on my view of the world, but I’m also influenced by what I read, what I remember, and my work.

For the first time I can remember in Toowoomba, I had to queue to vote. The message from this is that whichever way people voted, they did it early, and with feeling. The only other time I have seen this phenomenon was in 1972 when I was voting in Brisbane. Linked to the fact that this electorate (Groom – safe Liberal) showed a 10% swing, this meant that change was in the air.

Three of my children are old enough to vote. Of the two that live at home, one voted Green and the other Labor. The son who lives in Adelaide didn't tell me how he voted, but he lives in Kate Ellis' electorate and she was by far the best looking candidate, so I'm making a safe assumption. Whilst not very interested in politics, they all told me that climate change and HECs fees were important issues. In their situations – part time workers and students, it makes sense. Workchoices was also mentioned.

The teachers I work with seemed vehemently opposed to Coalition policy on education – particularly performance pay for teachers. Again, this makes sense. Whilst I don’t generally discuss politics with the parents of the disabled children I support, I’ve listened to enough conversations to know that federal policy on disability is held in low opinion – just as is state policy. These people are hurting so much that they take the proverbial baseball bat into the ballot box, and don’t distinguish state from federal.

Amongst all these factors, something else happened which is more difficult to interpret. It’s just possible that a large number of people are bringing moral considerations into their voting intentions. Issues such as treatment of refugees, the AWB scandal, indigenous apology and the war in Iraq backed up like a blocked sewer. On the other hand, the fear factor (whether it was based on national security or economic threats) doesn’t seem to have gained traction for the first time in a long time.

The electorate, at least this time, seems to have concluded that we don’t live on bread alone.

Vox Populi

Apparently we've had a change of government. Generally, it's been accomplished with good humour, a lack of violence and a measure of civility - especially during the concession and acceptance speeches. There have been minor exceptions (see my last post).

We should never take for granted the fact that we live in a mature democracy.

Sorry about the pic - no particular significance - it just caught my eye. My own electorate (Groom) showed a 10.5% swing to the ALP. It's gone from being safe Coalition to being on the verge of marginal. There must have been a mood for change for this to happen in conservative Toowoomba.

Reduced to This

The rich vein of racism that lurks below the skin of Australian politics has been tapped again - this time in a "boys own" stunt in Lindsay (Western Sydney). I'm less outraged than saddened that it's obviously still out there ripe for the picking. This country won't have come of age as a fully developed democracy until it's gone. I doubt I'll see it in my lifetime.

Some Mothers Do Have Em

A short time ago, I was driving my daughter to work at about 8am. As we passed a nearby park which has a lake in it, she said "Dad, why is that car in the Lake?"
Sure enough, a grotty looking Falcon ute was parked well towards the middle of the lake, a good thirty metres from the bank. The water wasn't deep, (about 750mm) but the shirtless driver was frantically trying to rescue a tool kit stored in the tray. What I couldn't understand at first glance was where it came from, as the direction it was facing didn't make any sense in terms of the surrounding roads. I also noticed a Toyota Camry parked near a service station with a disgruntled looking driver examining the front bumper which was partly detached.
I pulled up, and called out to the bloke in the lake "Are you OK?"
He completely ignored me, and continued to try to remove the tool kit from the tray. This was presenting him with a problem, as the bottom of the lake was muddy and slippery.
Another passer-by had seen the incident, and explained to me that this fellow had accelerated out of a nearby service station at high speed, straight into the Camry which was driving by at the time. It then took off in reverse, hit a 60km sign and continued into the lake. It narrowly missed a couple of kids walking along the footpath.
He didn't know why.
The police and emergency services arrived, and we went on our way.
The report in the local paper the next day explained the "why".
He had filled up at the service station and drove off without paying. He then ran into the Camry, and attempted to leave the scene at speed - backwards. He lost control and went lakewards. The police threw the book at him.
I snapped the shot with my mobile.
I don't know what he was smoking.............

Memories......

Some of the more senior of us have long memories. We remember John Howard’s performance as Treasurer. .

The example of Whitlam’s economic woes as an argument against trusting Labor with the economy has become a feature on many conservative blogs – so it is valid to talk about Howard’s history.

The Stone Report provides an interesting perspective.

It was commissioned by Bob Hawke the day after he took power in 1983, and authored by John Stone, Treasury Undersecretary. Inter Alia; it reported unemployment of 11%, inflation at 11%, interest rates of 22% and a deficit of $9.6 Billion in 1983 dollars. This $9.6 billion deficit is more than $40 billion in today's terms.

John Howard was Treasurer at the time. Stone characterised his record as the "worst economic performance since the end of WW2" with the Budget deficit "unprecedented in peace time at 6% of GDP".

During Howard's tenure as Treasurer, the 90-day cash rate peaked at 21% on 8 April 1982 while home loan mortgage rates were capped at 13.5%, and inflation peaked at 12.5% in September 1982. Peter Costello commented, in 2007, that "The Howard treasurership was not a success in terms of interest rates and inflation... he had not been a great reformer."

This little piece of history shows that Howard's line that the Liberals are always better economic managers is nonsense. Much of the strength of the Australian economy today is because Labor under Hawke and Keating had the courage to reform, something that the Liberals lacked...

The judgment of every economist and international financial institution is that the restructuring reforms undertaken by the Hawke government with the full co-operation of the trade union movement created the strength of the Australian economy today.