Comments for Inside Story

Comment on My School and your school by L Minchin

L Minchin — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:58:44 +0000

Although critical of the simplistic treatment of statistics and the results of NAPLAN (a snapshot on one day of the year for each test - poor students if they are ill on that day), I suggest that when 2010 results are placed on the website there will be greater potential to see the value adding effect of particular schools with groups of students.
Students in both Year 5 and Year 9 will have two sets of data from the one school, allowing the value-added effect to be more evident some
This will give a much more realistic view, over a longer period of time. Unfortunately, the MySchool website has resulted in parents making inhaste judgements about their students’ schools, causing unnecessary movement away from schools.

Comment on Climate science: dealing with the (minor) errors by Fred

Fred — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 05:28:25 +0000

The IPCC has been criticised by scientists, not “attacked”. Fitzpatrick’s rhetoric is interesting, if not offensive. She says: “Climate change is happening now and human activity is causing it.” But the Union of Concerned Scientist states, on their home page: “Climate change is happening now and human activity is primarily to blame”. She speaks of “thwart”, “manufactured campaign”, “contrarians” and so on. She then goes on to say “If [the IPCC's process] carried out with rigour, transparency and independence, such a review will confirm and strengthen the IPCC’s commitment to robust scientific assessment …” And that is the point - transparency, rigour, and independence. But already, one of the most important, authoritative, and apt critics (apt because among other things he gives us a rational basis for policy options analysis), Roger Pielke, though nominated, has been excluded from the “new” IPCC. Will we get rigour, transparency and independence?

As scientists, we must be curious, skeptical and rigorous, and not as Fitzpatrick wants, bound to a political position.

Comment on Good news goes missing by Nelly

Nelly — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:28:26 +0000

I couldn’t work it out, but there it is, then: the 2 things that damaged Rann’s reputation and his party’s election chances, despite all clear evidence of their good work for SA’s prosperity, were:

1. allegation from a former parliament house waitress
2. a law regulating anonymous blogs and online comments (after anti-Atkinson web commentaries by the Liberal Party rather than written by a real person)

On both accounts - Liberals’ dirty games. Good on them, clever strategists and very good for SA’s future!

Comment on Reading aloud by Jill Sutton

Jill Sutton — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 05:50:36 +0000

But despite this interesting article’s title I am sad to see that there is no suggestion that we might revive the practice of reading aloud in libraries. I crave little groups of people actually reading some interesting passage from a book to an avid group of listeners and thus provoking some discussion. If it’s a good enough practice for the children’s book corner why not use it for adults?

Many of us love the sound of the spoken word and would like another option in addition to Radio National. We know that before the drive to universal literacy many citizens would depend on community readers for access to news, stories and ideas.

I have recently begun a group which meets for dinner in a cheap pub and gives each person a turn to read out an interesting paragraph from an article or book that they are currently enjoying. The participant then tells us why they think it’s notable and we all discuss it before moving on to the next person’s choice. It works well.

Comment on Health reform: the opening shot by Peter

Peter — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 11:16:56 +0000

This is an interesting and thoughtful commentary on first impressions of the federal government’s proposed changes. I find the reference to Primary Health Care Organisations particularly relevant, as it is relevant to recall that these are being introduced by the federal government largely to address concerns with the numbers and variable performances of Divisions of General Practice. So it seems highly likely that the proposed local networks will be regionalised at some point, probably along similar (geographic) lines to the PHCOs.

I disagree that the dropped bed pan won’t be heard outside of Port Macquarie – if for no other reason than the proposed transfer of capital funding to the gederal government. Just wait to see how many federal MPs end up on local network boards (or ex board members at some point end up as MPs) and campaign for their local hospital(s) to get upgraded facilities. And wait to see how loudly said MPs and their constituents knock on the federal minister’s door.

The capital funding arrangement also raises significant political questions, when the planning responsibilities still reside with the states and territories. Far from alleviating the blame game, it will add a whole new dimension.

The states and territories have raised some interesting concerns around the 60%-of-an-efficient-price proposal and its relationship to who picks up the bill for costs above the efficient price. The experience with Medicare and the process of setting rebates for community medical fees suggest that the federal government will limit increases in the price it chooses to pay to something below the price needed to cover the cost of delivering the service. In the case of Medicare, the result has been massive increases in the out of pocket payments for the patients. In the proposed hospital funding model, it will be the states and territories picking up the gap. The blame game will echo the current blame game between the AMA and federal government over rebates under the Medicare Benefits Schedule. This issue can be realised by asking who will bail out a local network that can’t pay its bills, which will happen – just has it has happened with various area health services in recent years.

At the state and territory levels, the politicians have often attempted to effect changes in the balance of funding between hospitals and other parts of the health system – population health, primary health, etc. Ultimately, that was unable to be done as hospitals wield too much clout – politically and emotionally – in the public arena. This has been seen also when governments have tried to change the roles of hospitals as the communities and populations they serve have changed. We’ve seen this with attempts to close country hospitals failing, and failure when attempting to reduce the roles of teaching hospitals as urban populations changed (St George in Sydney and The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Adelaide). Witness also the fact that states that moved to area health services were unable to get specialist children’s hospitals to agree to become part of larger health services. Instead, they usually got to run their own health service or be the controlling party in a functionally defined area health service that cuts across the other, geographically defined services.

It is of these realities of organising and directing the health system that federal government politicians and agencies generally lack experience and understanding. To get a sense of how quickly and effectively they will come up to speed, it would be useful to examine how the process of taking responsibility for the Mersey Hospital in Tasmania went, and is going.

Comment on Australia–India: reimagining the relationship by David Feith

David Feith — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 03:20:57 +0000

Great article by Robin Jeffrey. Let’s not forget the many great things the Indian community has brought to Australia - or to Melbourne at least. We have a great range of Indian restaurants, including some that serve South Indian food like dosais (quite different from North Indian food); we have many Indian groceries shops selling Indian spices and a range of foods, and DVDs! We can now occasionally see Indian films in cinemas, but we can any day get an Indian film on DVD with subtitles, and watch it at home. We also have some great Indian temples - both Hindu & Sikh; we have Bollywood and classical Indian dance schools; we have Indian music concerts and Indian festivals are now celebrated here. The Indian community has significantly enriched the cultural life of Melbourne!

Comment on Health reform: the opening shot by More health reform reaction: Menadue, Duckett and more – Croakey

More health reform reaction: Menadue, Duckett and more – Croakey — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 06:11:12 +0000

[...] don’t miss this piece at Inside Story by James Gillespie, from the Menzies Centre for Health Policy, who provides some thoughtful context [...]

Comment on What is a liberal? by Chris

Chris — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 01:12:07 +0000

Your scholarship is admirable, but your interpretation is poor. The assertion that negative freedom is not a necessary or sufficient condition for the existence of other valued goods is incorrect. It is a basic condition whereby the other values may be pursued, but not to the detriment or exclusion of others.

The only point of interest is your caveat that externalities need to be internalised. That is, compensation needs to be accepted by those disadvantaged by a socially beneficial scheme. This is thoroughly correct and a weakness of Mill’s position.

Comment on My School and your school by Richard Pickup

Richard Pickup — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 04:58:00 +0000

The University of British Columbia research points out the the the address of the child at kinder is more predictive than his or her address any time later: http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/2010/01/14/disadvantaged-neighbourhoods-set-childrens-reading-skills-on-negative-course-ubc-study/

Unemployment in a household in early childhood has more effect than any time later. Pisa points out that school factors are minor. NBER study in Chicago shows that randomly choosing or not choosing better schools had no effect. Twin studies show that differences between teachers has only a small effect.

Hart and Risely amongst others showed why how mothers behave is the major influence and yet we invest all this emotional energy in comparing schools. We also know that students from selective and private schools do not perform as well as normal state school kids at Uni.

Why the angst when getting the best school may not make much difference in the long run? It is superstitious behavior to think that because it is measured at school it is caused by school.

Comment on Big cuts and little cuts by James Haughton

James Haughton — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 23:36:50 +0000

While this seems like a “common sense” attitude towards government spending - of course efficient spending is better than inefficient spending - arguing that efficiency means that spending can (or should) be cut is a non-sequiter. It makes more sense to use the savings generated by efficiencies to supply more of the now-efficient services. Zero-deficit policies strangle public services and social dividends without holding back exploding private debt, in fact they encourage it.

According to the neo-Chartalist school (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartalism), of which Bill Mitchell is probably the most prominent Australian advocate (http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/), if governments cut back on spending the result will be recession as the money supply is strangled. Money cannot be treated as a neutral substance with an independently determined supply when it is a product of the very governments which are spending and taxing it.