Tim Blair

LATHAM DETONATION WATCH

"The tropical heat of the Top End has brought back the real Mark Latham," writes Sue Dunlevy:

Channel 9 correspondent Laurie Oakes was attacked for making "smart alec commentary" as the Opposition Leader went troppo.

Mr Latham was still trying to sustain the bizarre argument the families would be better off on a weekly basis and only worse off annually.

"If journalists don't get it, well bad luck, the Australian people do and Labor is going to solve the problem for them," he told Channel 9's Sunday.

Oh, thank you Uncle Mark! You can tell when Latham is trying to control his temper; he begins uptalking like an indignant teenager. Inflections were rising all over the place when this happened:

Mark Latham yesterday demanded his three-year-old son Oliver be left out of the campaign and turned on journalists covering his election bid.

The extraordinary outburst followed one question about whether the Labor leader might send his children to a private school.

"I'm a supporter of the public education system. The truth of this matter is that we've put Oliver's name down for a couple of pre-schools next year.

"And we've picked one [private pre-school] out that we hope he will go to, if we're still in Sydney."

Note to Mark: if the question is about what school you’re sending your kid to, it’s a question about schools. You might have a legitimate cause for grievance if the question was about your kid having no friends or if he’d learned to walk yet or if other pre-schoolers called him "Ollie Ollie Oxen Face".

What was I saying about schools a couple of weeks ago? Oh, here it is: "Raise the cost of private education and some of Mark Latham’s beloved aspirational class won’t be able to afford it. The gap between rich and poor will increase!" Scarily, Robert Manne agrees:

The reduction of public funds from private schools is not only dubious politics; it is a policy mistake. Parents most affected by this will be those struggling to pay their private school fees. As a result such schools will become even more exclusive than is the case.

Manne is on-side with the single-parent families, too:

When Labor's family and tax policy was released, it immediately became clear that low-to-middle, dual-income-earning families would benefit quite handsomely from the package. It also became clear that once the Coalition's recent offer of $600 a year a child was taken into account, many single-income families would suffer financial loss, especially if the income of the sole breadwinner was low and the family had a number of children to support.

The single income family is, in general, the type where severe economic difficulties are now found. Nevertheless Labor was now going to the election promising many single income families that if it were elected they would be noticeably less well off.

Meanwhile, at the serious end of politics:

Prime Minister John Howard is today expected to launch a $98.7 million assault on terrorism with plans for specialist counter-terrorism flying squads to be dispatched in the region to help Australia's neighbours guard against terror attacks.

News of the planned announcement last night came after Mr Howard flexed his muscles on national security yesterday by restating his readiness to launch a pre-emptive strike if a terrorist threat emerged against Australia.

Mr Howard reaffirmed his position after Opposition Leader Mark Latham ruled out taking similar military action, suggesting it was best to use diplomatic channels.

UPDATE. An article from last week’s Herald Sun (no link available) by Dr Kevin Donnelly, a staffer with Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews:

The first thing to be said about the ALP’s schools policy is that it represents a grubby and cynical political exercise that destroys any promise about trust and openness in government.

How else do you explain why voter-sensitive Jewish schools in marginal ALP seats like Melbourne Ports are excluded from funding cuts?

The Australian Education Union (AEU) last week launched a $1.5 million campaign across 28 marginal seats in an attempt to unseat the Howard Government. The very next week, surprise, surprise, Mark Latham announces an additional $1.9 billion for AEU-dominated government schools.

Forget that the AEU’s curriculum policy - one which refuses to hold teachers or schools publicly accountable, that is anti-family and that promotes the rights of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people and that applauds PC fads like black armband history – is one reason why parents are deserting government schools.

Of course, Mark Latham is smart enough to know, given that 32% of students attend non-government schools (in Victoria the figure grows to 41% at years 11 and 12), that it would be political suicide to stop funding non-government schools altogether.

The answer, engage in the politics of envy and establish a hit list of 67 so-called wealthy, elite schools and freeze the funding at a further 111.

Ignored is that the current SES formula used to fund non-government schools is already needs based. The average student government recurrent funding (2001-2002) is just under $9,000, students at Scotch College only receive $1,713 in government funding and students at The Kings School in Sydney receive $1,905.

By cutting funding and forcing schools to increase fees, all the ALP will achieve is to financially penalise those parents who wish to choose what is best for their children. Worse still, every student that is forced back into the government system represents an additional burden on government spending.

The fact is that that 47.9% of independent school families earn less than $78,000 a year and, according to figures released by the Productivity Commission, such parents save Australian governments $4.2 billion a year. Such parents not only pay for their children’s education, their taxes also fund government schools.

Take our family as an example. Julia and I both went to government schools and ended up teaching in them as well. Such was our experience of the state system that we sent James to Camberwell Grammar and Amelia to Ryton – both independent schools are on the ALP’s hit list.

The only way we paid schools fees was by Julia taking on part time work and by increasing the mortgage. Of course, we did not expect governments to cover the cost. At the same time we certainly felt, as parents, that we had the right to choose and that some of our taxes should support our children’s education.

Not only is the ALP schools policy guilty of the tall poppy syndrome - let’s attack those schools that achieve the best academic results and that promote values that parents want - but the policy also gives greater control to state and federal left-leaning bureaucracies and teacher unions.

The ALP policy released this week calls for a nationally consistent curriculum, including teaching Australian values and common approaches to reporting and literacy and numeracy. Those parents who remember Joan Kirner’s VCE and Paul Keating’s national curriculum will understand that dangers in such an approach.

Posted by Tim Blair at September 20, 2004 02:57 PM