Centre for Policy Development's Blog, page 91

Chris Bonnor & Jane Caro | Chance to put money where it will make a difference

In light of the Gonski Report, Chris Bonnor  and Jane Caro discuss some of the report's findings and recommendations and the state of the education system in Australia today.

"If someone had predicted 30 years ago that education funding and policy decisions made then would lead to an Australia where even Labor politicians felt that they had to pay a lot of money to get a decent education for their children, they would not have been believed. Yet this is a common view.

For more than a decade, we've known that our schools have been advantaging students at the top while slowly abandoning those at the bottom. Public schools in particular are becoming, to use John Howard's words, safety nets for the poor."

Read the full article published in the Sydney Morning Herald here.

 

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Chris Bonnor | Gonski's In. It's Time To Act

There's remarkable consensus that the Gonski recommendations are spot on. The danger? That Labor will stall too long before implementing them, writes Chris Bonnor.

I'm reliably informed that whenever you talk to Labor politicians about school funding they start to twitch, and mumble "Mark Latham hit list". Helped along by numerous commentators they are spooked by the 2004 election and the policy to cut private school funding. Regardless of any serious analysis of that election, the urban myth that it was a policy disaster has dogged Labor ever since.

Maybe this helps explain what has happened since. Only the ALP could set up a review of school funding and tie its hands by declaring up front that no school would lose a dollar. And then after two years of exhausting consultation and inquiry only the ALP could declare, on the day the review reported, that we should just start up yet another conversation about the whole matter.

The Gonski recommendations have been met with surprising if suspicious agreement by all sides in the school funding debate. For some time the media has editorialised that something is rotten in school funding and it must be fixed. Even private school lobbies have accepted the need for change or have remained silent — with the exception of Christopher Pyne who doesn't seem to know much about either silence or school funding.

In a week when everyone is pointing to problems of Labor leadership and direction Gillard's decision to drag her feet has been met with a mixture of astonishment and disbelief. "Honestly," wrote the Herald's Andrew Stevenson, "what is left to be said". The Fairfax press editorialised, "So like a child asking for the impossible, Gonski has been told 'we'll see'". The Australian reported on the perplexed responses from all and sundry. Only the Daily Telegraph lined up in favour of more talking.

So why the delay to implementing a report that has gained such widespread approval? Yes, it will take a few months to turn some of the recommendations into workable models, but that's not the problem. Federal Labor is in a cold funk about changing the current arrangements — particularly as every major interest group will be doing their own modeling around Gonski's recommendations and arming themselves for a coming fight.

The existing system favours some families over others, so any change will be contentious. There will be a mix of funding: an adjusted amount for each student and additional loadings based on need. Any decision to channel funds mainly into large grants per student will do nothing for equity; a strong needs component on the other hand will potentially change our landscape of schools, subject to the size of any funding pie. Oh, and that's another problem. You can imagine the argy bargy which is about to take place behind closed doors.

Will there be winners and losers? Of course there will be, just as we have created winners at the expense of losers for years. We have subsidised the bright, the aspirant, and the well-endowed — sending them off to schools where they could better themselves and ease the anxieties of their equally aspirant parents.

What is different today is that we now know the consequences for others: for students and families left behind and consequences for educational standards and economic growth. The jury is out: concentrating advantage boosts some students but concentrating low achievers nobbles those at the bottom of the school food chain. Just two weeks ago the OECD issued another warning about this. We are starting to realise why successful school systems don't do this. We might be 10 years too late.

If the recommendations correcting this imbalance are implemented there is no doubt that some private schools are going to become more expensive over time as their public funding reduces in real terms. These will be the schools which in one way or another have enrolled students who are more advantaged. They will have a lesser call on the public funds needed to ensure a resource standard for all students. Their fees will go up, but they do anyway. Public funding has never made these schools more accessible. (Are you listening, David Kemp?)

Regardless, we now have to endure months of feverish debate and lobbying. Those with the resources and who know the buttons to push have managed to delay fundamental reform in the past. They will now seek to water down any attempt to steer policy and funding toward equitable and quality provision for all.

They might have a leg to stand on if there was any truth in their coming array of sideshow arguments. Fee-charging schools save public money, comes the recycled claim. But should the purpose of public funding of schools be to save public funding? What a bizarre aspiration, given the well-known social and economic dividends from universal and free quality education. It is time we started to count the real cost when we don't get this right. As it is we spend billions subsidising school choice and face a huge cost of compensating the kids left behind. Some saving!

Decades ago we started developing our unsustainable hybrid system of schools. We were warned at the time about the problems it would create. At no time were we ever asked if we really wanted to create some school pathways for the better-off, leaving just safety nets for the others.

This time around we have been promised a review and it has now reported. The Federal Government must not be spooked by distractions and be prepared to stay this very important course. It has spoken the language of education reform for years; it now has the chance to implement the most needed reform of all.

Read the full article as published in New Matilda here.

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Chris Bonner | Gonski's In. It's Time To Act

There's remarkable consensus that the Gonski recommendations are spot on. The danger? That Labor will stall too long before implementing them, writes Chris Bonnor.

I'm reliably informed that whenever you talk to Labor politicians about school funding they start to twitch, and mumble "Mark Latham hit list". Helped along by numerous commentators they are spooked by the 2004 election and the policy to cut private school funding. Regardless of any serious analysis of that election, the urban myth that it was a policy disaster has dogged Labor ever since.

Maybe this helps explain what has happened since. Only the ALP could set up a review of school funding and tie its hands by declaring up front that no school would lose a dollar. And then after two years of exhausting consultation and inquiry only the ALP could declare, on the day the review reported, that we should just start up yet another conversation about the whole matter.

The Gonski recommendations have been met with surprising if suspicious agreement by all sides in the school funding debate. For some time the media has editorialised that something is rotten in school funding and it must be fixed. Even private school lobbies have accepted the need for change or have remained silent — with the exception of Christopher Pyne who doesn't seem to know much about either silence or school funding.

In a week when everyone is pointing to problems of Labor leadership and direction Gillard's decision to drag her feet has been met with a mixture of astonishment and disbelief. "Honestly," wrote the Herald's Andrew Stevenson, "what is left to be said". The Fairfax press editorialised, "So like a child asking for the impossible, Gonski has been told 'we'll see'". The Australian reported on the perplexed responses from all and sundry. Only the Daily Telegraph lined up in favour of more talking.

So why the delay to implementing a report that has gained such widespread approval? Yes, it will take a few months to turn some of the recommendations into workable models, but that's not the problem. Federal Labor is in a cold funk about changing the current arrangements — particularly as every major interest group will be doing their own modeling around Gonski's recommendations and arming themselves for a coming fight.

The existing system favours some families over others, so any change will be contentious. There will be a mix of funding: an adjusted amount for each student and additional loadings based on need. Any decision to channel funds mainly into large grants per student will do nothing for equity; a strong needs component on the other hand will potentially change our landscape of schools, subject to the size of any funding pie. Oh, and that's another problem. You can imagine the argy bargy which is about to take place behind closed doors.

Will there be winners and losers? Of course there will be, just as we have created winners at the expense of losers for years. We have subsidised the bright, the aspirant, and the well-endowed — sending them off to schools where they could better themselves and ease the anxieties of their equally aspirant parents.

What is different today is that we now know the consequences for others: for students and families left behind and consequences for educational standards and economic growth. The jury is out: concentrating advantage boosts some students but concentrating low achievers nobbles those at the bottom of the school food chain. Just two weeks ago the OECD issued another warning about this. We are starting to realise why successful school systems don't do this. We might be 10 years too late.

If the recommendations correcting this imbalance are implemented there is no doubt that some private schools are going to become more expensive over time as their public funding reduces in real terms. These will be the schools which in one way or another have enrolled students who are more advantaged. They will have a lesser call on the public funds needed to ensure a resource standard for all students. Their fees will go up, but they do anyway. Public funding has never made these schools more accessible. (Are you listening, David Kemp?)

Regardless, we now have to endure months of feverish debate and lobbying. Those with the resources and who know the buttons to push have managed to delay fundamental reform in the past. They will now seek to water down any attempt to steer policy and funding toward equitable and quality provision for all.

They might have a leg to stand on if there was any truth in their coming array of sideshow arguments. Fee-charging schools save public money, comes the recycled claim. But should the purpose of public funding of schools be to save public funding? What a bizarre aspiration, given the well-known social and economic dividends from universal and free quality education. It is time we started to count the real cost when we don't get this right. As it is we spend billions subsidising school choice and face a huge cost of compensating the kids left behind. Some saving!

Decades ago we started developing our unsustainable hybrid system of schools. We were warned at the time about the problems it would create. At no time were we ever asked if we really wanted to create some school pathways for the better-off, leaving just safety nets for the others.

This time around we have been promised a review and it has now reported. The Federal Government must not be spooked by distractions and be prepared to stay this very important course. It has spoken the language of education reform for years; it now has the chance to implement the most needed reform of all.

Read the full article as published in New Matilda here.

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Chris Bonnor | What Gonski means for students and teachers with Chris Bonnor from the CPD

Chris Bonnor, former school principal and Fellow of the Centre for Policy Development, recently appeared on Adelaide Radio's Your Rights at Night program to discuss the findings of the Gonski Review and what it means for the Australian school system and future education funding.

Listen to the full interview with Adelaide Radio's Your Rights at Night here.

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Chris Bonner | What Gonski means for students and teachers with Chris Bonnor from the CPD

Chris Bonnor, former school principal and Fellow of the Centre for Policy Development, recently appeared on Adelaide Radio's Your Rights at Night program to discuss the findings of the Gonski Review and what it means for the Australian school system and future education funding.

Listen to the full interview with Adelaide Radio's Your Rights at Night here.

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Melissa Sweet | Gonski review has a lot to teach the health system: Consumers Health Forum

Melissa Sweet considers the recommendations of the Gonski Report in terms of current approached to, and funding of, healthcare. She sites a statement made by Carol Bennett, CEO of the Consumers Health Forum, who highlights the aspects of the report which are relevant to Australia's current healthcare crisis.

"The cry of "nanny state" is often used to oppose public health measures that are in the public interest but threaten powerful private interests.

Perhaps the cry of "class warfare" falls into the same category when it comes to social reforms that are in the broader public interest.

That is one question arising from suggestions the Government is unlikely to act on Gonksi's recommendations for a more equitable, rational basis for funding schools, for fear of being accused of "class warfare"."

Read the complete article on Croakey: The Crickey Health Blog here.

Ian McAuley | Means testing passes but do we even need health insurance?

Ian McAuley discusses the real value of private health insurance and the possibility of a fairer health care system.

Read the full article published by The Conversation here

"When the government finally succeeded in its third attempt to remove the 30% subsidy for high-income earners holding private health insurance, the opposition's response was a promise to restore it should the coalition be voted into office. Tony Abbott said the rebate "is an article of faith for the Coalition. Private health insurance is in our DNA…

Research shows countries that rely on private insurance to fund health care get no better health outcomes – but they spend much more than the countries that rely on the power of a single national insurer and market competition…

Policy makers need to ask not only whether private insurance adds value to health care – and our analysis finds it does not – but also whether it could serve a useful role under any circumstances.

Just as other sectors have had to do, the private health insurance industry should be required to show that in return for budgetary and regulatory support, it can achieve outcomes that could not be gained through other, less expensive means."

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Ben Eltham | Labor In Freefall As Rudd Challenges

Kevin Rudd may be popular with the electorate but his colleagues loathe him. This dilemma is driving a wedge through the ALP and the damage will be felt for a generation, says Ben Eltham.

Poor old Labor.

The grand old party of the Australian political system — one of the oldest working class political parties in the world, in fact — is facing one of its bleakest moments in perhaps half a century.

At this stage of the electoral cycle, Labor should be moving along calmly, passing key elements of its legislative agenda and preparing marginal seats for in-depth defence.

Instead, it is tearing itself apart.

We have open warfare in the Labor Party. We have the former prime minister battling the current Prime Minister. We have duelling press conferences, non-stop news coverage, Twitter in meltdown, and Labor figures trashing each other's reputations at every chance.

And what are they fighting over? As I and others have argued, it's not the policy or philosophy of the party. It's about nothing more nor less than the spoils of office.

The message that Julia Gillard and her supporters are sending is that the government under Rudd was "chaotic" — that at a certain operational level, Rudd was imperious, high-handed, perhaps simply incompetent. He couldn't run a meeting. He lost his temper regularly. He would turn up to press conferences with Nicola Roxon without even telling her what was in the policy she was scheduled to announce.

The message Kevin Rudd is sending is just as stark. It is electability. As he broadcast to his colleagues from Mexico and Washington, the key point is that he can beat Tony Abbott in a general election.

Neither Rudd nor Gillard's pitches are statements of philosophical position or outlines of policy platforms. This is, in effect, a popularity contest. It is a Machiavellian intrigue. As Malcolm Farnsworth writes today, "For MPs, it is a two-fold question of what will save their seat and what will save the Government."

"Everything else," Farnsworth writes, "is fluff."

Julia Gillard's press conference this morning was an extraordinary performance in difficult circumstances — perhaps Gillard's most composed and animated effort as Prime Minister. Gillard was combative, determined and dogged. But even a convincing slapdown of an interrupting journalist can't disguise the deep dissatisfaction that characterises her standing in the electorate. Julia Gillard has never been a popular prime minster. It's hard to see how she could become one now.

Rudd, on the other hand, is vastly more popular, and everyone knows it. He is an effortlessly skillful media manipulator. His command of Twitter and Facebook would embarrass many a communications professional or ad agency exec. He gives great television, too: who could forget that June 2010 press conference on the morning of his resignation as Prime Minister? In narrowcast or broadcast, Kevin Rudd is by far the best campaigner Labor has got.

The result is that Labor's most effective inside operator is engaged in open warfare with its most mediagenic and popular campaigner. So are their respective forces. Peter Beattie was only just stretching the metaphor when he compared it the War of the Roses on Lateline last night.

The last time the Australian Labor Party split so decisively was in the 1950s, when the Democratic Labor Party broke away from the parent party, effectively condemning Labor to 20 years of electoral wilderness.

The 1955 split was about matters of high principle as well as low revenge. It revolved around the supposed influence of Communism in the labour movement in the middle of the Cold War, and was driven by powerful intellects like that of B.A. Santamaria, founder of the so-called "Movement".

Other Labor splits have also been matters of principle and politics. The 1916 split, perhaps the most bitter of all, was about conscription. It occurred in the wake of Gallipoli, at the height of World War I. The 1931 split was about economic policy. It occurred in the depths of the Great Depression.

The Kevin Rudd-Julia Gillard split occurred in a time of peace and prosperity, midway through the first term of a Labor government, with Labor actually leading in the polls. Despite or because of this, the party is divided along internecine faultlines, with old enmities and factional alliances counting for everything, and policy counting for nothing.

Broadly, the right factions continue to support Gillard, while at least some of the left have thrown their lot in with Rudd. But there are individual tensions and sub-factional manoeuvres at play too. Much is often made of how many enemies Kevin Rudd has. But many in the left of the ALP also hate Gillard, who used to be one of them, but moved seamlessly towards the power base of the right when the opportunity came. Similarly, Rudd seems to have few supporters in Queensland, where bitter hatreds date back to Rudd's time as chief of staff for former premier Wayne Goss.

The division of the party within and between factions, alliances and branches underlines the corrosive nature of this civil war. For instance, one of Rudd's key supporters is Bruce Hawker, from lobbying firm Hawker Britton. Hawker is generally considered to be one of the smartest campaigners in politics, left or right. He had been working on Anna Bligh's re-election campaign in Queensland, but he's had to step down to work full time as Rudd's consigliere. That's thrown Bligh's already turbulent campaign into chaos. The collateral damage of this leadership showdown will continue to grow.

It's interesting to examine how matters came to such an ugly denouement. Tactically, both sides have made mistakes, allowing the situation to spiral out of control.

Rudd, for instance, might have been better served to wait quietly in the cabinet as Foreign Minister, while Julia Gillard's popularity slowly crumbled away. The optimal time for Rudd to inherit would be around June 2013, a few months out from the 2013 election. If Rudd had been patient enough, he might won back the prime ministership without a fight.

But, as a friend of mine in the Queensland Labor Party told me, that's not Kevin's style. "Kevin goes hard and early," he wrote in an email. "He's a whirlwind of fists and fury." So Rudd allowed himself and his followers to open a shadow campaign for the leadership. The backgrounding to press gallery journalists was ceaseless and ferocious. So constant did the media speculation about leadership become, it started to create its own reality, as Tim Dunlop argues today.

The goading worked almost too well. Gillard and her supporters, particularly her cabinet colleagues like Simon Crean and Nicola Roxon, lost their patience and started to return fire. As a result, the situation quickly escalated to a point where a leadership challenge became unavoidable, if only because Gillard felt forced to pull the trigger and call a spill herself.

Now Rudd has been caught short in terms of the numbers in caucus. He does not appear likely to win the leadership ballot on Monday morning, and some are even speculating that he may decline to contest.

Either way, it seems that Gillard will retain the prime ministership, and that Rudd will exit to the backbench. Both will be further damaged by this episode. Gillard's authority will be further eroded, if that is possible, while Rudd will be free to destabilise from the backbench. Contrary to the hopes of the Gillard camp, it seems unlikely the breach can be healed quickly. This will not "end matters". The turmoil will continue. The bleeding won't stop.

I think this soap opera will be disastrous for the ALP in the long term. It may damage the Labor brand for a generation. The only winners are the Coalition and the Greens.

Read the full article as published in New Matilda here.

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Big Society | How the UK Government is Dismantling the State and What it Means for Australia

"Bush declared war on terror, Blair declared war on crime and it's like Cameron has declared war on the public sector."The first instalment in CPD's report on the 'Big Society in Australia',  How the UK Government is Dismantling the State and what it means for Australia is a startling insight into David Cameron's 2010 promise to "redefine the role of the state as a provider of public services."

Some of the impacts of the Big Society programs in the UK so far have included:

£81 billion in cuts to public spending (2010-2013)The National Health System dismantled500-700 thousand public service jobs goneCorporations and the largest charities dominating the commissioning process: 35 of 40 Work Programme (employment agency) contracts were awarded to large corporations such as Serco and A4e.

This report will be followed is a prelude to our major 'Big Society in Australia' report due for release in late April.

DOWNLOAD How the UK Government is Dismantling the State and what it means for Australia here.

(Image above thanks to Fiona Katauskas)

 

Read what we are reading on the Big Society

If you want to get beyond the Orwellian doublespeak and find out what the 'Big Society' is really about, we're also making our Delicious Account (the place where we save media and analysis about the 'Big Society' agenda) publicly available. You can find a stack of recent links here and here. Read what we are reading. Learn how 'Big Society' would change the public service and its place in society, and be part of the public service debate in Australia.

Our Public Service Research Program

The CPD Public Service Program aims to develop a robust knowledge base about the state of the public service: its funding and capacity; performance in delivering community services; and attitudes toward and expectations of the Australian Public Service. Click here to read more.

 

 

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Sebastian Rosenberg | Stop Tinkering, Start Reforming

The government has once again failed to provide real reform in the health care debate, with those suffering a mental illness continually being disadvantaged. Sebastian Rosenberg, a senior lecturer at the Brain and Mind Research Institute, University of Sydney, outlines how an array of economists, including CPD's John Menadue & Ian McAuley discussion paper Private health insurance: High in cost and low in equity, have strongly criticised the government's subsidising of private health insurance.

The policy not only shows that the government is more than prepared to ignore the broad spectrum of advice from experts, but it further stimulates the creation of two tiers of health care in this country. The story is all too familiar, with the PHI subsidies being described in 1998 as "the worst case of public policy ever seen in this parliament" by then Labor member for Jagajaga, Jenny Macklin.

The extent to which Macklin's analysis was sound in 1998 can be seen in the miraculous unanimity of the public commentary in relation to the most recent agreement to means-test the private health insurance rebate.

At the risk of oversimplifying positions, for your traditional leftie analysis of private health insurance and the changes you could consider the paper prepared by John Menadue and Ian McAuley from the Centre for Policy Development in January 2012. They systematically debunk all the key points raised by proponents of the rebate, demonstrating that the policy is a huge budget burden, has massive administrative costs, has not eased the pressure on public hospitals, has not improved choice and does not reward self-reliance.

Rather than simply focus on means-testing, they advocate that the whole policy is a colossal waste of public resources demanding fundamental revision.

Perhaps a more centrist position might be found in Ross Gittins's recent piece (The Sydney Morning Herald, 8th February) but alas no. He too explains that subsidising private health insurance doesn't only advantage the well-off but also contributes to making the health system more expensive overall.

Read the full article in the SMH here

Want some more information on the health care debate? Read John Menadue and Ian McAuley's discussion paper Private health insurance: High in cost and low in equity

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