HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: suter@fawlty4.eng.monash.edu.au (Mr D. Suter)
Subject: Re: Why pick on the kids? Let's get the fat cats!
Keywords: overpaid salary-cap wages tax complexity
Organization: Monash University
Distribution: aus
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 08:38:48 GMT

In article <ednclark.714898429@kraken> ednclark@kraken.itc.gu.edu.au (Jeffrey Clark) writes:
>suter@fawlty8.eng.monash.edu.au (Mr D. Suter) writes:
>
>>In article <ednclark.714832071@kraken> ednclark@kraken.itc.gu.edu.au (Jeffrey Clark) writes:
>>>	Finally, there is nothing wrong with free education and increased
>>>education for the masses so long as it doesn't come hand in hand
>>>with an expectation of a highly payed, high status job and a
>>>non-acceptance of physical labour employment when the opportunity
>>>presents itself.
>>I agree with your last part. However, the bald statement ``there is
>>nothing wrong with free education and increased education for the masses''
>>is obviously wrong without further provisos/qualifiers. What do you
>>mean by free education? Tuition free? What level of support for
>>living expenses? For how long? For what courses? etc. The complete
>>lack of an ability to come to grips with these issues is what really
>>gripes me when we have people bandying about phrases like 
>>``education is a right not a privilege''. Without giving sensible
>>answers to what I have just asked, such phrases are at best
>>meaningless.
>
>Okay, I'll qualify 'free education', jeez. Free education is the freedom of
>access to education by anyone anytime.  As for the financial side to
>education I beleive that we should all be responsible to repay any
>investment into our educational careers by the general public.  I think tax
>recovery of AUSTUDY, ABSTUDY etc is a great idea and so is HECS. I don't
>beleive that governments should look at anything on an individual scale and
>that includes education.  It is in the country's best interest to have a
>highly educated population (maybe then they'll use their heads when voting),
>and the government should and does make it policy to increase the level
>of education in the general populace and make best use of these educated
>people for the society. I'm afraid I still stick to my original assertion
>until you explain why it is 'obviously wrong'.
Are you sure you want to continue?
I am happier with your statement but....it still needs qualifying (further)
and, as it stands, is ``still obviously wrong''. You mean by ``freedom
of access to education anytime'' that it doesn't matter what course
they choose (and where) i.e. without entrance exams/qualifications,
regardless of how many previous attempts? Regardless of the difficulty
in providing the education e.g. staffing levels, equipment levels,
etc? 
Without qualification in this regard it is obvious that there is
something wrong with your policy. 
Before we go on, let me say that I'm not really interested in your
answers per se, I just get sick of slogans/sweeping generalizations
used by those who argue for ``free education''. I think I have made
my point:- the slogan is meaningless no matter how many people
one gets to join a march behind such a banner.
d.s.
From: hoconnel@physics.adelaide.edu.au (Heath O'Connell)
Newsgroups: aus.politics
Subject: Re: The big currency lie
Date: 29 Aug 92 03:29:24 GMT
Distribution: aus

brendan@otc.otca.oz (Brendan Jones) writes:

>Am I the only person who absolutely *cringes* each time the 5 second news
>grab on TV relates the value of A$1 to US$?

>What is this obsession with the value of the US$?  It is not an inviolate
>measure of currency strength and the USA is not one of our biggest trading
>partners.  To me this insidious comparison is not only close to deceitful and
>misleading, but almost irrelevant.  It is an expression of cultural cringe.
>We measure our success in US$.

	I think you'll find a lot of commodity prices are set in $US.

--

			    Heath O'Connell
		hoconnel@adelphi.physics.adelaide.edu.au
Newsgroups: aus.politics
From: ghm@ccadfa.cc.adfa.oz.au (Geoff Miller)
Subject: Re: Why pick on the kids? Let's get the fat cats!
Organization: Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, Australia
Distribution: aus
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 02:20:12 GMT

ednclark@kraken.itc.gu.edu.au (Jeffrey Clark) writes:

>.... We need a constitution (and
>heaven forbid it be based on the American constitution. Who wants to go the
>way of America?) which reflects the structure and needs of today's society....

The problem with the US constitution is not so much what is in the 
document as that there appears to be no effective way of ensuring 
that the government obeys the constitution.

Geoff Miller (g-miller@adfa.oz.au) | "The first duty of power is to perpetuate
Computer Centre                    | itself.  The first duty of free men is to
Australian Defence Force Academy   | resist it."  Mike Resnick
Newsgroups: aus.politics
From: farrell@coral.cs.jcu.edu.au (John Farrell)
Subject: Re: Why pick on the kids? Let's get the fat cats!
Keywords: overpaid salary-cap wages tax complexity
Organization: James Cook University
Distribution: aus
Date: 27 Aug 92 06:29:38 GMT

In <1992Aug27.012247.8338@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au> suter@fawlty8.eng.monash.edu.au (Mr D. Suter) writes:
>``education is a right not a privilege''

  Stupid phrase. Education is a responsibility, not a right.

Friendless
From: tourloup@latcs1.lat.oz.au (Vasilios E. Tourloupis)
Newsgroups: aus.politics
Subject: Hinch Notes
Date: 18 Aug 92 04:49:17 GMT
Distribution: aus
Organization: Comp Sci, La Trobe Uni, Australia
Originator: tourloup@latcs2.lat.oz.au


Anyone seen the new $5.00 "Hinch Notes"?

Apparently, here in Victoria, there have been a number of these
"Hinch Notes" appearing in our tender.

I guess this is the type of reaction to be expected when the Reserve
Bank decides to replace the face of the only female representing
Australian history with the Queen.

Please reply, if anyone else has seen these "Hinch Notes"...

Vasilios Tourloupis - tourloup@latcs1.lat.oz.au
From: taso@munnari.OZ.AU (Taso Hatzi)
Newsgroups: aus.politics
Subject: Re: Choosing the Prime Minister and the Ministry
Date: 25 Aug 1992 19:59:25 +1000
Organization: University of Melbourne
Distribution: aus
NNTP-Posting-Host: munnari.oz.au
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

ajw@squid.mel.dit.CSIRO.AU (Andrew Waugh) writes:
: >
: >Well, Parliament does not actually choose the PM,
: 
: It does, actually. The Prime Minister (or Premier) is the person
: 
That can't be right. Kerr dismissed Whitlam and appointed Fraser PM on 
the understanding that he call an election ASAP. He could just
as easily have removed Fraser if he didn't behave himself. It is 
no more than a generally accepted convention that the GG appoints 
the Leader of the party which controls the House of Reps as PM. 
 
Newsgroups: aus.politics
From: hoconnel@physics.adelaide.edu.au (Heath O'Connell)
Newsgroups: aus.politics
Subject: Re: Choosing the Prime Minister and the Ministry
Date: 24 Aug 92 23:18:23 GMT
Distribution: aus

mrj@moria.cs.su.oz.au (Mark James) writes:

>The Australian Constitution states that the ministry is appointed
>by the Governor-General, and it has been formalised that the
>GG should take advice from the Prime Minister alone.
>But who chooses the Prime Minister?  Does/Can the Parliament act to choose
>the PM and hence the ministry?

	Cast your mind back to Paul Keating vs. Bob Hawke, the party in
government chooses the PM.


	
--
		hoconnel@adelphi.physics.adelaide.edu.au
From: yar@cs.su.oz.au (Ray Loyzaga)
Newsgroups: aus.politics
Subject: Re: Choosing the Prime Minister and the Ministry
Date: 25 Aug 92 01:52:04 GMT
Reply-To: yar@cluster.cs.su.oz (Ray Loyzaga)
Distribution: aus
Organization: Basser Dept of Computer Science, University of Sydney, Australia

In article <chris.714699710@suite.sw.oz.au> chris@suite.sw.oz.au (Chris Maltby) writes:
>In <1992Aug24.075241.3387@cs.su.oz.au> mrj@moria.cs.su.oz.au (Mark James) writes:
>
>As an aside, this area of constitutional law is very vague when
>abnormal circumstances apply. The Greiner/Moore affair is a case
>in point. The NSW Court of Appeal in ruling that the ICAC was
>unable to return a finding of corruption, referred back to Evatt's
>book "The King and his Dominion Governors" as being one of the few
>reference works on the reserve powers of the Crown.
>
>For those interstate bods, Greiner couldn't be found to be corrupt
>because the court ruled that there is no objective test for measuring
>the limit of partial (political) begaviour for politicians, even
>when they are also Ministers of the crown. He wasn't exonerated as
>the Liberals and the press keep saying...

My understanding of the ruling is:
Temby said that their actions did not break any laws,
that they did not act in a way contrary to the current
accepted behaviour he also said that they themselves
did not believe that they were breaking laws,
he also said that no notional jury would
find against them. Then in an unexplained leap of logic, found them
to have acted corruptly on the basis of partial conduct.
The Supreme Court was asked to rule only on the basis of Mr Temby's
legal judgement and his jurisdiction, on both matters he was found
to have erred (by a 2 to 1 majority). they judged he had erred in law
because they couldn't fathom how he arrived at his conclusion given
that he had not referred to any objective circumstances that are
used to arrive at reasonable grounds for dismissal from office,
they also concluded that the label "corrupt" can only be given when
the law has been broken, Temby himself found that no laws were broken.

I don't think exonerated is terribly far off, after all, if you leave
off Mr Temby's "acted corruptly" statement, there isn't much left
that the ICAC has accused them of. The Supreme Court found that Temby
was applying his own personal opinion, not an objective view, which
sounds terribly like "partial conduct" to me :-). Even the dissenting
Judge found that while he believed that it was proper for the ICAC
to make the finding, and to arrive at this opinion (hence his dissent
from the majority opinion), he disagreed with Mr Temby's findings.

Basically the ruling by the Supreme Court makes Mr Temby out
to be a bit of a legal lightweight, which is somewhat scary
considering that the position carries quite a good deal of power.
On the basis of the Supreme Court's ruling, Temby should have
stood aside pending an appeal or resigned to get the heat off the ICAC.
Newsgroups: aus.politics
From: u734120@bruny.cc.utas.edu.au (John Lamp)
Subject: Re: Hinch Notes
Organization: University of Tasmania, Australia.
Distribution: aus
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 23:27:55 GMT

socwk@lure.latrobe.edu.au writes:

>I've never seen them, but it sounds like a great idea. Ultra postmodern.
>       If anyone finds one, keep it, could be a collectors item!

>Shame, Shame
>                                               Yours
>                                                       Brief respite

Yes but who could stand keeping anything with that face on it?

--
   _--_|\             John Lamp, originating in Hobart, Tasmania
  /      \                 Phone: 002 23 1366 - Fax: 002 34 5685
  \_.--._/                   email: u734120@bruny.cc.utas.edu.au
        v <-----------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: aus.politics
From: brian@coombs.anu.edu.au (Brian)
Subject: Enterprise bargaining or.....exploitation of the workers?
Organization: Computer Services Centre, Australian National University
Date: 26 Aug 92 05:12:23 GMT

	Interesting to see little comment (as yet ;-) on Kennet's proposals
for "Industrial Relations" in the new Victoria that he's planning to build after
the coming election.  I wonder why the Libs assume that workers will be able to
enter into a bargaining situation with their (prospective) employers on
an equal footing when they have no experience of bargaining or negotiations
and still come out ahead.  Perhaps the Libs really want Australians workers to
become "more competitative" with third world workers by enjoying the same
exploitation that they do?




--
Brian Ross____________________________________________________________________
"I express many absurd opinions.  But I am not the first man to do it; 
	American freedom consists largely of talking nonsense."
____________________________________ E.W.Howe, Preaching from the Audience____
From: taso@munnari.OZ.AU (Taso Hatzi)
Newsgroups: aus.politics
Subject: Re: What's wrong with lowering the dollar?
Date: 19 Aug 1992 20:18:25 +1000
Organization: University of Melbourne
Distribution: aus
NNTP-Posting-Host: munnari.oz.au
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

chris@suite.sw.oz.au (Chris Maltby) writes:
: 
: Some commentators have suggested that a policy of encouraging imports
: was to counter the devastation for farmers that was sure to ensue from
: the minerals boom exploding the currency value. Of course, the minerals
: 
The prevailing sentiment in Canberra at the time was that the country
should direct its efforts towards supplying the World with the raw 
materials that it needed, and leave the arcane world of innovation and 
manufacture to others. If the Country Party were responsible for 
pushing this cart, they have a lot to answer for. (Is that why they
changed their name?)
From: hoconnel@physics.adelaide.edu.au (Heath O'Connell)
Newsgroups: aus.politics
Subject: Re: How Fightback Delivers Hi Unemploy
Date: 31 Aug 92 03:17:30 GMT

agarton@peg.pegasus.oz.au writes:

>Yes it is "quite expensive" to develop new technology. But most of
>the people we're talking about don't develop it; they simply buy
>it because its going to return more than they spend. A lot of this
>stuff, particularly electronics actually appears as fallout from
>(public funded) military R&D.

I wrote:
>>But it's only through competition that the new technologies are
>>devised and implemented.
provoking:
>Eh? Oh you mean like the "competition" that took place during WWar
>II and W(Cold)War III? Most of those technologies are sitting idle
>and have little relevance to employment - unless they were used to
>vapourise all those useless unemployed people. But I guess we'll
>save that idea till after the election....


>Anyway, this is not dinner conversation. This is polemic. Don't
>you know there's a war going on?

	Just think of the technology then. Or doesn't it get used?



--

			    Heath O'Connell
		hoconnel@adelphi.physics.adelaide.edu.au
From: brendan@otc.otca.oz (Brendan Jones)
Newsgroups: aus.politics
Subject: The big currency lie
Date: 27 Aug 92 07:55:59 GMT
Distribution: aus

Am I the only person who absolutely *cringes* each time the 5 second news
grab on TV relates the value of A$1 to US$?

What is this obsession with the value of the US$?  It is not an inviolate
measure of currency strength and the USA is not one of our biggest trading
partners.  To me this insidious comparison is not only close to deceitful and
misleading, but almost irrelevant.  It is an expression of cultural cringe.
We measure our success in US$.

To me, the only measure of importance is the Trade Weighted Index, which
measures the value of our currency in relation to our trading partners'
currencies in weighted proportion to the size of our trade with them.  This
is actually a *meaningful* measure.

On the day our dollar allegedly had a disastrous battering and was threatening
us with becoming a Pacific Peso, the value of the A$ ROSE against the TWI.

No more needs be said.
-- 
Brendan Jones  | ACSnet:  brendan@otc.otca.oz.au               | What does
R&D Contractor |   UUCP:  {uunet,mcvax}!otc.otca.oz.au!brendan | your
Services R&D   |  Phone:  (02)287-3128    Fax:  (02)287-3299   | company
|||| OTC ||    |  Snail:  GPO Box 7000 Sydney 2001, AUSTRALIA  | export?
Newsgroups: aus.politics
From: mrj@cs.su.oz.au (Mark James)
Subject: Re: What's wrong with lowering the dollar?
Reply-To: mrj@cs.su.oz.au (Mark James)
Organization: Basser Dept of Computer Science, University of Sydney, Australia
Distribution: aus
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 11:34:18 GMT

In article <chris.714179739@suite.sw.oz.au> chris@suite.sw.oz.au (Chris Maltby) writes:
>
>An interesting thread for this group might be some discussion of
>exactly how we managed to turn a respectable trade surplus throughout
>most of this century into a massive deficit in just a few years. The
>crucial change in policy (if it was policy) seems to have occurred in
>the late 1970s. As such either Fraser or Stone would seem to be the
>responsible official.

Our trade is currently approximately in balance.  What is killing us
is the interest bill on overseas borrowings.  Beacuse of our poor
savings ratio, much of our borrowing must come from abroad.  O/S
borrowing was also encouraged by the government holding up interest rates.
During the 80s, much of the borrowing went on a non productive bidding up
of the values of corporate and property assets.  Little of the
borrowing gave us a real return through exports or import-replacement.
The fall in the dollar didn't help (no J-curve), as busineses found
it was too much effort to actually develop new products -- it was
much easier to make money by other means, or to simply sit tight.
Deregulation of the financial sector set all this off.

I think much of our debt is now denominated in Australian dollars so
that a fall in the dollar has no adverse consequences for debt.  Our
primary industries are very price sensitive and so a fall in the
dollar would do them a lot of good.  However, many other goods
and services are not so price sensitive and so a fall in the
dollar would not automatically lead to an export boom.  Also,
because much of what we import is not made here, it would not
cut imports by that much.  What I think is needed is a change
in corporate and union culture, and targeted industry policies.
This is slowly occuring.  It's a pity that Keating may now
disappear, when he has learnt so much the hard way.

Mark
Newsgroups: aus.politics
From: mrj@cs.su.oz.au (Mark James)
Subject: Re: The Role of Government + Medicare
Reply-To: mrj@cs.su.oz.au (Mark James)
Organization: Basser Dept of Computer Science, University of Sydney, Australia
Distribution: aus
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 10:57:56 GMT

In article <1992Aug13.040731.20203@cs.su.oz.au> yar@cluster.cs.su.oz (Ray Loyzaga) writes:
>
>I prefer a health system where health care is available to the
>poor and the elderly for free, the rest is means tested
>with a maximum amount payable averaged over three years.
>i.e $5k over 3 years. This represents "health insurance" with an
>excess payable by all except those who cannot reasonably be able
>to afford the health care. It also reduces the effect of a major
>medical problem by imposing a maximum. I do not see why I do not
>have to pay for visiting a doctor, I can afford to pay, and I should.
>I should also be able to buy insurance that either further reduces
>my exposure to health costs or improves the services available
>through private medical facilities.

The major argument that the government would raise against this is that
it would cause a run away of health costs as doctors would be free to
charge what they like, enabled by the AMA cartel.  The scheme would be
feasible if:

	- people had less loyalty to their current doctor
	  (no more "my new doctor wouldn't know my history"),

	- doctors could advertise,

	- doctor supply wasn't restricted, and

	- AMA price-setting was weakened.

Still, doctors would try and maintain a level of income that they
think persons of their status should earn, and so there would be a floor
to the price charged (although overseas trained doctors would tend
severly unercut locally trained ones).

The government would find it hard to restrict the fees for consultations
on over-threshold patients only.

Are you suggesting a threshold that is a function of income?

>Universal free health care is stupid, why shouldn't those who can afford
>to pay be made to pay? Why do the Kerry Packers of the world get
>the same medical subsidies as the poorest in our society?

Under Medicare, you pay in proportion to your income (1.25%)
(although the levy is only a proportion of the cost of the health
system).  It is usually cross-subsidisation of the poor by the rich.
The exceptions are very sick rich people and healthy poor people.

Mark
From: agarton@peg.pegasus.oz.au
Newsgroups: aus.politics
Subject: Re: If what I saw was true....
Date: 26 Aug 92 00:54:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #R:brian.713773414@coombs:384170686:peg:996200265:000:1441
Nf-From: peg.UUCP!agarton    Aug 25 19:54:00 1992


from David Nerlich
posted c/o agarton

****************

Phil Herring (ph@cs.uow.edu.au), who has a copyright on his opinions (!)
writes:

>they believe that
>if they can measure something, they somehow understand something.
>Money (consisting of nothing more than numeric tokens) is ideal
>for measuring. Unfortunately, if you count dollars, you don't
>really know anything except how many dollars you have. 

Yes, economists in the main tend to play with quantities and quantifiers.
 They dont seem to have any tools to assess *quality* - even in goods and 
services let alone quality of life. Or they read quantities as blunt measures 
of some kind of quality. So there is a tendency to place value on achieving 
maximums or minimums rather than optimums.
	
Quality relates to subjective 'human' values rather than objective 
numerical values so number-crunching economists are able to feel they 
are being objective. Of course this is nothing more than humans placing 
subjective values on objects or numbers of objects (materialism) and 
ignores to a large degree factors of pleasure and pain and the many 
different reasons why people might feel one or the other (or even both 
at once!). Pleasure and pain seem to express themselves via the democratic 
process, such as it is. (Ironically though, this is again read in terms of 
opposed quantities).

Sorry I cant be bothered going through this and making it clearer.

David Nerlich
From: mjp@itd.dsto.gov.au
Newsgroups: aus.politics
Subject: Re: repost from alt.politics...
Date: 19 Aug 92 21:10:14 GMT
Distribution: aus

chris@suite.sw.oz.au (Chris Maltby) writes:

>"I've had no indication from home, nor have we picked up any here that they
>felt that the U.S. economy was going to move towards a recession."
>  -- George Bush, 16-JUN-89

That's really nice.

A work college heard on the radio this week that Thatcher
has just taken up a #2 Million a year job promoting the
sale of tobacco products in 3rd world countries.

Way to go. I spose the shift from pushing poisonous
ideologes to poisonous plants is not such a big shift after
all.

Michael
--
Michael Pilling				Phone: +61 8 259 7017
Software Engineering Group		Fax: +61 8 259 5980
Information Technology Division		Telex: AA82799
DSTO Australia				michael_pilling@itd.dsto.gov.au
Newsgroups: aus.politics