Tax Cuts or Health & Education spending?

guys, We really dont care what sort of car you have, but can you at least put spaces in your name when you make a comment. It throws the recent comments way out of whack.

“there is absolutely no reason why an intelligent, qualified person cannot bargain a more lucrative position against an otherwise unqualified admin monkey”

And therein lies the whole point of individual agreements. If the admin monkey can’t get the job/pay they want, they are free to pursue extra study. Welcome to Australia.

Moral to my story Ingee? That even one of the supposed best schools in town employs teachers who either have no idea, or don’t normally teach that subject. As for her being my boss, no such luck.

Perhaps teachers should use their ‘academic superiority’ to negotiate more lucrative AWA’s instead of threatening strike action annually.

Thus the true test of a teachers abilities lies in their bargaining position at the negotation table – the more results the teacher has, the better the position.

Whilst I disagree with the fundamental concept of AWA’s, there is absolutely no reason why an intelligent, qualified person cannot bargain a more lucrative position against an otherwise unqualified admin monkey.

3% unemployment rate peoples, I see that as a negotiating chip, not a disadvantage.

It will be interesting to see what might happen when all the baby boomers retire and suddenly there is a massive teacher shortage. They will have to do something to attract more people eg better conditions or pay.

This basically goes across the health and education sectors. Keep screwing over the staff and they will leave. To get them back or make it attractive to others basically means pay them more.

I have seen teachers teaching concepts which they obviously dont understand, and others who just couldn’t care less and hand out photocopies for every lesson.

Could it be that the teacher was ‘forced’ into taking a class that they weren’t “qualified” for because there wasn’t another teacher and the decision was made by executive?

This happens a lot in Canberra btw.

As for being qualified, perhaps there needs to be a ‘report’ into why some individual high school curriculum is better suited to the primary level and that the curriulum is being dumbed down.

I’ve read and implemented the new curriculum, even though I don’t agree with aspects of it – too much is placed on English/SOSE, causing imbalance in a system which promotes equality of the subjects.

The new curriculum is being implemented next year but wait….most of the PD (professional development) is being offered to executive staff instead of the classroom teachers who will actually have to implement it and write curriculum to address it.

Just to add, I’ve had a teacher ask me what a cube root was just so he could go into the classroom next lesson and teach it. I was stunned more by the acceptability of doing that, than the fact that he was a math teacher and I was an English/SOSE teacher and I had more content knowledge in his subject.

Hey it’s math, not spelling or grammar so shut up

And the moral og this story VY? She’s you boss now isn’t she, admit it!

Funny people mention teachers not understanding concepts…

Back in uni days I used to do some high school tutoring (1 on 1) for a few extra bucks. I remember teaching a year 11 girl to draw a line on a graph. All of sudden she says “so THAT’S what the teacher meant by slope”. The students in that class had never graphed a line before, and were being taught ‘cheat’ methods to solve basic problems. The school? Canberra Girls Grammar…

I can’t imagine how you would determine performance pay for teachers, without observing every lesson for at least a fortnight. Which would cost more than just giving extra pay to all teachers…hey – what a good idea!

GregW is right. There are a proportion of teachers who dont know the basics of what they are teaching.

When I was studying for my B.Ed the preservice teachers in my year underwent a basic math test up to yr 9 level, 80% failed – these people are now teaching your children mathematics in the ACT.

I have seen teachers teaching concepts which they obviously dont understand, and others who just couldn’t care less and hand out photocopies for every lesson.

Performance pay doesn’t have to be a bad thing, it all depends on how it is managed.

GregW, I have several degrees with an emphasis on curriculum. I’m also not a Union member.

I wonder, in your world, do teachers need a PhD before they enter the classroom?

Health, Education, improved water resource management, renewable energy, then tax cuts gets my vote.

Yeah, I remember when I was 16 and knew everything.

Ahh…those were the days, eh?

“Having finished my public education only a few years ago”

ie. I have yet to really learn anything from the real world and still believe I know everything.

“Most people will remember that feeling where half the class is in a better position to teach the teacher than the teacher is to teach them”

Again, see the above statement. The higher you go in education, the teacher becomes less of an expert and more of a learning facilitator.

“…performance based pay (i believe) is the best method for addressing it at the moment.”

If all teachers are subject to performance based pay, they will all want to teach the smart kids to receive the highest perf pay rating. Who will be left to teach the stupid kids, when you can teach the (usually) well behaved brainy kids for more cash?

“Private schools receive less funding than public, even after the parents contribution they are usually not that far ahead in $ per student.”

So I guess the public schools are all hiding their plasma TVs and swimming pools in their teachers lounge?

‘spoken by someone outside the education industry’
‘I am married to a 10 year veteran Primary School teacher’

How can someone inside the education industry, or married to a teacher hope to be impartial.

Having finished my public education only a few years ago, it was clear that schools have access to all the resources they need; books, supplies, equipment, human resources.. The only real thing they are lacking is well qualified teachers. Sure, many teachers know their stuff and are keen to see their students do well, they are often the ones left behind on those days that the union strikes, but the majority aren’t interested, don’t care and don’t keep up with the syllabus..

Most people will remember that feeling where half the class is in a better position to teach the teacher than the teacher is to teach them..

Higher spending on education will not fix this problem. Infact nothing will with certainty, but performance based pay (i believe) is the best method for addressing it at the moment.

In a way this is spending more money on education, in that the best teachers will receive more pay. Why are the teachers unions against this?

I am not particularly fond of the federal education minister myself, but thats not the point. Most teachers will have a hard time explaining why it is that they don’t like her without pointing to federal education policies, and how they disadvantage them.

Private schools receive less funding than public, even after the parents contribution they are usually not that far ahead in $ per student. Yet they manage to (in general) obtain much better results. Why is that? It is possible that they have better students to begin with, but thats not where I would put my money, rather I’m willing to bet it’s because they better manage the money they have, and thus obtain better teaching staff.

More money into health, then education, then tax cuts..

No idea Jazz. There wasn’t a lot of analysis in the stuff I read on the weekend that might guide a view one way or the other – it was really just pointing out that Australian’s have a track record of publicly taking an altruistic position and privately displaying self-interest.

It’s curious to say the least, but I wouldn’t necessarily believe that our RA sample is in that boat.

If I had to make a guess I’d say that the views expressed in the thread are essentially genuine. My view is based on the idea that tax cuts – of the variety offered – are pretty meaningless, because most medium to high income earners are able to structure their financial affairs in a way that effectively manages their tax liability. We’re not that fussed by an extra $30 here or $80 there – on the other hand we’d really like to see the tax that they do pay being used as effectively as possible – a view which I believe reflects the majority of RAers opinions on the full spectrum of threads: from public art to education to water etc etc.

Ingeegoodbee, so youre suggesting that what we see here is classic group think behaviour? even with the relative anonymity of the internet?

Yeah, but I also read in the CT that this question is usually pretty close, and now about 90% of people are saying spending over tax cuts. That’s a lot of people who aren’t telling the truth. Either that, or you have to believe them.

Kramer, I was reading somthing in the papers over the weekend that briefly discussed the whole tax-cuts in your pocket vs spending on improved services – apparently Australian’s are legendary at publically saying that we’d love to have more spent on services, but when we’re alone in the cold hard light of the ballot box, we go for tax cuts every time … I guess we’ll find out in four weeks time.

Show me the money.

If they put it into health and education it will just get eaten up on advertising how they put all this extra cash into health and education.

Just joshing – Health and education.

Yes but what we the people want means nothing to the pollies.

Or they would have done it by now.

What, we’re in agreement? Shit, the end of the world must be nigh.

OMG!!! For once it seems everyone on RiotACT agrees on something! How could Howard and Rudd have both got this so wrong? Unless they were just attempting to buy votes with tax cuts…

No contest. I don’t want those tax cuts. I want the gov’t to do its job and fix the things that need fixing for the good of all of us.

AND I’m in Eden-Monaro!

B
Health needs a massive injection of money and inspiration. The Feds haven’t increased their contribution in years, meanwhile costs go up and we have 20% less beds per capital than we had 10 years ago.

B.

Those tax cuts wont even come close to covering the ‘user pay’ costs for health and education that we’ve been subjected to.

B) Those who occasionally read Ross Gittins in the SMH will know that handouts be that tax cuts, education refunds, or first home owners grants, only increase the cost of things. As I sure some posters here know, if the punters can afford another $10 a week, you can charge $10 a week more for what you are selling.

Lets spend the money on education and health, get rid of that stupid private health rebate (and its prices will go down over time)

Management of health and education is a whole other issue

I’d like to see more money into education, but more well spent money.

I’ve seen some piss-poor spending and some fantastic spending.

It needs to be managed by a separate entity if it’s to be good.

Who?

Feel free to vote for the party wanting to put more money into Health, edauctaion, infrastructure rather than tax cuts; y’all.

The Greens!

Roland, campiagn coordinator, Kerrie Tucker for teh Senate

definitely health and education – we need to pay taxes to get any of these services. i agree with Thumper and VNBerlina that i’d pay more in taxes if the money was spent appropriately.

Thankyou GnT I don’t have the need now to repost GregW as much. FYI Greg I am married to a 10 year veteran Primary School teacher and she shudders every time she sees Ms bishop on the picture wireless spruking ‘her views’ on education.

that’d be LORD maelinar, berli… ; )

i rekkun the question is wrong. i woud rather see some serious work and funding put into infrastructure. health and education already get some big dollars; s’jus’ what is done with it could be tweaked. and do i want a gov’t bribe to make me vote one way or t’other? well, if you’re handing out, but not at the expense of more serious community needs…

Don’t be so ridiculous Maelinar – I’m not talking about the disgusting practice of drinking the stuff.

I of course meant _bathing_ them in the stuff, which is SOP for certain aged care facilities.

DONT give old people Metho – they go blind faster…

Agreed Thumper. (Metho isn’t _that_ expensive after all).

Definitely B.

Dare I say it, but I’d be happy enough to pay a bit *more* tax if it was actually being put towards health and education. At the end of the day the $x tax cut isn’t really going to benefit me all that much.

Definitely health and education.

B) More govt spending on Health and Education?

not really an option in my book.

morto1980 is right.

The federal government are just giving us tax cuts so we can pay more for things like private health insurance and private education. Another problem with tax cuts is that they tend to favour the rich ie those on the highest income will get the most cash back in their pocket, which means they can spend even more on private services, which just widens the gap between the haves and have-nots.

Mind you, Rudd’s tax rebate on education costs isn’t much better for low income families (the ones who most need some help with education costs). When you have little or no disposable income to buy books and computers, it doesn’t matter if someone offers to refund part of the cost in your tax return at the end of the financial year. So once again, the people who will benefit most are not the people who need it most.

Health and Education for sure.

Clearly spoken by someone outside the education industry.

‘get a Federal Education Minister who actually understand education’

I disagree, I think it is the states and teachers unions causing the problems. The federal government is pushing for nation wide assessment and performance based pay. Both good things.

I will also say health and education over tax cuts. In particular, health. Education is well funded but mismanaged. Health is underfunded.

B! B!

Tax cuts are pointless – doubly so when someone will eventually put taxes up again because there isn’t enough money…

@morto1980
I totally agree. Using water as an analogy; Everyone can buy themselves a bottle of water, or put that same money towards a massive project to permanently fix the supply of water. It seems like society is going for the individual bottle more often these days, which isn’t going to fix anything in the long term, and is ultimately more expensive.
Ok, so my answer is Health and Education

Its a no brainer for me, spending increases on health and education. Does this mean that we could get a Federal Education Minister who actually understand education as well?? Quite obviously Ms bishop hasn’t got the first idea.

I think it’s important for everyone to keep in mind that while tax cuts are nice (because we get a bit more money in hand), sometimes the money is best used for major projects.

For example, if you give $10B back in tax cuts myself and all my mates will have $30 per week extra in hand. (All figures hypothetical).

However, we’d never be able to pool/co-ordinate that extra money to build something huge (and useful) like a railway, hospital, roads, etc. Eventually everything becomes user pays which is crap because no private enterprise is out to make a loss or just break even so some things become very expensive or aren’t supplied at all.

It seems that most people have enough money (consumer spending has *not* slowed even with all the interest rate hikes) and health, education (and infrastructure) seem to need some attention (uni fees keep going up, waiting times longer + bulk billing are at all time lows). Because of these factors I think some more attention needs to be paid to spending tax dollars on major projects and not just throwing them back to taxpayers in an effort to win votes.

Please don’t reply saying “but it’s the states that should be spending the money / but it’s the federal govt. that should be spending the money / GST is collected by one and allocated to the other / etc”. I’m sick to death of the finger pointing between state and federal government. Part of their job is to work together seamlessly and if they can’t do that they’ve failed as well.

I’m going to say Health and Education

Tax cuts offer little, I’d like to see the money the Government does manage to squeeze out of me go to improved services – be they hospitals, schools or public art…

Spending on services, please. Especially when my modest tax cut will get eaten up with the next interest rate rise.

Toll Booths at the border. Then Health, Education and Tax Cuts.

health and education most definitely.

BUT, I’d like to see the ACT government stop charging its taxes on the total of my home insurance premium plus Commonwealth GST – rather than on the premium alone – surely a tax on a tax is illegal?

Health and Education gets my vote.

Taxes are paid for a reason.