19 September 2008

Election Wrap - 19 September

| johnboy
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Labor:

Katy Gallagher is promising an extra $10 million for more bus services.

Simon Corbell is reported by the Canberra Times to have “scoffed” at the Liberal Steve Pratt’s suggested number of Community Fire Units. Angels on the head of a pin really. They’ll all have given up by the time the fire path has re-grown.

Jon Stanhope is banging on again about Liberal promises being unaffordable.

Andrew Barr is courting the rev-head vote!

    A re-elected Labor Government will:
    • Invest up to $3.5 million in the upgrade and refurbishment of Fairbairn Motorsport Park and its surrounds, including the possible development of Kowen Forest and the Speedway
    • Invest up to $3.8 million to assist local motorsport organisations upgrade their facilities and run events
    • Invest up to $500,000 in the development of a recreational off?road riding area providing off-road motorbike riders with a safe and legal place to ride and
    • Invest up to $200,000 in a 5 year motorsport strategy that will provide a blueprint for promoting and growing motorsport in the ACT.

Liberals:

The Canberra Times reports that the Liberals calamitous attempt to poster the arterial roads of our fair city is going to cost them $20,000 if they want the posters back.

Zed’s decided to throw a $1 million bone at autism.

Zed has also announced plans for an Education Complaints Commissioner to help parents beat up under-performing schools.

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Has Katy got transport now?

Are they re-buying the buses they sold off last budget to fix the deficit we didn’t have?

I am so cranky with this govt for selling off all the carparks ‘to encourage people to use public transport’ but then failing to provide enough buses for the people who want to use them.

Is Canberra really such a rev-head bogan town that we need to invest so heavily in motorsport? V8 super cars failed. Rally of Canberra failed. Summernats – thank god I live south side. Surely global warming and the high price of petrol are enough to indicate that motorsport has a limited lifespan and injections of taxpayer money is money pissed up against the wall.

• Invest up to $200,000 in a 5 year motorsport strategy that will provide a blueprint for promoting and growing motorsport in the ACT.

Wow – $40k a year. Looks like they’ll have an APS3 running it

So a party that can’t even organise a poster campaign without stuffing it up wants to run our Assembly?

As for education, previous experience with the SOS campaign suggests any improvements in our education system need to start with the pen pushers in the education department not the schools. Ineptitude and timer servers were the 2 words that came to mind when dealing with the department’s public servants so if this initiative holds them accountable for their non performance then it may have legs.

and then the old chestnut of the motorsport comes back from the ALP – give it a rest guys, enough already!

All the special ed parents I know value the teachers very highly. Many of the ideas we have put forward to improve our system were originally proposed as solutions by one staff member or another.

For every disadvantaged child, a wrap-around approach will be most successful involving parents, teachers and other specialists such as social workers or counselors or in our case therapists.

It is vital for these kids that parents and staff work together, and I find it personally upsetting to see attempts made to wedge the teachers and carers. If this is successful it will be devastating for the kids.

My principal spent a family weekend at the coast personally working on my daughter’s program. That means a lot to me. I am just trying to help encourage the government to provide her with the resources she needs to do her job.

I have nothing but the highest regard for the calibre of people I have dealt with in the education department and particularly in my own school, and I believe that using wedge politics to mess with the lives of those who are already disempowered in society is just plain low.

I don’t care how my teachers or my children or my friends vote or what they believe. I love them and respect them because of who they are and what they do.

Thumper is right. But there are some teachers who do quietly go about their job and don’t swallow the union line but never let on.

Teachers are aware as anyone of the difficulty some families have of getting support for special needs kids – like the many children with autism. The complaints mechanism is most important for these families and it is often a case of disagreements by officials in the department and not any wrangle with the teachers.

I doubt many teachers will ever vote Liberal.

Zed’s courting the far more numerous parents.

I hold myself to higher standards than he obviously does 😉

NickD: You were polite to Steve Pratt? You are dead in my eys.

I got up (late) this morning to find a leaflet under my door saying that Steve Pratt had door knocked me, but I had been unfortunate enough to miss him. This is a real shame, as I enjoyed his rude response to being politely told that everyone in the house votes Labor when he came around before the last election.

It’s actually not about the teachers at all though, Aurelius.

If Magoo had read or understood the press release, or been concerned enough to turn up to the meeting, he would know that this addresses “complaints about decisions taken by ACT Government officials which impact upon the welfare of children in the education system.”

All we are asking for is an independent umpire.

At the moment “parents have little option other than to complain directly to officials who made adverse decisions or to appeal to colleagues of the officials in question. The lack of framework for dealing with complaints is not ideal and does not ensure impartial assessment of complaints.”

I know for a fact that many carers present last night who are not Liberal voters were grateful and excited to hear about this policy announcement today.

I think Andrew Barr had the best idea on how to deal with under-performing schools – auction them off to the richest developer! woohoo!

Well, for the woman whose son has been so traumatised that he has a meltdown when he sees a school, she can just go and tell it to the marines. It hardly matters that her kid hasn’t had an education. Why should she get to complain to anybody!

I’m married to a teacher I can tell you, this will not play well in educationland. Too many parents don’t understand the way their kids are taught these days so the best way to deal with that is to complain about it. or if previous little Johnnie gets himself into troulbe nine days in ten and Mum thinks the teacher is against him.

Or maybe it was that the parents and carers at the forum wanted a one-stop shop where they could go to get situations addressed rather than getting passed around like the proverbial buck, because life isn’t hard enough we really need all those extra bureaucratic battles.

Oh that’ll get the teachers on side Zed. Suppose he figures he’s going to alledgedly pay them more and give them a smaller class so therefore he can’t have a compalints unit against them.

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