Neil Whitfield has has just put up on a post two absolutely awful videos on the US eugenics movement. Please review them.
I cannot fully judge the accuracy of the videos without looking at the historical evidence. On the surface, they show what can happen when the moral majority ignores human freedom.
Photo Dallas Kilponen, Izhar ul-Haque, Sydney Morning Herald.
In a scathing judgment, NSW Supreme Court Justice Michael Adams found that two ASIO officers had broken the law in a deliberate attempt to coerce answers from Mr ul-Haque.
"I am satisfied that B15 and B16 [the ASIO officers] committed the criminal offences of false imprisonment and kidnapping at common law and also an offence under section 86 of the Crimes Act," the judge said. Sydney Morning Herald.
I see the Government's case aginst Mr ul-Haque has been thrown out of court by the judge. You will find the link to this breaking story here.
One of my themes, really a broken record, on this blog has been the decline in due process at administrative and political levels.
If you look at my posts on the Hicks and Haneef cases you will see that my focus has been not on the facts of the case, but the processes involved. Now the judge in the ul-Haque case has made the same point in an especially scathing way.
I will let the dust settle a bit before commenting further on the case. In the meantime, I want to link the case to what I see as Mr Rudd's single most important election promise.
Not the education revolution, not the tax cuts, not the maintenance of defence spending, but the promise to restore the independence of the Commonwealth Public Service. Here I find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with former PM's Whitlam and Fraser.
If Mr Rudd really does this, if he really restores the increasingly degraded Westminster system, then in a single blow he will have restored not just accountability and transparency, to use the modern phrases, but also the efficiency and effectiveness of public administration.
Postscript
Marcellous in a comment has pointed to a link to the judgement itself. You will find the link here. My thanks, M. Isn't it wonderful having a lawyer in the group?!
Postscript 2
This case becomes more bizare all the time. I cannoy judge the accuracy of the facts, but see Agents tried to turn student into informer.
In a post Neil referred to the problems currently faced by the NSW child welfare system, problems highlighted by some dreadful recent cases. In doing so, he cited evidence suggesting that changes in public administration had contributed to the problem.
I will talk about this in a moment. I thought, first, that I should set the scene to help international readers make some sense of the post.
Background
In Australia's Federal system, the welfare of children is first and foremost a responsibility of the states. Each state has a key agency - in NSW it is the Department of Community Services (DoCS)- with primary responsibility. That agency has to work in conjunction with other state agencies - Education, Justice, Housing etc - whose responsibilities also bear upon the welfare of children.
While child welfare is a state responsibility, the period since the Second World War has seen a dramatic expansion in Federal power because the Commonwealth controls the purse strings. Over time, this has brought the Commonwealth into every aspect of state administration.
Most state agencies now operate within a framework set by Commonwealth-state funding agreements. Increasingly, these dictate what a state can and cannot do with its money. These complicate matters, because they constrain state freedom to act while increasing administrative complexity.
Take a simple example. Assume that a welfare worker identifies a family in crisis with children at threat. That family needs housing. However, the ability to supply that housing comes under and is constrained by a different Commonwealth-state agreement, the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement. This determines what the state can in fact do.
The child welfare agencies operate within a gold fish bowl, constantly exposed to media scrutiny. Their operations are also affected by changing community attitudes and concerns across a spectrum of areas. This further complicates life.
Statement of the Problem
I actually alluded to the problem we face in my post Murder, Mr Rudd and Gay Marriage - confusions about values in an over-regulated society. There I said in part:
In our desire to protect children, we have created a system that not only fails the kids themselves and parents, but also the dedicated professionals who do try to help. Is it any wonder DoCS struggles to get staff?
How did all this happen?
Changing Community Attitudes
Changing community attitudes lie at the heart of the current problems. In sketching this, I am not trying to be definitive. I simply want to indicate how attitudes and actions in one area affect another.
To start with a historical note because it sets a context.
1881 NSW State Children Relief Act
In 1881 Sir Henry Parkes introduced the State Children Relief Act. Prior to that date, neglected children, orphans and some juvenile offenders were confined in large institutions under what was known as the Barrack System.
The new Act introduced the concept of boarding-out, under which orphans or neglected children who were in potential danger but who were not considered to have criminal tendencies were placed with foster parents or (later) with their own mothers. Institutions were retained for the treatment of delinquents and juvenile offenders.
Boarding-out was of two types. Where the child was under twelve, the new parents became foster parents and were paid a subsidy for their new responsibilities. Over twelve, the child was apprenticed out.
This was not apprenticeship in the traditional industrial sense in which the apprentice spends a specified time with an employer in order to gain a trade qualification. Instead, it was a placement scheme in which the ward was placed in the home of an employer and worked for them in return for a specified but small wage, part of which was paid direct to the apprentice and part deposited with the authorities to be kept in trust until the ward came of age. The employer was expected to supervise the ward's education and moral training as well as provide employment.
The Parkes Act and Subsequent Social Change
The world has obviously changed since 1881.
One change lies in changing attitudes to schools and schooling. The school leaving age has been extended, while controls have been introduced as to what work young people can do and when.
No one would argue against this, although we might debate detail. However, one practical effect in conjunction with economic change has been to reduce the capacity of young people to get out of a difficult home or foster situation by moving out and taking a job.
A second change lies in the role of and attitudes to fostering itself. Fostering has been central to child welfare for much of the period since the Parkes Act. In recent decades that centrality has broken down. This has happened along two dimensions.
The first is the decline in the availability of foster care. Fostering is demanding. In a world in which the traditional nuclear family has been in decline and in which both sexes work, there are simply fewer families able and willing to take the role on.
The second dimension lies in changing attitudes towards foster care itself. Changing social attitudes placed much greater emphasis on keeping children with their families and especially their mothers.
Separation through fostering became an action of last resort, only to be done in dire circumstances. This change in community attitudes coincided with a period of great change in which family break-downs became more frequent. In combination, the practical effect was to increase both the absolute number of and (I think) the proportion of children in some way at risk.
More recently, there appears to have been something of a swing back to towards fostering as an option. However, this runs hard against the decline in the availability of foster carers.
Changing Attitudes to Responsibility, Crime and Paedophilia
One question that has come up in recent cases is why the community, especially neighbours, did not recognise and respond to what would appear to have been a visible problem.
A full analysis here is far outside the scope of this post.
Part of the answer appears to lie in a decline in community interaction - neighbours simply know each other less than they used to, making it harder to spot and respond to problems. Part of the answer may also lie in a rise in the number of disadvantaged communities, specific geographic pockets of disadvantage on a scale that Australia has not seen before. But I think that part also lies in changing community attitudes to the role of Government, to crime and to specific crimes in particular.
Quite simply, our expectations of Government have changed. Increasingly, we expect Governments to sort problems that were once seen as community problems or, even, as insoluble. In doing so, we also have had a tendency to focus on symptoms rather than causes. Both have complicated child welfare.
This has been the paedophilia decade. Our collective response to the problem of paedophilia has led to a rapid expansion in controls and reporting. In turn, this has led to an explosion in the number of complaints and reports that welfare agencies must deal with, creating huge problems of overload.
More subtly, it has to some degree discredited institutions that have been central to our child welfare system including foster care and church agencies, in so doing diminishing the systems' capacity to respond.
We are caught between a rock and a hard place. Which is better, to protect one child from paedophilia or put at risk ten children through diminished capacity to recognise and respond to their problems? I am not sure that we can have both.
Changes in Public Administration
The changes that I have been talking about have taken place at the same time as, and interacted with, broader changes in public administration. The material that Neil quoted referred to these changes.
I have written a fair bit on the changes and will give links at the end of the post. For the present, I will only note a few headline items.
The first is the adoption of corporatist models out of New Zealand, beginning in NSW with the Greiner Government.
In combination with other changes such as the quantification movement, this has given us the world of inputs, outputs and outcomes; of key performance indicators; of cascading performance agreements; of accords and protocols; of efficiency dividends; of projects and project management approaches; of executive committees; of centralised control.
The creation of this new world has been facilitated by the IT revolution. Without this, the centralised command and control approach that marks public administration today would not have been possible.
Whatever the advantages of the original New Zealand model, and I have argued strongly that it did have major potential advantages, its adoption and adaptation in NSW has created what is, to my mind, an increasingly rigid and sclerotic system, making it hard to respond quickly and in new ways.
The second is the reduction in real funding for many state activities including child welfare. This, in combination with the changes in Commonwealth-State financial arrangements that I referred to earlier, means that we have less money for particular activities along with less flexibility in spending the funds that are available.
Combine all this with the social and attitudinal changes I outlined, and we have a mess.
Conclusion
None of what I have written should be construed as a criticism of DoCS or its staff. Yes, there are specific DoCs weaknesses. Yes, mistakes happen. Yes, things can be improved.
But as we move into yet another inquiry into DoCs and its operations, I would make the simple point that the system itself is broken and that we, collectively, have broken it.
Can we fix things? Yes, within limits we can. Do I think that we will fix things?. At the moment, no. I see very little evidence that we are prepared to discuss the fundamental under-pinnings, including our own attitudes. So, for the present, things will continue as they are.
References
Historical material in this post is drawn from my PhD thesis, Decentralisation, Development and Decent Government: the Life and Times of David Henry Drummond 1890-1941.
In 1902, Drummond became a ward of the state under the Parkes' system. Later as NSW Minister for Public Instruction (Education) for much of the period from 1928 to 1941, he was Minister in charge of the child welfare system.
In David Henry Drummond and the Importance of Compassion I outlined the circumstances that led to Drummond becoming a ward of the state, as well as his experiences within the system. Later, those experiences were to condition his approach to child welfare.
As Minister, Drummond experienced child welfare problems in a different way when his beloved Yanco, a key personal initiative, became embroiled in scandal. The subsequent inquiry was scathing about Yanco management. I can only imagine Drummond's reaction as he found problems similar to those he had experienced directly at the Cessnock Farm Home.
Two posts are especially relevant to changes in public administration.
The first, Changes in Public Administration - Notes, provides an overview of some of the changes in this area since the Second World War. The second, Changes in Public Administration - the New Zealand Model, outlines the key features of the New Zealand Model and discusses in a preliminary way its spread to Australia.
In all this, my own personal biases and values will be clear. Hopefully, I have given you enough information to form your own views.
To my mind, Eric Roll's A Million Wild Acres is one of the best books ever written in Australia.
For those who do not know either Eric or the book, the book is the story of what is now known as the Pilliga Scrub, a forest created by the European dispossession of the Aborigines who had kept the area open by fire. To international readers, you do not need to know either Australia or the area itself to enjoy the book. it is just a very good read.
Eric Rolls has now died, and I have put an obit up drawn heavily from Tom Buton's obituary in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Eric Roll's death reminded me why I am not an environmentalist in the conventional sense of the word.
Roll's made the point, one that I agree with, that Australia was a man modified landscape at the time the Europeans arrived. The Europeans introduced a new form of modification that has continued until today. The environmental movement itself is just latest manifestation of the process.
Do not get me wrong. Rolls himself was an environmentalist as am I, nor would Mr Roll's have necessarily agreed with my own views.
I see no point in locking up land in national parks for the sake of national parks or in pursuit of some arcadian dream. I am especially opposed to the creation of national parks where we are not prepared to put the money in to properly manage and develop them.
Don't get me wrong. On some things I would be far tougher than existing Governments, but for different reasons.
As a simple example, I would be tougher on moves to lock people out of access to Sydney Harbour. However, this is a public policy rather than environmental argument. I just think it wrong that the majority of the population should be locked out to the benefit of the few.
In similar vein, I support controls on pollution of land and waterways. Some pollution is inevitable, but no one has the right to pollute our own backyard. Again, this is a case where the benefit for the few imposes costs on the many.
I think, and I will try to argue this at some point, that we need a new multi-faceted approach to environmental issues, not a crude one side fits all approach.
Photo: Gordon Smith, Exploration Society Marker, New England National Park.
The University of New England Exploration Society was formed in 1960 in the interests of undertaking scientific work in lesser known areas of Australia and adjacent countries. Its patrons were Lord Casey of Berwick and and Sir Edmund Hilary.
By the end of 1962 expeditions had been mounted to the Warrumbungle Range in New England; Mt Garnet in north eastern Queensland; Point Lookout (photo); the Barrington Tops and Central Australia.
I remember the Society well. I was awfully impressed when I arrived on campus, struck by its land rovers and its broad scope. I did not join - my involvement in archaeological work provided an alternative outlet for my liking of camping and running around in four wheel drives - but I remained impressed.
More Saturday morning musings.
This last week has been an especially funny mixed up week. When I took a break from posting at the start of the week I mentioned my tendency to introspection. As the week developed, it became a very introspective week indeed simply because of developments that forced me to reassess the next stage in my professional life.
I will not discuss these. They are, to use a currently fashionable phrase, "out of scope", a phrase that I have come to dislike intensely because of the way it stifles thought. However, I am sure that they will inform some of my future writing. Here I actually find blogging quite helpful.
All writers mine their personal experience for ideas. I am no different. I may not always refer to things directly, but I use the act of writing as a device to work issues through.
In winter came hail on the corrugated iron
Of our roof, making talk a pointless thing.
Our Dad lit a hurricane lamp against the gloom
Mum used the wood stove, the kitchen smelt good
And we camped out in that single warm room.
A nice thing during the week was an email from Jenny Kimberley (nee Kemp). Jenny was in front of me at the Armidale Demonstration School. Her brother was in my class at Dem and then at The Armidale School.
I referred to Peter in my post Armidale Demonstration School Year Five 1955. This Dem material was ultimately sent on to Jenny, hence her email to me.
Jenny left for the United States in 1963 to be with her then boyfriend whom she met at Sydney University and has, with one short break, lived there ever since.
I will do some posts on the New England, Australia blog flowing from Jenny's email. I mention it here because Jenny has established her own poetry blog, Poetry from Jen. The above verse comes from one of her poems, Long Ago Home.
Jen's poetry has a particular resonance for me because of links with people and place. I hope that you enjoy it too.
With the Federal election campaign entering its last weeks, the news has been full of politics. I must say that I have turned off to some degree.
At a technical level I am still interested in the process and the battle in individual seats. But at a policy level we are back to what I have called supermarket politics, competing shopping lists.
I have commented before, cannot remember the post, on the remarkable interest in economic matters among Australians. I cannot say that it is unique in global terms, although I suspect that it may be.
For the benefit of international readers, the Australian economy is still running strongly, leading the Reserve Bank to increase official interest rates by .25%, the first time that this has happened during an election campaign. The resulting discussion has run at two levels.
At political level, the issues are what the PM said at the last election about keeping interest rates low. The PM is trying to use the issue to argue that only the Government can be trusted to manage the economy. For their part, Mr Rudd and his team argue that the increase shows that the Government cannot be trusted to run the economy.
At a second level, and this is the one that I am most interested in, has been the economic discussion itself, not just among economists or commentators but the general public. A remarkable number of people understand the interest setting process, understand the linkage between economic activity, inflation and interest rates. This feeds back into the political process.
The University of New England, while young as an autonomous institution, is yet part of a tradition, a way of life, that transcends the apparently immediate needs of most of its students and the community from which they come. It is very right and proper that the Australian community should have some image of its own economic, social and cultural future and that it should expect the universities to assist in forming it. Yet the more important the pressures of society and the power and authority of the state, the greater becomes the traditional responsibility of universities to maintain themselves as centres of independent thought. J S Ryan, Orientation Handbook, University of New England 1963.
As always, blogs and blogging formed an important part of the week despite the pause on this blog.
I won't revisit the earlier discussion on student unions. As it happened, at the end of it I found the Orientation Handbook for 1963, the year I started at New England.
Obviously I found this interesting from a personal perspective. Dratted nostalgia! But it also provided a very interesting entry point, a time capsule, into that past world that was just about to be replaced by the mass, state funded, tertiary institution.
John Ryan's words quoted above expresses my own position rather well. I still believe that uiniversities do have a role as centres of independent thought, that university life is more than the simple ticket.
I have started using the material in the handbook as an entry point for a number of posts exploring different dimensions of university life and the interaction between that life and the broader community. Depending on how I go, I will do a consolidation post.
At this point in the month, overall blog traffic is running about 20% in front of the same period last month.
This blog has held its own, something that really pleases me after the previous big traffic spike. With one exception, all the blogs are up.
I suppose the increase that please me most is that on New England, Australia, up over 50%. I like this blog, but find it sometimes difficult to write because of the problem of balance: how much tourism, how much politics, how much history, how much personal, how much current events etc? I have a feeling, I may be wrong, that I am starting to get the balance right.
I have also decide to re-position Management Perspectives. This blog began as the Ndarala Group blog, essentially a device for publishing professional material from across the network. I then changed the name to Management Perspectives because this better reflected the content.
I found two real problems with the blog.
First, many of my colleagues are simply too busy in a professional sense to contribute material, meaning that it was another blog that I had to write. Secondly, a lot of the material was very time consuming to prepare because of the nature of the content.
Without moving away from the blog's original mission, I have decided to include more current commentary on business and management issues, simple things that are more likely to be of interest to readers. This is also stuff that I am interested in, but cannot really put on this blog without swamping other things that I also want to write about. So its a question of balance.
Whichever way it all goes, there is no shortage of things to write about. Each week I throw out a bundle of paper - clippings etc - that were potential stories but are not now to be included.
By the way, the first tomatoes are fruiting!
Photo: Helen and Clare, Clare's 18th
As I write there is a speaker just behind me, blasting out into the back yard. It is quite hard to concentrate.
Denise, Helen and Raj (a friend of Helen's) have taken refuge in the lounge room. I cannot, since I want to blog.
This morning I took Clare to school in uniform for her last Higher School Certificate exams. The last ever morning school drive, the second last time in uniform - the last will be breaking up.
Tonight Clare has a group of friends over for a party to celebrate the end of the HSC. It's not a big group, maybe thirty, and they are all dancing on the lawn to the sound of the music. The house has an outdoor area with its own lighting next to the lawn. And my back office. Hence the speaker and the noise.
A little later
I had to take a break to light a fire in the garden. There are a lot of gums in the street around here, so it's easy to pick up wood. The garden also has a big bed, making a fire safe as well as fun.
Concentration is hard. I will break.
Still later
I am clearly getting old. I have managed to finish a post on another blog, but the noise is giving me a head ache! It's raining again, but the fire is still going, and people are rolling in the wet grass.
While I will still respond to comments, I am taking another short break from posting to recharge my batteries and get some other things done.
One problem I find with very regular blogging is the tendency to introspection, to get bogged down in particular ruts. One way of handling this is to stop blogging!
I am not sure how long I will be able to resist the addiction, but a couple of days break should be possible.
I have always felt lucky to have attended the University of New England when I did. Even today and despite all the changes that have occurred, the University does well measured by student satisfaction rankings and by my own discussions with students on fleeting annual visits. The place still feels like a university.
In saying all this I could be accused, perhaps with justice, of suffering from nostalgia. Yet I don't think that this is the case, or at least not completely.
My eldest started at UTS Sydney and then, dissatisfied, switched to UNSW. Most of her friends go to Sydney universities - Sydney, UTS, UNSW. A number of the people I work with are also studying at these universities. Their experiences are so different from my own at UNE that they could be on another planet.
Size is one factor. These are big universities.
According to the latest stats that I could find, in 2006 Sydney had 45,848 students, UNSW 38,776 and UTS 32,712. In theory, size allows the universities to offer a wide range of courses. In practice, size translates to bigger classes and tutorials, to remoteness, to lack of contact with staff.
By contrast, when I was at UNE there were around 1,200 full time undergraduates on campus, nearly all living in. Classes were reasonably small, tutorials even more so. We knew every member of staff personally.
Overseas, full fee paying students, is another variable. In 2006, Sydney had 9,680 overseas students, UTS 8,954 and UNSW 8,618. These are big groups.
Local students complain, with some justice, about the dominance of overseas students in some courses, students who mix with themselves, squeezing out the locals. There are exceptions, International House at Sydney is one example where mixing occurs, but the pattern does appear to be common.
At UNE when I was there, 10% of students were overseas, mainly on Colombo Plan arrangements. These students lived with everybody else, with considerable mixing. The Overseas Students Association was the largest student society, with a very large number of Australian associate members including me. My own group of friends included a number of overseas students.
Today's students are time poor. Most local students have to work, at a pub in the case of eldest. So they fit together work, active social lives, and study in a complex pattern.
Most go to campus just to attend lectures or tutorials. Because they are local, their social life tends to revolve around existing groups outside university and is centred on specific venues. The Bay, the Palace, whatever. There is some university based social life - UNSW hockey is an example - but it tends to be limited.
Again by contrast, when I was at UNE very few students worked. Most were in fact on scholarship, Teachers College or Commonwealth. The last were means tested, but in all cases paid fees including union fees.
Most students lived in. I did not because I was a local, but I was still a genuine full time student. I was at university by nine, leaving sometimes as late as six. Not all this time was study. In fact, a large part was not, at least in a formal sense. I spent an awful lot of time in the union!
Often at night I was back at the university for a party or function. When partying in town or going to the pub, it was usually with fellow students.
Teaching and studying were different.
There was none of the current official emphasis on teaching. A few of the lecturers were, quite frankly, dreadful. But this was compensated for by the general closeness with staff and by cooperative study techniques.
The modern idea of team based or problem based learning did not exist. Not for us the problems of group assignments with some members refusing to pull their weight! Nor, for that matter, did we leave campus as soon as the lecture or tute was finished.
We tended to gather together in the union after lectures and talk. We wrote essays in the union. As exams came close, we gathered together in groups to study, going through topics and past exams. This was really critical in getting me through.
Overall, there was an intensity to UNE student life that my kids will never know.
I did in fact try to encourage both of them to consider UNE even though I would miss them dreadfully, but to no avail. Today's middle class Sydney young, or so it seems to me, are both stay-at-home and clannish.
Last year, not one of the St Catherine's year 12 class went to UNE, very few went to a university outside Sydney. They want to be close to home and friends. Even in Sydney, few want to go to a Sydney university outside their immediate area. So Eastern Suburbs kids focus on Sydney, UNSW or, perhaps, UTS.
In all this, and perhaps it is a sign of getting older, I find it sad that so many many kids including my own will never experience the true intellectual stimulation of university life.
There will always be some kids - I have a few in mind here - whose intellectual or artistic interests will draw them into the university world despite the odds. But for the mass of kids, university is now a means to an end, the acquisition of a ticket.
Another Saturday morning, this time wet. I got a good night's sleep last night, I don't always, so my brain is a little clearer than normal.
Saturday morning tends to be a good time for me simply because there is less pressure. During the week I am always thinking of the other things that I have to do, while on Saturday mornings the vast expanse of the week end still stretches before me.
I know that this is illusory, the weekends are busy too and always end far too quickly, but the illusion is still helpful.
Student Unions
There was discussion during the week in the newspapers on the impact of the abolition of compulsory student union fees. For the benefit of international readers, these fees were charged for things such as membership of unions, sports unions, Student Representative Councils. The Howard Government argued that these fees should be a matter of choice and were, in any event, spent in part on things that did not really benefit students.
Neil carried the story on Lines from a Floating Life, so I did not feel the need to say anything. However, in comments on Neil's post, Thomas from Deus Lo Vult has argued strongly in favour of the changes. Thomas is a student at Sydney University. He detailed the previous break-up of fees for services that he never used, putting a dollar value on the savings to him from the Government's decision.
The Government's original decision was ideological. Their formal argument lay in freedom of choice for students like Thomas. In the words of Minister Bishop quoted in Neil's post: The challenge for student unions is to attract student support by being relevant and efficient.
Regardless of Minister Bishop's words, the outcome from the abolition of student fees - a decline in services, a skewing of the playing field against smaller and poorer universities, a further change in the texture of the university life - was always inevitable. To understand this, we need to look at the economics of student services.
Individual students always benefited from the various services at different levels and in different ways. Further, some of those benefits - the broader contribution to the texture of university life - were simply collective and unquantifiable.
In abolishing fees, the Howard Government did three things. It stopped certain services entirely. It limited the capacity of universities to step in with replacement funding. And it forced all students to focus on the narrow equation of costs versus the benefits of specific services.
The last is very important. Student cash is very tight, so the cost/benefit equation in a voluntary system comes back to some very tight judgements indeed. In Thomas's cases, he concluded that fees were not worthwhile and opted out.
As students like Thomas did so, revenue fell. This had a number of effects.
The fixed costs associated with service delivery remained the same, but now had to be supported by a smaller business base. In some cases, services stopped. In other cases such as food and beverage, prices had to be rebalanced, increased. So students paid more for the same service.
In still other cases, university bodies were able to look outside the university itself for revenue. My youngest is one of many playing sport for the University of NSW; we pay a reasonably hefty fee for this. In all cases, universities had to make judgements about the extent to which, within fairly arbitrary Government rules, they would now pay for some services, in so doing transferring funds from other university activities.
These effects have had quite differential impacts within and between universities.
To begin with, the changes affected smaller universities more than big ones. The big universities had greater economies of scale in service delivery anyway. They also had more cash in absolute terms to subsidise or pay for continued services. Most also have larger population catchments in their immediate areas, making it a little easier to find new markets for specific services.
The impact has also, and I think this is little recognised, been greater on poor students than on wealthy ones. Yes, the compulsory fees themselves had a greater impact on poor students, but the story goes well beyond this.
Wealthy students can afford to buy things, including services. I have not checked this, but I suspect that one would find the greatest drop in membership in student bodies in those universities with larger cohorts of poorer students, making it harder to maintain services.
Those poorer students who do wish to access services or particular activities are now paying more. Further, and this is another judgment, I also suspect that the various now abolished welfare services were most accessed by poorer students.
Finally, the impact has been far greater on regional universities and on the communities that surround them.
These universities are generally smaller and have less funds, their student cohorts are generally poorer, their student bodies have less access to alternative market places, the student services provided are more important to the very texture of life not just on campus but in the community.
These are the places that have been hurt most, notwithstanding bridging funding forced by the Nationals. It is not just money. I find it interesting that a number of those who opposed the change - Tony Windsor (Independent, New England), Barnaby Joyce (National Senator, Queensland) and for that matter me - are all people who experienced and valued the intensity of student life at the University of New England.
Other Matters
I have spent more time than I intended on the student union issue, but it is important to me. As a simple example as to why, have a look at this post. This was an activity funded out of compulsory fees, one enjoyed by thousands of students.
Turning to other matters, but briefly because I am out of time.
One of the issues of the week for me proved to be gay marriages. Now this - gay issues - is territory I normally do not venture into. I am not gay, far from it, and did not intend to go this route since I was just using this as an example to illustrate some broader points. So in all I felt a bit uncomfortable. However, I think that the discussion generated was useful, so will put up a reference post at some point.
Another issue, really a theme, lay in the role of the state and the relations between state and the individual. Looking back, I have written a lot on this because these are issues that both interest and worry me. Again, I will put up a reference post so that readers can follow up should they be interested.
It is now 9.50am. I am well out of the time window I allowed for this post, so will stop here.
Back in June I described the Haneef case as a failure in compassion - and common sense. The core of my argument lay not in the question of Dr Haneef's guilt or innocence but in the way the matter was handled at official level.
The Australian has now revealed more information on the matter. You will find the story here. You will find a PDF of the email here. It is clear that arrangements were in place to detain Dr Haneef under the Immigration Act should he be granted to bail.
I am always interested in detail and process. I was struck by the security classification Sec-in-confidence (Secretary, security?). I had not heard this before. The old security classifications used to be unclassified, restricted, confidential, secret and top secret. These classifications were based on the damage to the nation should the information be released.
Then there were a few sub-classifications like staff-in-confidence, essentially unclassified but to be protected because it contained information on an individual staff member. There were a couple of others I was going to add in, I am sure everybody knows them, but perhaps not.
I note that the protective mark is "in-confidence". All this looks a bit like a variant of staff-in-confidence, material to be protected but whose release does not have national security implications.
All this is a side issue, interesting to me, perhaps not to anyone else. However, there is one intensely interesting thing revealed by the email.
The formal material on which Mr Andrews made his decision to revoke Dr Haneef's visa was released. This was signed by Mr White who also appears in the email material. At the time, I surmised that there had been other minutes or oral briefings between Department and Minister.
While I am still sure that this was the case, I found the reaction of Mr Andrew's staffer to the latest story very interesting. She appears to have been flabbergasted. If my interpretation is correct, then it may be the case that Mr Andrews was not briefed on the Department's plans in regard to the possible visa withdrawal.
If this is the case, I would regard it as a fundamental breech of public service protocols. When I was in Mr White's position, there was no way that I would not have fully briefed the Minister and indeed his office on an issue of such importance. I may be missing something - there may be some other protocol in place - but I find it all very odd.
I was sad to see that the Blonde Canadian is leaving teaching. I have enjoyed her posts in this area and know that she was a dedicated teacher. Good luck BC. I hope that you enjoy the corporate world.
BC's last post on her reasons for leaving is worth reading.
She makes the point, others have made it too, is that it is not just money that is causing the loss of young teachers. A second core problem is the lack of respect accorded the profession. Teachers as a profession are central to this country's future because they teach our young.
Another end month, another blog traffic review.
Overall total visitor numbers across the blogs follow as at end October. The totals exclude my own visits.
The number of extra visitors is not bad, but the blog pattern tells the story. This has been a difficult month from a posting perspective. I have struggled to keep posts up across my blogs, with Personal Reflections getting most attention. So many blogs have lagged.
Another measure is page views. Here according to the Google figures October was a huge winner with 8,761 page views. September was already a clear record with 6,733 page impressions, largely because of the APEC stories.
In my last report on traffic I thought that October would certainly drop back. Instead, it raced to a new record. What can I say?
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