Ratings agencies & market instability

Today's Armidale Express column is on the evils of the rating agencies. This will come on line next week on the New England blog.

The crux of my argument is that we have institutionalised the role of the credit rating agencies to the point that they and their ratings have become destablising and destructive. Here I said in part:

The institutionalisation of agency ratings, their incorporation into so many regulations and arrangements, meant that variations in credit ratings had direct flow on market effects in ways that no-one had foreseen. The ratings system itself had become a direct cause of market instability and on a large scale.

It appears that we simply cannot help ourselves.

Yesterday, the Australian Government released its Mid-year Economic and Fiscal Outlook 2010-11. As part of the local discussion, the Treasurer and Shadow Treasurer exchanged verbal blows over the decision by the Fitch agency to award Australia triple A rating fore certain debts, meaning that all three of the major agencies now do so. The Treasurer crowed look how well we are doing compared to others, not so said the shadow Treasurer.

I found the whole thing slightly repulsive because it provided a further illustration of the way in which the agencies' roles have become institutionalised. There was also a beggar my neighbour element in the Treasurer's comments. Ratings intended, however poorly, to provide market information have become another weapon in the competitive battles between nations.

Neither the ratings nor the rating agencies themselves can support the roles now placed upon them. They don't inform the markets, they can actually determine the markets. To my mind, this is quite pernicious. Does anybody seriously believe that the Fitch change actually says anything about the Australian economy?  

Dreams past: Collective Wisdom, education & the NBN

This post today is a personal historical piece, However, it is also one that has a certain relevance today in the context of the NBN and other discussions on the application of new technology in education.

The following photo dates from February 1996. The scene is the Armidale Town Hall. The event, a Collective Wisdom Project Demonstration. This was the last major thing I did in Armidale before joining the family in Sydney. The photo shows kids and teachers, set against the backdrop of old and new technology. The bearded chap in the background is Martin Levins, head of IT at The Armidale School. He was the brains behind the exercise. Further comments follow the photo.

Background

In the middle of 1987 I left the Commonwealth Public Service to establish with my wife a new information, training and consulting business in Armidale servicing the electronics, aerospace and information industries. I had been arguing that Australia had a future in these new industry areas, so was putting my personal money where my policy mouth had been.

I met Martin Levins soon after my arrival in Armidale. He was then head of IT at TAS and was driving the school in the direction of new technology. Under Martin's influence, TAS was a very early adapter of new communications and computing technology.

One of the things that we were trying to do was to grow the Armidale base in the new technologies, drawing from University of New England staff and graduates. This meant a big education role, for we had to train our people and popularise the opportunities. As part of this, Aymever combined with Martin and his then business partner Tom Pollock in 1987 to mount in a local pub the first ever display in Armidale of multimedia, the English Doomsday project, itself one of the first global demonstrations of the potential applications that we now take for granted.

Aymever grew rapidly. By the end of 1989, we had seventeen staff, a monthly fees base of over $80,000, clearing $8,000 after operating and start up expenses. We were then hit by the pilots' strike (we had to travel all the time to get business) and by the sharp downturn of 1990. While the Australian economy itself actually bottomed in mid 1991, the business services marketplace collapsed much earlier. Over the first months of 1990, national fees dropped by a third. Our own fees fell from $80,000 in December 1989 to a bottom of $29,000 in March 1990. We bled money, loosing $190,000 over calendar 1990.

We clawed our way back. By mid 1991, revenues had reached record levels, but we were now carrying heavy debts. We then hit a very large bad debt that forced retrenchment and finally led to us appointing administrators in 1994. Even though we had work in place and good prospects of further work, the administrators closed the business a week after appointment.

I mention this history for several reasons. It sets a context for what follows. Further, the rise and then fall of Armidale's nascent high technology and associated services sectors is of itself indicative of a broader Australian collapse. by the end of 1989 there were more than a dozen Armidale start-ups employing several hundred people. All this vanished over the next few years.

Genesis of the Collective Wisdom Project

As a strong exponent of the new computing and communications technologies, Martin developed the idea of a communications network linking Armidale schools - private and public - that would assist sharing of resources and promote new approaches to learning. He had already tried many of the ideas at TAS and had been helping train people in other schools and especially Drummond Memorial Primary School. He began negotiations with Telstra on one side, the University of New England on the other, for UNE had its own ideas and was also negotiating with Telstra.

The next photo is another shot from the Collective Wisdom Project Demonstration contrasting the old and the new.

For my part, I had reestablished as an independent consultant still trying to follow the same dream. As part of this, I was project managing the bid for funding for an Armidale based cooperative multimedia centre under the Commonwealth Government's Multimedia Program.

This was proving a frustrating experience. Beyond a small grant given to all the NSW contenders, we could get no State Government support. UNE who should have played a lead role was in a state of turmoil that came very close to forcing the university's closure. Martin himself was experiencing similar problems in gaining UNE support. The University wanted to do its own thing, but just couldn't deliver anything.

In frustration and knowing that in the absence of something radical we were doomed by metro myopia and the NSW disease, I decided to take the New England CMC concept alive to try to provide proof of concept. However, we needed something dramatic to show that what we had was not just hot air. For that reason, Paul Holland (my then industry analyst) and I joined with Martin to try to support the creation of the Collective Wisdom network.

The Collective Wisdom Demonstration Project 

It was clear to all of us that we needed something to showcase just what was possible. Locally, we needed full involvement of the schools and university. More broadly, I wanted something that might break through indifference in Sydney and Canberra, that we could invite people too and gather support.

In retrospect, the demonstration project we came up with was remarkably ambitious. Remember, this is 1995. It involved:

• An exhibition in the town hall in which hundreds of primary and secondary school kids would combine to create web pages from material sent in via phone from groups at their schools
• To attract interest from locals, an exhibition of education past to contrast
• With the whole thing watched live from a NSW Government Centre in Sydney.

The next photo shows some of the participating kids, these ones from the New England Girls School.

We had very limited resources to do all this.

Telstra was one sponsor, and undertook the required network connections. Because of its own problems, UNE could not help in any real way. Paul and I effectively worked full time on the project for several months, while TAS provided considerable support. This included making the IT lab available for training purposes,  kids were trained at night in the week before to ensure that they had the required skills, as well as the supply of kit.  

The next photo shows some of the TAS boys at work on the day.

The demonstration was a considerable success, although we hit very real technical problems.

One that we did not make public at the time is that Telstra could not get the dial-up network to actually work. Instead of doing it all on-line, we actually had to courier material from the schools to the town hall! 

The Aftermath

Before outlining the results of all this, another photo, this time of the PLC girls at work.

In a way, the results for all this effort were not good.

We did not get Commonwealth CMC funding. Attempts to create cooperation among Armidale schools foundered on a simple practical reality that, with UNE cutbacks and the consequent decline in Armidale's population, all the schools were competing for a diminished student base. Without a strong support base and some cash, the establishment of a network at that time was just too hard.

At a purely personal level it cost me an arm and a leg, for I went well beyond the point that could be justified by any personally rational payback. And yet, and even though it all appears as a few words on my current CV under community, I cannot regret it.

You see, we actually showed what might be possible with the proper application of technology. Fifteen years later as the NBN is discussed in abstract, as a set of theoretical possibilities, I remember the Armidale Town Hall on that day in 1996.   

Random snippets

Brief snippets this morning.

Skepticlawyer's Snowtown is a brilliant piece of writing. I still don't want to see the movie, but she almost made we want to. 

This photo by Lloyd  Carrick accompanies Katharine Brisbane's story in the Australian, Audience left behind in the dark. It shows cast and audience close together at a performance of Jack Hibberd's Who at Melbourne's La Mama in 1970. its a rather wonderful photo redolent of that time and place.

Katharine focuses on a particular aspect of the changes that took place in Australia during the 1960s and 1970s. I have a different focus given that I am interested in regional differences, but that will have to wait until later. Hopefully, Katherine's piece will remain outside the fire wall.

In David Duffy & the Bertrand Russell award for service to humanism, Rafe records that he plans to use the proceeds from his wife's (Kilmeny Niland) on-going book sales to provide modest awards designed to perpetuate the memory of others who have shown the way in various fields, hence Bertrand Russell in humanism. Others under consideration are a James McAuley award for poetry, criticism and scholarship, and a Brian Penton gong for high journalism. What a good idea.

Neil Whitfield has been digging back into his family history following the death of his Uncle Roy. Turns out he (Neil) has a cousin who also did archeology at UNE and has made something of a profession of it through High Ground Consulting, a heritage consulting business. We UNE people get around!

I too, have continued my digging back through family photos. This postcard shows where the Belshaw's came from, or at least where they lived for a time. 

Nationals win in New Zealand

November three years ago I wrote a full post (Sunday Essay - New Zealand elections 2008) on the results of the New Zealand elections, including an analysis of the electoral system. Yesterday's elections saw: 

• John Key's National Party returned to power
• Labor's lost seats quite heavily
• The Greens seem to have picked up four seats, but unlike Australia are still effectively locked out
• ACT, big winners from the last election in relative terms, are down to one seat with former Reserve Bank Governor Don Brash out of Parliament
• New Zealand First and the mercurial Winston Peters are back in Parliament after electoral annihilation last time.

For those interested in more details, the NZ Herald coverage is here.   

Giving up smoking

Comment:: I wrote this post originally because I thought that some some type of public statement would actually help me, because I thought that the issues were important. I then pulled it because it was actually a bit personal, risked being misinterpreted. I then decided to reinstate it because of its original intent.

Some two months ago I decided to give up smoking. I did not wish to do so.

Many of the happiest memories of my life are associated in one way or another with cigarettes or my pipe: social occasions, smoking a pipe by the fire, a cigarette to celebrate a success. I have also used cigarettes to aid thinking, both sitting and walking along smoking.

I have also enjoyed the conversation of other smokers, and the information obtained, in those ghettos gatherings that we smokers are now condemned too. As a trainer, I consciously used my desire to smoke as a way of creating breaks in sessions and in getting feedback as smokers and indeed non-smokers wandered outside with me. I am also counter-suggestive, deeply resenting the increasing prescriptive and coercive forms prescribed by the anti-smoking bigots that have turned smoking from a social to a drug culture, actually damaging the health of smokers in the process.

I have known for some time that I could give up smoking. I can go for considerable periods without a cigarette on, for example, international plane flights. I have noticed how my smoking drops, more than halves, on holidays when I am relaxed, swimming or walking. I have also noticed how my smoking sky-rockets when I am under tension. I go from five or six a day when on holidays to perhaps twenty when I'm in my normal life up life but relaxed up to forty or fifty a day when under severe tension.

I finally decided that I must give it all up for a number of reasons.

Part of the reasons for this were health and direct enjoyment. To understand this, and very few non-smokers do, you have to understand what the anti-smoking prescriptions have done to the way people smoke.

When I first started smoking, smokers would light a cigarette, take a draw and then put it down. A twenty a day person would actually smoke perhaps half or less of a cigarette in terms of direct smoke into the lungs.  Smokers actually looked down on what were then called chain smokers, people who lit several cigarettes in a row, smoking each very quickly.

Today, all we smokers have been turned into what what might be described as serial chain smokers.

 Huddled outside in breaks, we smoked fast and often have two quick ones before rushing back inside. Not only did more smoke from each cigarette go into the lungs, but the smoke from the previous draw would still be there when the next lot came in. A twenty a day pack person was now not only doubling actual inhalation, but was concentrating it into powerful bursts.

I first noticed that my tongue was getting a black coating in 1999. By then, I had been smoking for over thirty years without that side-effect. I found out by accident. I saw a photo of me talking with a black coated tongue out. I also found out, although this was a slower process, that it was affecting my teeth in a way that had not occurred with my parents or their friends even though they smoked the same as or (often) more than me in terms of cigarettes per day.
       
The tongue is probably a pretty fair measure of the impact of smoke on the lungs. I suspect that in twenty years' time, epidemiological studies will show that while the rate of smoking related diseases has declined on average with the growing number of smokers, smoking related diseases actually increased among those who did smoke as a consequence of the anti-smoking campaigns.
 
I had been thinking about giving up smoking for some years since I was conscious of the impacts of changed smoking habits. I was also enjoying it less. Indeed, I actually did give it up several times.

As I said, one of my problems in maintaining this was my personal response to the increased controls. I really didn't want to give up smoking just to be a good boy. I also still enjoyed it.

Like many smokers, I went for lower tar, lower nicotine cigarettes, although past a certain point I found that this increased the number of cigarettes smoked. I also tried to reduce the number of cigarettes I smoked a day, and started smoking a pipe again. Smoking a pipe has different pattern with less drawback. And I do find a pipe so relaxing!

As an aside, I still don't understand why anti-smoking campaigns don't incorporate a harm minimisation element along the lines of if you must smoke, then here are ways of reducing harm. But then, most anti-smoking campaigns are designed by non-smoking zealots who see things in the simplest black and white terms.
    
Finally, personal reasons dictated a decision that I should give up completely.

I have found this remarkably hard, and not just because of the addictive effects of nicotine. As I said, I know that I can go without smoking for considerable periods. During the last two months since I decided to give up, I have gone for as much as a week without a cigarette.

My problem is that smoking is so entwined with my patterns of enjoyment and behaviour, with my very performance, that giving it up has quite significant effects. I found myself, for example, thinking about a problem and then, because I couldn't smoke, trying to find a behaviour substitute that would have a similar focusing effect. My personal productivity dropped. I also became more difficult to live with.

Let me give an example.

Say I am in a tense personal discussion. I used to be able to say, let me have a  cigarette and think about that or gather my composure. This is acceptable because, as a smoker, your addictions are known. It's actually much harder to say I need to have a walk and will come back to you. It's harder still if you do smoke because you actually want a smoke.

Why am I sharing all this with you in such a public way?

Well, it's partly that I want to make a point about the nature of the anti-smoking campaigns. It's more that having decided to give up, this is actually best done in public because it probably makes it easier. I also think that there needs to be more discussion among smokers about the issue and approaches adopted towards us.

How do we manage this?

Non-smokers really don't understand. Too many ex smokers become zealots. Both non and ex smokers become absolute pains in the arse on the question. There has to be a middle way.

In memory of Anne McCaffrey

The death of science fiction writer Anne McCaffrey  (and here, Wikipedia here) marks the end of an another era in my mind.

At the time her first novel Restoree was published 1n 1967 I was an avid science fiction reader. In a way, I suppose that I just kept reading along as other books came out.

Anne McCaffrey is best known for her Pern series This is a world threatened by non-sentient threads that drift to the surface of the planet from space at certain times and which burn and consume land borne life. Sentient dragons with telepathic powers combine with their riders to defend the planet. Other series include the crystal singer, brainship and tower books.

I have always enjoyed her books, although some of her later books became formulaic. I am also not so keen on those she wrote with other authors.

Anne McCaffrey was remarkably good at bringing alternative worlds alive.  Her The White Dragon, one of my favourites, was apparently the first science fiction book to make the NY Times best seller list.

Her books can be read on a stand-alone basis, but most addicts read them as series because the people become friends. In the Pern series, later books filled out gaps in the story from the first settlement of Pern.

I think of her books as part of my comfort reading, books that help me escape from a world that sometimes seems just too complicated; my own concerns are still there, but they recede to the background a little.

Thank you Anne for the pleasure that you have given me.

Slippers, feather dusters & the mining tax

Here in Australia, the Slipper matter continues to dominate the political news; here is another example.

Listening to the commentary suggests that my own reactions are a little of of kilter in terms of the weight I place on it. It may, as Tony Abbott is trying to suggest and as The Ages' Michelle Gratton believes, go to the question of the PM's moral integrity. I think that people are missing the point here, and in any event this will play out in the electorate as it will. 

I remain of the view that I expressed in Labor gives Abbott the slipper:

Of more importance was the passage of the Minerals Resource Rent Tax through the Parliament. I say this only because I expect this tax to trigger events that are likely to have a much bigger political and public policy impact.

On Wednesday (23 November), the ABC's  Alan Kohler had a scathing piece Mining tax outcomes: everyone's a loser. I have a high opinion of Mr Kohler, and the piece is worth reading. However, I believe that he misses or understates certain point.

One is simply the growing international economic gloom. I have made the point before that we shouldn't  count our chooks until they actually get to the roost. I remember too many previous mining booms. Given that the projected revenue from the tax has been more than allocated, the Government faces a significant risk.

The second is one that I have also referred to before, the implications of the growing clash in Commonwealth-State relations.

During the lead-up to the vote on the mining tax, the Commonwealth agreed with the Independent Member for New England, Tony Windsor, for new procedures for the treatment of coal seam gas proposals. The stated aim is "to ensure that all future decisions about coal seam gas projects and large coal mining developments are based on the most rigorous scientific evidence available."  The key elements are:

• Provide $150 million to establish a new Independent Expert Scientific Committee that will provide scientific advice to governments about relevant coal seam gas and large coal mining approvals where they have significant impacts on water; oversee research on impacts on water resources from coal seam gas and large coal mining projects; and commission and fund water resource assessments for priority regions.
• Establish a new National Partnership Agreement with the states through COAG, agreeing that the Commonwealth and states have to take into account the advice of the Committee in their assessment and approval decisions.
• Provide $50 million in incentive payments to the states to deliver this outcome.
• Mandate that the Independent Expert Scientific Committee publicly disclose its advice to ensure local communities have all the best information available to them.

I have no particular problem with the idea of objective scientific assessment. However, this decision effectively creates a new decision making level limited to water and coal seam gas and large mining proposals. Other mining proposals such as gold mines that may affect water are excluded, while other environmental issues associated with coal seam gas and large coal mining approvals will continue as at present.

Water is important. Further, many of the projects in question are in the Murray Darling Basin where water supply including ground water is a very important issue. However, the decision was taken by the Commonwealth in isolation and was, as so many of these things are, primarily a response to a single symptom. The form of its decision with its focus on approval processes intended to be implemented through yet another National Partnership Agreement was characteristic. We have to many of these now, and they haven't worked very well. In practice, Partnership is a euphemism for Commonwealth controlled conditions.

Our present Commonwealth Treasurer is a bit of a feather duster.

In debate on the legislation, he continued to assert that the states could lump it or like it, that the Commonwealth would retaliate with reduced funding in other areas if the mining states continued to increase royalties. With two of those states under Liberal-National Party Governments, with Queensland likely to go the same route, with WA already refusing to participate in a number of Commonwealth proposals, the Commonwealth will need to be prepared to do more than spank a state's hand with a feather duster.

In our present system, the States increasingly have responsibility without authority. The Commonwealth's command and control approach compounds the problem.

Wars over the environment and the share of benefits from resources are working their way out across the country. National politicians and those who report and comment on their activities really adopt a helicopter approach, looking down from on-high onto a landscape flattened by height. In doing so, they fail to see the ripple effects across the country, ripple effects that actually feed back.

It should come as no surprise that WA National Party cross-bench member Tony Crook should be working so closely with the Association of  Mining and Exploration Companies on the mining tax. After all, Resources for the Regions has been central to the resurgence of the WA Nats.

It should have come as no surprise, although it did to many, when coal seam gas blew up as a major issue; it had been brewing for several years. It should come as no surprise that the Newcastle Herald is fulminating against both state and Federal Governments and calling on the Hunter's Federal Labor MPs to ensure that the coal rich Hunter gets a fair return from local mining.

The Herald's call is a symptom of another problem, the way in which role confusion actually centralises local and regional lobbying in Canberra. Increasingly, the poor Federal MPs have to taken on the role once filled by their State counterparts, and they can't really do it. Their electorates are just too big, the coverage too wide.  

Looking down on the height flattened landscape, these things can be ignored until the cumulative effects reach a point where the carriage overturns, throwing all into the street. I may be wrong, but I think that we are close to this point. That is why I regard the mining tax as important rather than the speaker question.

Mr Slipper's decision affects immediate political power, the constitutional flow on effects of the approach adopted to the mining tax may affect our very structure of governance.    

Labor gives Abbott the slipper

Interesting times just on present on the Australian political scene. Today we saw the Labor Party speaker of the House of Representatives resign to return to the cut and thrust of Labor politics. He was replaced by Liberal, now ex-Liberal, Peter Slipper giving the Government an effective extra vote in a hung Parliament.

I watched all this unfold with great interest. To say that the Opposition was displeased would be an understatement. Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop's face resembled a prune on the news.

The photo from the ABC shows Opposition Leader Abbott passing in front of the new speaker. The body language says it all!

The high political drama of the day dominated the news. However, from my perspective the practical effect is uncertain since I was already expecting the Government to survive. It does strengthen its position, however, and has certainly ignited hope among Labor supporters who had become very dispirited.

Of more importance was the passage of the Minerals Resource Rent Tax through the Parliament. I say this only because I expect this tax to trigger events that are likely to have a much bigger political and public policy impact.

I am too tired tonight to spell this out, but will return to the issue in the morning. 

Running shoes, education & the sometimes insanity of it all!

A rather neat comment on The education trap, by Evan captured part of the problem I was talking about. In passing, Evan, I have linked  to your blog, but the link wasn't working this morning.

Evan wrote:

Imagine a sprint. We decide to study the winners. We note the winners have shoes and the losers don't. Imagine there is perfect correlation. We conclude that if we give everyone shoes then everyone can win. Replace shoes with credentials.

Evan actually captures two problems here.

The first is correlation as compared to causation, the second is the importance of relative impacts.

Obviously many factors come into play in athletic performance. However, a focus on one apparent important statistical connection can act to conceal others. Further, the giving of shoes to all may improve the performance of those without shoes as compared to those with shoes, but does not affect overall relativities since these are primarily based on athletic ability, not shoes.

Assume now that the Government cannot afford to give shoes to all, or at least not comparable shoes. Some people get cheap shoes, some good shoes, some no shoes at all. In these circumstances, the National Shoe Program will create new relativities; some people (those who don't have shoes) may actually be worse off.

The statistical averages used to evaluate the National Shoe Program may show an overall increase in athletic performance since those previously without shoes do a bit better and pull the statistical average up. The Government may then decide to extend the Program. Further, since inequities are now clear, special programs are introduced to address them.

The Government now faces a difficulty in that the national benchmarks used to evaluate athletic performance show no improvement in performance. In fact, the country's performance appears to be falling behind.  New steps need to be taken.

A national shoe design committee is appointed to set national standards for running shoes. New quality control and reporting procedures are mandated for all shoe suppliers. And so it goes on!

University of Sydney cuts staff

According to a story by Jen Rosenberg in the Sydney Morning Herald, the University of Sydney will shed 150 academics and up to 190 casual staff as part of an attempt to save $63 million next year. Academic salaries and administrative costs will be slashed by 7.5 per cent of their 2011 levels, by $25 million and $28 million respectively.

On the income  side. student fee income has been below budget for both international and domestic students. No surprise on the first, but the second is interesting because demand for SU places is such that the University has no problem in filling places. Apparently, more domestic students are deferring or lightening load, thus reducing fee income.

On the expenditure side, the University has to find money for a maintenance backlog and to meet new IT expenses.

I have written on the maintenance issue before, for all Australian universities appear to face similar problems. You can rob Peter to pay Paul, and that's what they have all done, but you then you have a problem when you have to pay Peter back.

As I have also indicated before, I have real problems with current university budget approaches because they actually build in instability. I am not sure that I have a proper answer to the problem. 

Postscript

Sydney University Academics Speak Out (New Matilda 5 December) provides further insight on this matter.

Life in the Australian Army...

This one came to me from Ramana.

"Text of a letter from a kid from Eromanga to Mum and Dad. (For Those of you not in the know, Eromanga is a small town, west of Quilpie in the far south west of Queensland, out where the crows fly backwards to keep the dust out of their eyes ! )

Dear Mum & Dad,

I am well. Hope youse are too. Tell me big brothers Doug and Phil that the Army is better than workin' on the farm - tell them to get in bloody quick smart before the jobs are all gone! I wuz a bit slow in settling down at first, because ya don't hafta get outta bed until 6am . But I like sleeping in now, cuz all ya gotta do before brekky is make ya bed and shine ya boots and clean ya uniform. No bloody cows to milk, no calves to feed, no feed to stack - nothin'!! Ya haz gotta shower though, but its not so bad, coz there's lotsa hot water and even a light to see what ya doing!

At brekky ya get cereal, fruit and eggs but there's no kangaroo steaks or possum stew like wot Mum makes. You don't get fed again until noon and by that time all the city boys are buggered because we've been on a 'route march' - geez its only just like walking to the windmill in the back paddock!!

This one will kill me brothers Doug and Phil with laughter. I keep getting medals for shootin' - dunno why. The bullseye is as big as a bloody possum's bum and it don't move and it's not firing back at ya like the Johnsons did when our big scrubber bull got into their prize cows before the Ekka last year! All ya gotta do is make yourself comfortable and hit the target - it's a piece of piss!! You don't even load your own cartridges, they comes in little boxes, and ya don't have to steady yourself against the rollbar of the roo shooting truck when you reload!

Sometimes ya gotta wrestle with the city boys and I gotta be real careful coz they break easy - it's not like fighting with Doug and Phil and Jack and Boori and Steve and Muzza all at once like we do at home after the muster.

Turns out I'm not a bad boxer either and it looks like I'm the best the platoon's got, and I've only been beaten by this one bloke from the Engineers - he's 6 foot 5 and 15 stone and three pick handles across the shoulders and as ya know I'm only 5 foot 7 and eight stone wringin' wet, but I fought him till the other blokes carried me off to the boozer.

I can't complain about the Army - tell the boys to get in quick before word gets around how bloody good it is.

Your loving daughter,
Sheila

Education & the need for simplification

Staying with the education theme that began with The education trap and continued in A note on the economics of education & the reasons for the mess in Australian education, Tom Hyland's Sick system keeps doctors out of practice indefinitely (Sydney Morning Herald) looks at the mess created in Australian medical training through supply decisions dating back to the 1990s.

From my own perspective. Mr Hyland's conclusions fit with my own experiences during the two years that I was CEO of a specialist medical college. The Australian doctor mess, and it is a mess, is due to the interaction between three very different things:

• Government decisions to limit the number of doctors in training to reduce health care cost funded by Government. There was a fear at the time that an oversupply of GPS was leading to over servicing.
• Government decisions to change the rules for GP registration requiring prospective GPs to jump through more hoops. This was part of growing credentialism, the desire to turn GPs into "specialists", but was also influenced by the first factor, perceived oversupply.
• Government decisions on recognition of overseas qualifications. This combined the desire to create common national standards and to reduce the power of the Colleges to assess medical qualifications because this was anti-competitive. The resulting system was complex and became more so because of concerns about standards and the need to avoid scandals such as the Patel case. 

These three very different things interacted in complex ways. The result was a mess.

I do not agree with skepticlawer's argument in Inflating ourselves into irrelevance that the expansion of mass university education was a mistake, although I do agree with some of her other points, I think that this, mass university education, was a good thing. I do think, and argued thus in my earlier posts, that just because an initial action made sense does not mean that consequent actions based on the same arguments make sense. I also think that our constant desire to improve standards through rule and mandate, our desire to avoid risk, has led to a complex mess.

Every one of current Australian Government education initiatives at all levels involves controls and rules. Most deal with perceived problems in isolation. All add to systemic complexity.

One of my constant plaints, and it's not limited to education, is the need to simplify. If we don't do this, Australian education will continue to go backwards.