ewe2 posted:

Interesting choice of theme, how long did those shops take?

Lid posted:

The Turnbull government will slash university funding by hundreds of millions of dollars in the May budget while hiking student fees and requiring graduates to pay back their loans faster.

The government will justify the cuts by pointing to a major new report which found universities receive adequate funding for most courses they teach and that their revenues are growing faster than costs.

Despite pleas from universities that they cannot absorb any more cuts, Fairfax Media understands they will be hit with a new efficiency dividend of between 2 and 3 per cent to be phased in over several years.

Education Minister Simon Birmingham, who will address university and business leaders on Monday night, is expected to release the government's higher education reform package in coming days.

The pain will be shared between universities and students, who will see a rise in course fees and a lowering of the HECS repayment threshold from the current $52,000. It is understood the fee increases will be significantly lower than a speculated 25 per cent hike.

A 3.25 per cent efficiency dividend, originally proposed by Labor, would reduce university funding by approximately $900 million over four years.


The government will soften the blow by increasing funding for dentistry and veterinary science courses, which are expensive to teach. It will also finally abandon plans, introduced in the 2014 budget, to reduce university course funding by 20 per cent.

Senator Birmingham will on Monday release a new report, commissioned by the government, that provides the most detailed picture ever compiled of the cost of delivering university degrees.

The Deloitte Access Economics study found universities receive sufficient revenue – through government funding and student fees – to cover the cost of teaching most degrees.

For example, the average annual cost of providing an engineering degree was $22,514 per student in 2015 compared to total funding of $26,623 per student.

A clinical psychology degree cost universities an average of $13,528 a year to deliver while attracting $18,711 in total funding.

Two clear exceptions are dentistry and veterinary science, which the study found to be significantly underfunded.

Fairfax Media understands the government will provide top-up funding for these subjects in the budget through new loadings.

The Deloitte report, based on data from 17 universities, shows the average cost of delivery for universities increased by 9.5 per cent from 2010 to 2015 while revenue grew by 15 per cent.

"This independent analysis speaks for itself," Senator Birmingham said.

"Funding for our universities is at record levels, but it has grown above and beyond the costs of their operations.

"Universities have a vital role to play in Australia but many mums and dads are feeling the pinch of tighter budgets at home and want to know their tax dollars are being used effectively and efficiently."

Senator Birmingham said he would not pre-empt the announcement of his reform package but added: "In the context of a tight national budget, the Turnbull government is focused on getting the best return for every taxpayer dollar invested."

The Deloitte report notes that universities also use their teaching revenue to cross-subsidise research and other activities.

Universities Australia last week released a report showing universities and students have contributed $4 billion to reduce the deficit since 2011 and that further cuts could put some universities in a precarious position.

"Universities and their students have already done more than their fair share of budget repair," chief executive Belinda Robinson said.

"In this context, it is difficult to justify further cuts that would affect student affordability and put at risk the quality of education and research on which Australia's prosperity depends."

Universities recorded an average profit margin of 5.3 per cent in 2015, with the University of Sydney and University of Melbourne recording strong surpluses of $157 million and $141 million respectively.

Vice-chancellor salaries have also soared over recent years, with nine vice-chancellors receiving annual pay packets over $1 million.

The government will also on Monday release an implementation plan on measures to increase the transparency of university admissions.

The AFR posted:

Government can build better, cheaper infrastructure than private sector: Morrison

Treasurer Scott Morrison says governments can build infrastructure projects more cheaply and effectively than the private sector, justifying the "good debt" focus of his second budget that next week will foreshadow a turning point to "better times" for Australian households.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Australian Financial Review, Mr Morrison expressed cautious optimism that international ratings agencies would retain Australia's AAA sovereign credit rating given his "very high goal" of keeping to the projected return to budget to balance by 2021.

He said Sydney's apartment market was "already turning" due to prudential controls on bank lending to investors that were flexible enough to avoid a "hard landing" for housing.

And he suggested the "very encouraging" economic news from the US, Europe and Asia could relieve the frustration of Australians over unexpectedly low wages and income growth since the global financial crisis eight years ago.

This positioned Australians for "the end phase of what has been a pretty long road for them".

"All of that sacrifice is going to be soon worth it so long as we keep making the right choices," he said. "After all all these years of really hard slog, not long to go now."

Mr Morrison's focus on "good" government debt to fund infrastructure projects fits in with his stated aims for the budget: to promote more and better paid jobs, to support government services and to tackle cost-of-living or low wage growth pressures.

"There are some projects that the private sector will never get off the ground because the risks are just too great," he told the Financial Review. "We have no interest in crowding out private sector investment but nor do we have great interest in paying large sums of money to manage public risk – which they will charge us more for than we can do ourselves."

The federal government has decided to give itself the option of large-scale borrowing for big infrastructure projects while still trying to protect its budget bottom line by reclassifying debt as good or bad depending on what it is used for.

Key projects to be at least partly funded in this way are expected to include an inland rail link between Melbourne and Brisbane as well as the new airport at Badgerys Creek in Sydney, given the reluctance of Sydney Airport Corporation to proceed on the government's terms.

While an "infrastructure budget" focused on productivity-boosting projects is generally popular with economists and even the Reserve Bank of Australia, there is concern the government's choices will be dictated more by political interests rather than economic criteria.

But, according to the Treasurer, projects with a long lead-time and no cash flow coming in mean the private sector must have the capital sitting dormant while also trying to manage the various regulatory, zoning, pricing and planning risks.

"That's a lot of risk for a private sector proponent to manage and if they are doing it, they have got to price all of that risk into the project," he said. "Government will price that risk quite differently because we have a different capability to manage all of it.

"Sometimes they [the private sector] are better to be the take-out purchaser. When you get into an operation phase, they are 10 times better at that. But if they have to absorb too much of the initial cost because the cost of their risk is greater, that just puts more pressure on them at the other end when the revenue starts to run."

The government's argument is that because these projects will ultimately generate an income stream, they do not need to be included in estimates of the budget balance – similar to the model for the National Broadband Network. It will also establish a new Infrastructure Financing Unit in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to help advise and structure finance for projects.

The budget focus on infrastructure and assistance on housing affordability, including limited use of pre-tax income to accumulate first home deposits, are designed to give new momentum to the Turnbull government and to boost its stocks with disgruntled voters as well as boosting the economy.

In a pre-budget interview, the Treasurer dismissed criticism there is already considerable private sector capital available for investable infrastructure projects, saying there has been "no end of people" telling him this but the projects "just sit on a list" while the issue gets kicked around for 20 years.

"So how do they get from being on a list to actually happening?" he said. "Well, governments do something.

"That is what actually starts to convert something that is important into an actual project which is happening …

"Creating that expertise, that skill-set within the Commonwealth [means] that can actually be a participant in these projects, not just sign a cheque and kick the money out the door and wait for the next one which has been the traditional role of Commonwealth infrastructure."

Mr Morrison said he was taking every step and action he could to ensure Australia retains its AAA credit rating, and that external creditors are continuing to buy and indeed to oversubscribe to government bonds at a good price. But the ratings agencies have made it clear spending must generate an economic return that supports the government's ability to repay the debt.

The Melbourne-Brisbane inland rail link – while a perennial favourite of the Nationals – is widely regarded as a very expensive freight option providing limited economic benefit and a dubious long-term return on investment.

It is not one of Infrastructure Australia's seven "high priority" projects and AFR Weekend revealed it was the price demanded by Nationals leader, Barnaby Joyce, for not withdrawing his party's support for the government taking on building a second Sydney airport.

The Treasurer said it was not helpful to think about funding infrastructure projects "in absolutes".

"It is about what project and what role using what vehicles," he said. "We are always looking proactively at the difference we can make and where we think we can make that difference, well, we would be in a position to do that."

The states have traditionally taken the major role in building infrastructure but even under an active NSW Liberal government, congestion and population growth have meant building lags well behind community demands for more, especially in transport infrastructure.

Mr Morrison said the Abbott government's asset recycling program that paid states a bonus percentage of proceeds from their privatised assets if invested in infrastructure had been an excellent initiative but was expensive and had run its course. The Turnbull government ended the funding.

"It took forever for some of the states to actually sell the assets and some of them did and some of them didn't," Mr Morrison said.

"NSW certainly benefited from it and Victoria did, ultimately."

WhiskeyWhiskers posted:

Happy May Day!

WhiskeyWhiskers posted:

libs thought

MysticalMachineGun posted:

Top OP, looking forward to losing my job when the Uni cuts come through

Ten Becquerels posted:

Good to see the government targeting those who really need to contribute more to society: uni students

WhiskeyWhiskers posted:

I really can't understand why the libs thought good debt/bad debt would help them. Theyre the only ones who bring it up. And they're not going to win the next election anyway. Basically just gave away their ability to whinge about debt.

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

JBP posted:

Please explain this to me.

As in, is this meaningful or just like "look at Simon in university" or whatever?

The SMH posted:

Mark Latham stood at the back of the room in jacket and jeans listening intently to a workshop on "alternative media". In a little room above Sydney's University of Technology, a group of YouTube commentators - who usually hide behind pseudonyms - had come to show their faces and share their ideas for taking on the mainstream.

The mission, said moderator James Fox Higgins, was to "make libertarianism sexy". The men - and men they all were - on the panel seemed to agree their cause suffered from an image problem: one of oddball keyboard warriors camped out in their underwear in their parents' basements.

"Us libertarians, we're not that cool," admitted Dylan Thomas, known online as "truediltom". Perhaps to prove the point, Sven Lowe - who works on YouTube channel The Rational Rise with Mr Higgins - said he consumed "eight hours of YouTube content a day".

The Friedman Liberty Conference brought together leading libertarians from Australia and overseas for a three-day freedom fest, extolling the virtues of guns, drug legalisation and eliminating taxes.

But it was also a platform for self-styled "outsiders" of the far-right to step out of the shadows, culminating in a show-stopping double-feature late on Sunday with Mr Latham, the former Labor leader, and Ross Cameron, the former federal MP who on Saturday lost his bid to rejoin the Liberal Party.

Mr Cameron, who made headlines in February when he headlined a far-right fundraiser and called the Liberal Party a "gay club", continued his crusade against the Herald, which he accused of photographing him unflatteringly.

Addressing the Herald's photographer in the room, Mr Cameron said: "His job is to take 100 photos of Mark Latham and Ross Cameron and make them look like f---wits."

Then Mr Cameron raised his arm into a Hitler salute and yelled, to whoops of approval: "Mate, if you want to come down now I'll give you the Nazi salute and you can f--- off to the pub."

The bias and failings of the mainstream media were a preoccupation of many speakers at the conference. But it was Mr Latham's critique of "identity politics" and the modern Labor Party which stirred the crowd to rapturous applause.

Mr Latham, who lost the 2004 election to John Howard, accused Labor of drifting from a pro-market, anti-establishment ethos to embrace political correctness and identity politics in a race to the Left with the Greens.

"The Labor Party's goal posts have moved much more than my position," he said. "They've abandoned meritocracy. Modern Labor is killing itself with the own-goal of identity politics.

"I've got an IQ of three figures and I'm not going to fall for this bullshit," he said to cheers.

Mr Latham, who has been shunned by most contemporary Labor figures and also fired from numerous commentary gigs including most recently Sky News, appeared to have found a new home at the libertarian love-in.

"That's the other thing I love about a libertarian conference – no matter what I say, you can't kick me out," he said.

The conference concluded with a screening of men's rights movement documentary The Red Pill, which Mr Latham said he found "dull".

Anidav posted:

Is it just e or does Bill Shorten have the biggest election Ammo stockpile in modern history?

I mean sure, Rudd had Work choices but Shorten has this royal flush of Medicare, University Fees, gently caress the banks, proper NBN and high speed rail? Anything else? Seems like quite the warchest

"Queensland Uni Liberal Students Want To Make It Against The Law To Criticise The Queen posted:

The University of Queensland Liberal National Club has passed a motion calling for the reintroduction of sedition laws in Australia that would make it a crime to criticise the Queen.

A member of the university's Liberal National Club who was present at Wednesday night's meeting has confirmed to BuzzFeed News the motion to reintroduction sedition was passed by a large majority .

The sedition motion was moved by first year Club members, in response to the launch of a republican movement on campus earlier this month.

BuzzFeed News understands the students behind the sedition push are from a faction of the club loyal to former Club president Kurt Tucker.

Last month Tucker was forced to resign after saying he would be a Nazi Party member if alive in 1930s Germany.

Hours after the motion passed, LNP Club members went on to lose a campus debate to the UQ Australian Republic Club.

Fellow University of Queensland students said the sedition motion is "ridiculous" and a niche issue that young people don't care about.

"We're worrying about our HECS debts, whether we'll ever be able to afford a house, and the undersupply of full time jobs in Queensland," Sinιad Canning, UQ student and Young Greens member said.

"No wonder the LNP's youth vote is tanking."

Historically, sedition laws have been used by governments or heads of state to suppress dissent.

In March 1949 Lawrence "Lance" Sharkey was convicted of uttering seditious words after telling a Sydney journalist that if "Soviet Forces in pursuit of aggressors entered Australia, Australian workers would welcome them".

In 1950 William Burns was sentenced to nine months of hard labour for publishing seditious words in a Communist Party newspaper; and in 1960 Brian Cooper was jailed for urging "the natives" of Papua New Guinea to demand independence from Australia.

No one has been successfully prosecuted under sedition laws in Australia since 1961.

The law was amended in 2005 to include terrorism offences, but in 2006 police ruled books promoting suicide bombings and anti-Australian conspiracies didn't breach the new laws.

The UQ LNP Club is no stranger to controversy.

In 2014 the club was criticised for hosting an asylum seeker themed pub crawl, celebrating 100 days of no boat arrivals under the Abbott Government's "stop the boats" border protection policy.

Current Club president Matthew Newcombe (pictured above) refused to answer BuzzFeed News' questions.

But the Federal Young Liberal President, Aiden Depiazzi said the Young Liberal Movement has a firm position in support of our Constitutional Monarchy.

"I wouldn't expect this policy to have wider support within our Movement - many of whom are arch monarchists and love the Queen," Depiazzi said.

MysticalMachineGun posted:

Meanwhile, Turnbull (or Dutton) has:

Almost the entire Australian media