The pond decided to take it easy this day and do a survey of the headlines of the lizard Oz. By now the pond expects devoted herpetology students to be able to write a column in the style and manner of any reptile columnist and without the help of AI, still end up with passing fair sense of verisimilitude ...
First up the pond caught a fleeting glimpse of a despairing cry from the Catholic Boys' (and occasional girl) Daily at the thought of having been done down yet again by that rogue liberal Marxist climate science affirming chemist from South America ...
Remember to splash a few tears onto the paper so that the ink might run, and cry forlornly at the sky, "where are the Pellists of yesteryear"?
Moving right along, there's much digital ink to be spilled about Jimbo ...
If talk of "hard-head Jim" doesn't appeal, a diligent student might note that line about "Orwellian" at the top of the tree killer edition, and consider a column on the virtues of "Orwellian" v. "woke" v. "virtue signalling." Those who fail to conclude "Orwellian" is the eternal way to celebrate socialism will be marked down ...
If the pond might be so bold, an advanced student might wonder at the disappearing of climate science from the lizard Oz, and consider a handy headline, "Orwellian lizard Oz says planet in tip top shape."
And so to the headlines on the Voice ...
Aspiring students might consider a column contemplating what might happen if lizard Oz activists succeed in their relentless nattering negativity. What happens then?
Possibly the same as when the onion muncher appointed himself Minister for Indigenous Affairs. SFA. Those who like to cheat might crib from Recounting Abbott's 'contributions to indigenous Australians' ...
Assiduous scribblers might also wonder what happened after Captain Potato turned his back on the apology and write a short paper on how it resulted in a belated apology years down the track, and SFA for the rest ...
As for the advice on sledging, it's the perfect set-up. Thus far the sledging that's come to the surface did so in the AFR and came from the 'no' side, though it's just a manifestation of the deeply racist sledging that's been racing through the countryside. Naturally it's sound advice to advise the 'yes' backers to refrain, without a thought as to what's really going down.
It's called flipping, a speciality for reptiles, which must be incorporated in any attempt to imitate a reptile column.
So Dame Slap gives nary a thought about how she'll be crowing at the way that yet again blondes have done and they've done down the upstart, difficult, tricky blacks - what a triumph it will be when they're given a backhander to the chops - while the underhand sledging can go on apace, and if anyone's to cop a warning, it's the goodytwoshoes ...
Speaking of flipping, the pond is pleased to see an expert example of the reptile art in the matter of Robodebt.
A casual observer might think that this was the work of sundry Liberal ministers and governments ... but an expert reptile flipper, fresh from serving low rent imitations of American defence burgers, will manage to turn it into a bipartisan issue.
See how it's done... with students advised to note the splendid use of snaps as distraction devices ...
First of all, give the game away by showing a snap of a likely dole bludger lurking outside a store holding precious taxpayer cash, blessed by a note on how
"policymaking processes are thoroughly - and bipartisanly -broken."
There you go, sold from the very start.
The notion that Robodebt might be the result of the relentless demonisation of those on welfare by News Corp and successive Liberal governments, determined to tackle useless bludgers and dropkicks - as demonised in the Murdochian press for decades - is immediately sent from the field ... and the rest of the blather is deployed only to get back to that central bipartisan point ...
First it's important to make sure that the public service takes all the blame, and any role politicians might have played to be downplayed with some vigour ...
Who might have lacked the capacity to listen? Never mind answering, quick a huge photo ...
Then it's back to more distracting, remembering to keep the ultimate prize in sight ...
A splendid distraction. Start off talking about Robodebt, but then explain it was a political act and wheel in Brendan, and talk of the JSF, and better still, run a huge snap of the man himself ...
At some point you might have to consider running a snap of some actual politician actually relevant to the story, but first to prime the turf with more distractions ...
Splendid stuff. Note the vague reference to "media-obsessed ministers", but make sure no names are mentioned and make sure it's followed immediately by
"controlling but clueless staff members and public servants", and you immediately bring to mind an episode of
Yes, Minister, and Sir Humphrey in charge.
With the defusing done, it's then safe to fling in a very small snap of an actual PM, supposedly in charge of the ship at relevant times...
With most of the work done, it's then but a short, snappy step back to the future and the beginning ...
And there you go, QED, "policymaking processes are thoroughly - and bipartisanly - broken", and you've arrived at your bipartisan destination, which is to say Robodebt is just as much the fault of the Labor party as those who actually implemented it and supervised its operations ...
To be sure, in all that fluff and carry-on, you can be forgiven for remembering that you've devised a strategy only a cartoonist could make sense of ...
What else?
Well there was the splendid sight of "look the other way" Linda explaining how looking the other way was wrong, at some times in some matters, while the lizard Oz editorialist was keen to explain that warm hearts are no way to go, when bashing dole bludgers must remain a reptile priority ...
But it seems uni education is the new reptile distraction, and rather than the doddering Doddy, the pond must reaffirm its fealty to nattering "Ned". If nothing else, the way that "long betrayal" in the header echoes that perennial favourite, the "long march through the institutions", deserves high praise ...
The pond immediately realised it had made a mistake. The pond was a poor quality candidate lured into teaching by a tidy scholarship and spent the rest of its life avoiding a rewarding career ... in fact, the day the pond walked out of
"Wake in Fright" was the day the pond resolved never to be a teacher stuck in Woop Woop, for all the pleasures of finding Rod Taylor stuck there too (never seen the movie? Not to worry, nobody did at the time, but you're welcome)...
But here we are, and the pond will try to keep a few of the gobbets short, so that those struggling to make it to the top of the usual "Ned" Everest might at least feel they've left base camp ...
"The crazy culture war". Yes, of course it's post-ironic and beyond the valley of satire, for the home of crazy culture wars to berate culture wars, but there you go and here we are, and perhaps a large distracting snap, downsized to fit the pond's desire to get it over with ...
Phew, that's a relief, but the price to pay is a substantial gobbet designed to create a sense of fatigue as the lack of oxygen at "Ned" heights begins to exact a toll ... especially when the trudging Tudge is approvingly invoked...
To grasp the scale of the atrocity, imagine an Australian "newspaper" - the pond uses the term and the concept loosely, hence the quotation marks - that routinely taught climate science denialism, until it all got too difficult and the whole matter, and talk of new records here and there, and other difficult observable phenomena, was simply disappeared ...
Then remember to slip in a huge snap so everybody might simply forget ...
Now on with a short gobbet ...
In truth any implementation won't be easy. Resistance to science-based, evidence-based climate studies has a disreputable history at the lizard Oz ...
What's that? The topic's reading? Sorry, best slip in another snap featuring the University of Sydney, which everyone knows is just a vast real estate enterprise, already on the way to taking over several Sydney suburbs ... oh Darlington, who will miss you?
At this point, some might think that "Ned" is lacking a little gravitas. Where is an exceptional loon, of the Sarah Henderson kind? You know, star of videos that might make Troy McClure green with envy ...
Don't worry, a short gobbet and you'll be there ...
Science? Evidence? Please, a distracting snap ...
And that's how you can get through a "Ned" piece and arrive at a final short gobbet in good, hearty, non-ideological shape, with many fine words deployed and a mountain of blather to show for it ... as we once again get back on the bipartisan wagon, because the trudging Tudge was a marvel and a wonder to behold...
...As human services minister ... oversaw a ramp-up in the now disgraced robo-debt scheme. The royal commission into the illegal scheme heard last week that Tudge’s office released to the media private information about welfare recipients who had complained about the debt-recovery scheme.
As education minister, Tudge warned that changes to the national history curriculum could lead to students developing “a hatred” of Australia and hearing “fringe” ideas about Anzac Day.
Victorian Education Minister James Merlino accused him of promoting “ham-fisted culture wars rubbish”. In his farewell, Tudge said he still hoped the government would pursue a “more positive” view of the nation.
No, no, forget all that, forget all that talk of ham-fisted culture wars, do a "Ned" and put on the blather blinkers and get into the hay.
Remember we're talking about the bold and brave reformer celebrated by "Ned" ...
"Explicit instruction"?! We somehow strayed into sex education?
And in that spirit can the pond offer an
infallible Pope as a guide to students getting ready to write their first lizard Oz column ...
And as a bonus, because the reptiles seem to have entirely forgotten about other matters, an immortal Rowe ...
It's always the details ...
“The royal commission report does not expose a monstrous conspiracy”. No, that’s exactly what it exposes, a political strategy to leverage the good old Australian desire to punch down on the disadvantaged.
ReplyDeleteIf you’re spruiking AUKUS or the JSF as great successes you have no credibility. I guess there’s a whole story in how a bloated tick of an organisation like ASPI gained so much influence over government policy.
Just a little bit of Planet Janet to lighten up the day: "If the referendum is successful, we can be sure corporate boards will crow about being on the right side of history -- if it fails what will they do then?" Why then, dearest Slappy, they'll stay on the right side of history as they always do. You wouldn't be thinking that your impassioned words might cause them to rise up to apologise to the Indigenes for their failure, would you ? You know apologies never work and that's why you never make any, right ?
ReplyDeleteBTW is that Jim Crow you expect from them ?
PS: has the UN black helicopter world dictatorship begun yet ?
"Recounting Abbott's 'contributions to indigenous Australians' ..." Well now we know why the O.Muncher is a widely acclaimed AC who will soon be conducting a reptile blog with the great Petulant Peta called 'Abbott and Credlin' (of course his name comes first, it begins with an 'a'):
ReplyDeletehttps://radiotoday.com.au/tony-abbott-to-make-podcasting-debut-with-peta-credlin/
Has anyone mentioned the fact that the Morrison government paid Miller $650k compensation for the wrongdoing of Liberal minister Tudge in response to the conspiracy theories revolving around the payment made to Higgins in compensation for the allegedly more serious wrongdoing of a Liberal staffer in the office of a Liberal minister?
ReplyDeleteWere you expecting anybody to ? Bit hard to flip that one, perhaps ?
DeleteGood point Anon at 9:58am. Perhaps Labor could do a Linda Reynolds and refer that compensation payment to the National Anti-Corruption Commission.
DeletePeter Jennings gives us the essence of reptilism: "Establishing the [Robodebt] royal commissin was a political act by the Albanese government..." So there we have it: projecting, flipping and politicising. Just three words to explain it all. Add in bothsidsing and we have the entire reptile behavioural repertoire covered.
ReplyDeleteThen there's this gem: "Labor will delight in flaying the opposition with the Robodebt report...". Well, it is a significant component of why the Opposition is in opposition, isn't it. And what will His Majesty's Loyal Australian Opposition learn from all of that ? I think Wilcox has covered it perfectly.
How delightful that Jennings chooses a quote from the original - but we can accept substitute - Polonius, to lead off his strange compendium.
DeletePerhaps he could have put in the actual quote -
‘Give they thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportione’d thought his act’
Why, the cultured Jennings might have given us a little more from ‘Hamlet’ - from the Prince himself - appropriate to the Robodebt event -
‘For ’tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard:’
Otherwise, Jennings is dreary cycle of ‘yebbut’ and ‘whattabout’. He comes from Defence, where it is axiomatic that commitments to eye-watering amounts of money, with no upper limit, for new shiny things that the purchaser will have the benefit of helping with product development - is good. Departed Prime Ministers can be praised for cutting a swath(sic) through policy orthodoxies.
Against that, the almost imaginary ‘pink batts’ (they are never able to explain how hapless lads were electrocuted by pink batts; it is sufficient to offer the phrase, and set off the recognition circuit in the heads of reactionaries) can be disparaged as ‘policy adventurism’. A few thoughts there that were better disconnected from the Jennings tongue, or typing fingers, assuming he did not generate this column with speech recognition software.
I've been waiting for Jennings (well, anyone really) - to put this RoboScomo stuff to bed - but what a disappointment! He even concedes the game with:
Delete'... and political interference that went way too deep into the guts of public administration'.
Now who would be responsible for the political interference into (indeed, deep into the guts of) the PS?
What is needed is something bold - 'I did not have sex with that woman', 'no evidence ... that I knowingly or recklessly misled parliament', or at least, 'I do not recall'. Something to reset the conversation. Instead we get a second-rater, echoing the lines, “mistakes” were made by “individuals”, yet it seems everyone is to blame. If this is the best that News can do (acting on behalf of the bedraggled Coalition), then perhaps we can look forward to the future prosecutions, a sort of repeat of the Dominion drubbing of Faux Noise. Here's hoping. AG.
Actually Jennings stood on my toe this morning - words to the effect:
Delete'... But policy adventurism more often seems to deliver outcomes such as ... the Education Revolution's school halls ... '.
I recall Joe Hockey being asked in Parliament (when he was peddling Hockeynomics) to name those schools which did not deserve new school halls; drew a blank. I often used to drive past an expensive private school at the time, with a shiny new school hall and a sign acknowledging its federal funding, and what's worse, in Massachusetts, but obviously this was money well spent. Words fail me. AG.
Mea culpa, etc. I have done a muphry - questioning Jennings' 'swath', while missing my own misquote from 'Hamlet' - 'Give thy thoughts no tongue,' These things are sent to remind us that there can be a state called humility. Perhaps I can expiate by watching something on Sky, or even ADH, so others who come here will not have to.
DeleteOh I see that "Beautiful" Daisy Cousens is on ADH, Chad. That just about says everything doesn't it (well at least some of the bits missed by Flint and Jones et al)
DeleteWords fail you, AG ? You must have been educated in Australia then.
DeleteHowever, people do forget, or just won't remember, that school halls (and pink batts) were not the primary purpose of the money which was, in fact pushing money rapidly out into the GFC economy without allowing people to save rather than spend.
Some of us pensioners did get government cheques, but that was mainly because we probably needed the cash more than most and could be pretty much relied on to spend it quickly (which indeed I did).
And it worked so well that, IIRC, Australia did the world's second best job of fending off GFC 'recession' (the 'Great Recession') and was one of the very few places to avoid a recession.
But hey, can't expect reptiles and wingnuts to acknowledge that, can we.
Aw, GB - you would have been a hard priest of the only true church, handing out acts of contrition. OK - I will include Daisy in my 'YouTube' scanning, in the hope of finding her delivering something that is interesting, or even entertaining, to share here.
DeleteAh, Wilcox! That image of Peter the Potato "Bullshit" Dutton will endure....
ReplyDeleteLooks like the Kelly AI bot is either getting out of control or its processors are overheating: “one of their greatest acts of betrayal”, “one of Australia’s greatest social and economic reform debacles across the past generation” and “the scale of the atrocity”.
ReplyDeleteWhat’s “a consensus of sorts”? Perhaps that means a consensus that isn’t a consensus.
When the Kelly bot claims that what Clare says will mean “more knowledge-based explicit instruction by teachers” it’s just the bot’s code for “Conservative viewpoints and don’t teach them to think for themselves”. The Bot then quotes the expert Tudge, who said that universities are responsible “in terms of the people they accept into teacher training courses” but this Bot code can be translated: “we don’t want no lefties teaching our kids”.
Particularly noteworthy is the Bot’s use of Henderson’s suggestion that universities which “aren’t prepared to meet the grade on the teaching degrees they offer...should not continue to be funded or permitted to offer teaching courses.” Ron de Santis would be proud. So who will offer them? Perhaps only the Australian Catholic University? Or perhaps we could contract teaching degrees to some private Liberal donor?
Next up from Kelly certainly will not be an article on how the Murdoch media and Conservative-thinking politicians have held back Australian society and education for decades and “have ignored the national interest for too long”.
Ok, just taking on board what Neddy said: "What the economists missed [about how education increases human capital development leading to greater productivity] was this truth was valid only with proper teaching methods in the classroom - and those methods were missing...". Right, so what Neddles is saying is that we just don't have any properly trained capable teachers and that hence our kids just can't compete in the international education tests - eg OECD PISA - and thus Australia is failing at productivity, falling further and further behind with every school year that the kids complete. And somehow this gets a bit worse every year so that by now the kids can't read or add 1+1.
ReplyDeleteThen he gives us: "The Productivity Commission put out a report in January where they assessed the current National School Reform Agreement. They were blistering in their criticism." Does anybody actually believe a word the Prod. Comm. says about anything ? Are the Comms experts in education of the young ? It'd be like believing the Reserve Bank talking about interest rates.
But hey, what about this from Clare: "...ensuring student teachers understand 'how children learn, how the brain works, how they retain information'." Yeah, right, all that and "ensuring 'they get taught the practices that actually work'." And just who, having learned that to a high degree would want to waste that learning on a stressful, overworked, underpaid job such as teaching ? Besides would Clare like to certify, with appropriate factual evidence, that this was the way he was taught ? He was born in 1972 so he was taught from about 1976 to 1989 and were teachers all that good back then ? I was taught from 1947 to 1960 and most of them back then weren't all that much value (though fortunately some were pretty damn good). So how did we get educated ?
And Neddy is still ranbling on about the wonders of 'Phonics' for teaching reading. Yes it works, I amongst many was taught that way, but it isn't the only way. Have a read of this:
https://www.readandspell.com/methods-for-teaching-reading#
and then tell me how Chinese kids were taught to read an ideographic, non alphabetic, language such as Chinese. Hint: maybe Pinyin helps, but not for very long.
Anyway, moving along to Jennifer Buckingham: "We had about 50,000 students Australia-wide in 2019 who started secondary school with bare minimum reading skills if any at all. That's been going on year after year." Has it really ? Then in all those education tests like LAPLAN etc, clearly these kids are kept away from the tests so we only show slow decline. Besides, 50,000 "year after year"? Over the 12 years of schooling that would come to 600,000 overall.
But things must really have gone very bad over the Christmas holidays between 2018 and 2019. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare "In 2018, most Year 5 students achieved at or above the minimum standards for reading (95%) and numeracy (96%)". So taking that, Buckingham's 50,000 must be the 5% who didn't achieve adequate or better reading skills which would indicate that 20 times 50,000 = 1,000,000 kids went from year 5 in 2018 to year 6 in 2019 with "bare mimimum reading skills if any at all". Now since we have about 4.04 million kids in the entire 12 years of schooling, that sounds more than just a little unlikely.
But reptiles never quote their sources, do they.
Here’s a thought
Deletehttps://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2022/03/22/when_public_school_teachers_are_paid_more_students_perform_better_822893.html
"Crucially, for an analysis of this size and scope, they wanted to ensure that their comparisons were apt." Good to see that some understand that correlation is not causation, but with a measured effect that small when averaged, it's hard to determine just what causes and effects might be in play.
DeleteAs it happens, Mrs Bef and most of the outlaws are secondary teachers by training (I did some of the training bit but deduced early on that the kids would devour me, so did other things). They don’t much engage in discussion of teaching methods but they are scathing of political interference in departmental policy.
ReplyDeleteTeaching is one of those things everyone thinks they would be a whiz at, like coaching a sports team or motor racing. A bit of experience in any of those endeavours brings you down to earth. Of all the people you might listen to, the grey old fossils at the lizard Oz would be the last.
Based purely on my own personal experience, Bef, I tend to think it all depends on the personality and appeal of the teacher. Though I do remember an instance of 'teaching skills' with my 6th grade (as we called it then, Year 6 now) teacher who had this thing where, when taking notes in our workbooks, we had to start each new section, topic or part with a banner heading. The banner was then 'background coloured' in red, blue and white. Our workbooks were always collected by the teacher who evaluated our note-taking skills, and once you reached a certain level of achievement you were allowed to choose either the 'r-b-w' basic or from two other colour sets (green, blue and yellow being one).
DeleteBut here's the clincher: if you achieved really good marks for your workbook, you were allowed a completely free choice of your three banner colours. Oh amazing.
You have no idea how much that motivated a lot of us to 'work harder' and improve our results. But then I guess we were all only 11 year olds and hadn't yet grasped one of the important 'rules of life': if you want more out of me, you have to put more into me.
So far as I am aware, Ned has spent pretty much all his adult life as a journalist, and over 50 years has focussed on covering Federal politics - which, frankly requires no particular expertise.
ReplyDeleteSo what makes him an expert in education?
Stupid question, I know - being a senior Reptile makes one an instant expert on everything.
Off on another of my tangents, this one directed at the kerfuffle over eliminating cage production of eggs about ten years sooner, and how that is carried by Sky.
ReplyDeleteMy local federal member, and this week’s leader of the Nationals, one Littleproud, has been interviewed a couple of times this day. He has set out what, presumably, is the Nat position (it is hardly a policy) that bringing the phase out time back from 22 years to 13 is unfair to farmers, and will see the price of a dozen eggs go to unimaginable amounts, such that eggs would disappear from Australian meals. As ever, our claimants to be sources of ‘news’ relevant to Australians accept this kind of economic prophecy without question - what did Barnaby say a lamb roast would cost us by now, because of those crazy emissions reductions?
Anyway, the rest of Littleproud’s rambling included that pointing all egg production towards free range went completely against the ‘science’, why, he has been to an egg farm, on his own electorate, and the chooks do not want to go outside - they are frightened of predators. (I guess he speaks fluent chook to know that.). Living as I do in his electorate, I regularly see hundreds of chooks free-ranging, well out in the open. He also completely disregards the extensive science of how the current design of laying cages stresses the birds by denying them even material to make a nest, which otherwise is deeply instilled in their ‘normal’ behaviour, to say nothing of space just to spread their wings.
But his concluding comment was the winner - the whole idea was ‘un Australian’.
I consulted the annual report of the body representing egg producers in this country - it has the catchy title of ‘Australian Eggs’, and offers market figures for 2022. In that year - free range eggs accounted for 61.2% of the market through major retailers, barn-laid added 10.4%, and ‘specialty’ eggs 4.1%. Cage eggs accounted for just less than a quarter of the market, at 24.3%.
Those values do not include sales at ‘farmers’ markets’ and the like, but we could accept that, overall, that is not going to favour eggs from cage facilities, which operate on long contracts with the major supermarkets.
Of course, there was no sign that the ‘presenters’ on Sky had taken the couple of minutes to go to that easily accessible source on the internet - nope, eggs are going off the table, the leader of the Nats said so.
I guess, in Nat world - 75% of the grocery-buying public is ‘un Australian’. He really is a sad little man, but acceptable to an even sadder ‘news’ channel.
Oh dear, no more Aussie chook eggs. I guess we'll have to do what we always do to avoid moral dilemmas, and import our eggs from places where the locals simply can't afford to buy or build big chook cage setups.
DeleteOne more attempt by John Quiggin to explain the bleedin' bloody obvious to the blindly devious:
ReplyDeleteDutton wants Australia to join the “nuclear renaissance” – but this dream has failed before
https://theconversation.com/dutton-wants-australia-to-join-the-nuclear-renaissance-but-this-dream-has-failed-before-209584
Can't win 'em all, I guess:
ReplyDeleteAustralian trial of seaweed cow feed fails to achieve hoped-for methane cuts
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/13/seaweed-cow-feed-trial-fails-methane-reduction-australia
Only a 28% reduction; not worth the bother, really.