Re: The totally off-topic thread
Just shared that little Gillard gouge with MrsLW. She is currently doing a bookkeeping course which cost $2K, thankfully she paid this FY but she was less than salutory with her comment. I wasn't much behind her in my assessment.
Bloody absurd that they are now cutting - they should have better structured all those free spending policies in the past.
Thankfully all this will die with her reign ending on 14 September
Wouldn't be surprised if the bookies have the Labour party losing the next election at 1:1 odds now or less. Maybe Labour knows they're screwed, so kind of like the previous UK government, they're just going hell for broke (pun intended) so that the next ruling party won't have much to do and will look rather silly.
Unfortunately, I don't see the new Coalition overlords quickly reversing any of the damage or improving investment in the tertiary sector anyway. Naturally, their excuse will mirror that of the microcosm in QLD - the last incompetent government has turned our treasury into that of Spain's, therefore we will need to cut some fat and just sit and wait for a while. Sorry folks. Sure, there will be a "new economic growth" guaranteed - probably a period of reckless and regulation-free economic divide-and-conquer in any effort to scratch up funds - mind you, didn't Campbell Newman guarantee a strong four pillar economy if he was put into power? Where is even a sliver of this promise (even if mining / resources is not the main one to be developed first)?
For someone working in university research, this has a profound effect on us. Not helping that the university, before this announcement, has already tightened its purse strings and pushed this pressure to the various faculties and institutes. We're supposed to have a meeting next Friday discussing the need to desperately revise the budget. I think they'll be definitely saying that more screw downs will be required in light of these cuts.
Main cuts will be in hiring new staff (both research and general), reduction of general staff (e.g. admin, payroll, marketing, legal - basically all the staff who aren't researchers, i.e. "bread winners", but hold the ship together) and reduction or removal of grants (both within the university as well as competitive, research-council based ones). I think there will be quite a bit of the proverbial smashing of piggy banks around the uni, as well as the VC starting to beg a lot of philanthropists and donors to the uni for more money.
I really wonder why the government thought they could cut the tertiary sector when they want to fund primary and secondary schooling (my assumption)? You screw one stage of the education process to feed another. Really? Yes I'm well aware university is
not the only pathway after secondary school (if even then),
yes I am aware that universities are now being encouraged (to various degrees) to seek industry funding (which some still believe is very much against research integrity principles).... And it's not the first time the tertiary sector has seen the short end of the stick (and it's not just this government that's done it to us).
would probably leave poor old Greece in it's wake.
