2 Comments

1. 

   Dear PM, John Howard,
   Please read the webpage written by your Minister for Education,
   Science and Training, Brendan Nelson…
   Insulting Education Policy
   http://www.dest.gov.au/Ministers/Media/Nelson/2003/09/n467220903.asp
   The content of this “Education” policy is considered very insulting to the
   intelligence of most University lecturers and academic staff… It has been
   common knowledge that University funding has hardly increased over
   the past decade in proportion to the growth of student enrolments. As a
   full time lecturer for the past 5.5 years, I can tell you from experience that
   most University staff members are overworked and being forced to teach
   more students than they can handle… eg. Last year, I taught over 180
   students per week for 3 subjects in one semester BY MYSELF without
   the aid of additional tutors. It’s even worse this year, where I am in
   charge of teaching over 220 students (and 50+ students in Malaysia)
   by myself… on average, the workload on University lecturers has more
   than DOUBLED in the past 10 years, and the words of your minister,
   Brendan Nelson, are nothing but a “slap in the face” to hard-working
   teachers and academics who wish to preserve their job security and
   keep their salaries.
   Basically, that new policy is “Union Busting” and aims to remove the
   “representative” voice of the majority of academics in an attempt to
   “improve efficiency”… (what an insult)… If you think ONE person teaching
   220 students per week (sometimes even working as late as midnight
   just to get assignments and exams prepared and marked on time)…
   is NOT efficient enough, then all you politicians are totally out of touch
   with reality and you just don’t know how hard it is to maintain high quality
   education levels on our current “shoestring” University budget.
   Deterioration of Quality of Education
   Even local TAFE colleges are closing down practical courses in metal
   work and fitting/turning (with industrial production machines), because
   they simply can’t afford to keep maintaining & upgrading their machinery
   due to the limited Government funding. Australia’s “value adding”
   productivity only contributes to about 8% of our GDP (earnings), which is
   the LOWEST performance for any of the OECD countries. It looks like
   Australian “value adding” manufacturing is going to die out.
   Why is it that government funding to Universities has not increased in the
   last 8 years, despite the fact that the number of student enrolments have
   more than doubled? This has created enormous pressure on teachers
   and lecturers, as most of them are now unable to provide sufficient
   help for struggling students let alone cope with the large numbers of
   assignments and exams they must take home and mark. Personally, I
   am solely responsible for teaching about 225 student engineers each
   week! Another Civil Engineering friend is single-handedly teaching
   approximately 320 students, yes, on his own! This forces him to allow
   all students to pass his subject, without any assessments or feedback
   on how they are performing during the semester. Would you trust one
   of his students to design a suspension bridge that you will have to drive
   your car over? (if he has not been examined and tested appropriately?)
   Would you trust your life to a mechanical engineer who designed the
   brakes of your car, if he hasn’t been tested and proven “fit” for the job
   of designing machines safely and reliably?
   Worsening Standards of Living in Australia
   At least Aussies can keep educating themselves on how to renovate
   their homes in 101+ ways, with the dozens of “home improvement”
   shows on TV… so that they can sell their homes for rip-off prices and
   the Reserve Bank can keep printing more money to back up over
   inflated Home Loans issued by Banks. The real-estate bubble
   can’t get any bigger, simply because there are not enough people with
   high-enough earnings to keep houses growing in value… Selling houses
   for double their value does NOTHING to improve the standard of living
   in Australia. In fact, over-valued house prices and more money being
   printed will lead to hyperinflation and a seriously depressed economy,
   like that of the US. The truth is, over the years, there has been a gradual
   decline and reduction in the availability and affordability of essential
   infrastructure and hospital/education services to ordinary tax-payers.
   There has also been a gradual reduction in manufacturing and value
   adding activity in this country.
   The Reason behind the Poverty
   Many big-shot corporate executives (and politicians) seem obsessed
   with getting as rich as possible and living lives of shameless luxury and
   excessive pleasure-seeking, at the cost of hard-working people who do
   not have much money to save due to the high costs of living in Australia.
   Like I have told you in previous Emails, Australia is following the
   disastrous course of “privatizing everything”, including all the tax-payer
   owned assets and utilities companies… The US has done that with most
   of it’s public infrasture already, and look at the complete mess the US is
   in today! So many power station failures (because many privately owned
   corporations are only concerned with making a quick buck and running
   away with a lot of money, without investing money into infrastructure
   upgrades/maintenance and repairs)… The Australian Government
   should get away from selling away all of its assets (just for a quick buck),
   because the new owners are only interested in profit (charging higher
   prices to get rich quick, and putting in as little money as possible into
   maintaining and/or improving their services). That’s why the US is in
   such a big mess. The Enron Energy company collapsed, because its
   director’s got too greedy. The same story goes for OneTel (here in
   Australia), and even Ansett (which got abused by its Air New Zealand
   owners). Whenever you have private owners involved, their main
   motive for being there is NOT to improve services or reduce the cost of
   such services, but to make a quick buck and abandon the company to
   retire early, fat and rich, in the Bahamas.
   Our government should NOT try to privatize (sell off) Universities and
   other publicly owned assets (like airports, council bus services and
   even Australia Post), because standards of service and value for money
   have always worsened, here, and in similar cases overseas. What
   next? Let’s sell off our High Schools, and maybe even the Police? Why
   not privatize the Police Force, so that whoever can pay them the most
   must be in the right, and Police can be paid to arrest anybody a rich man
   doesn’t like. You see where it is leading? All this cost cutting and
   privatization? It is simply destroying Australia’s standard of living and
   making things more expensive for ordinary people to afford. The average
   Australian spends upwards of 82% of his/her before-tax income on paying
   for essential “costs of living”, such as rent/mortgage, car maintenance and
   fuel (mainly used for going to/from work), and compulsory household bills
   (phone, power, water, sewage, council garbage collection, emergency fire
   and rescue levy), etc.
   Let me give you a quick reality check Mr Howard. The Australian Burueau of
   Statistics (ABS) reported last year that the AVERAGE Aussie taxpayer only
   earns $31,500 per year (gross) before tax. (Remember, 50% of people
   earn less than this)… Now let’s look at our cost of living with numbers:
   COSTS OF LIVING PER YEAR FOR AN AVERAGE AUSSIE
   $31,500 GROSS pay (before tax)
   now from this, subtract all the following MINIMUM expenses:
   – $5,800 (compulsory income tax)
   – $6,000 (food expenses, breakfast, lunch & dinner for ONE person)
   – $14,300 (mortgage on an average $200,000 house @ 6.1%pa )
   – $600 (home & contents insurance for a $200,000 property)
   – $1,000 (council rates)
   – $4,000 (general household bills: telephone, power, water, sewage)
   – $2,000 (car fuel to get to work – assuming only 1 car fully paid)
   – $400 (comprehensive car insurance)
   – $400 (car maintenance and repair – twice a year)
   – $424 (3rd party compulsory insurance & 1 year car registration)
   __________________
   – $3424 EARNINGS
   Yes, the AVERAGE Australian LOSES $3424 per year after their BASIC
   costs of living are deducted. This does NOT include other costs such
   as repayment for a car loan, entertainment, or even the occasional
   holiday. Even if such an AVERAGE Australian does NOT have a house
   mortgage to pay off, assuming an average weekly rent of $140 per week
   ($7280 per year) and no home insurance, that EARNINGS figure would
   only be $4196, or about $4200 per year in DISPOSABLE INCOME,
   which that person can save or invest to improve himself.
   Ok, if the BEST an Average AUSSIE can save is $4196 per year, then
   that amounts to a net daily profit of $4196 / 365 = $11.50 cents per day.
   That is barely enough to buy a McDonald’s or KFC snack for two…
   Oh, and I forgot to mention the $6.00 per month account keeping fees
   charged by banks, which amounts to about $72 wasted per year .
   Is it any wonder why Australians are so careful with their money and they
   don’t want to spend it? The very high cost of living in Australia is what is
   pressuring people to avoid raising children, because children are very
   expensive to support. When people don’t spend, businesses just close
   down and sack more people, or if they’re smart, they head off overseas.
   That’s where most of our best talent and brains are going… overseas…
   Look at all the famous Australian Hollywood actors/actresses, engineers,
   inventors, scientists and business people who have left this place.
   Is it any wonder why so many formerly Australian-owned businesses
   are selling out to overseas buyers? Aussie business owners are so
   tired of struggling (paying two-thirds of their earnings to the tax office)
   that they would rather sell off Australian control of their company, so they
   can get out of this country and retire. eg. Why do many of the big name
   tennis stars keep their money offshore? All the banks here seem to keep
   increasing their fees and charges, eating away at all our little savings…
   Why did the Treasury end up with a HUGE budget surplus of about
   $7 billion dollars? Did you also know that the Australian Government
   collected (in tax) money equivalent to 43% of Australia’s Gross Domestic
   Product? Where is all that money going? Why are politicians continually
   getting higher and higher pay rises? (many in excess of $200,000 per
   year – where ministers and senators have up to 14 to 20 times the
   DISPOSABLE income of the ordinary Average Aussie)… while Australia’s
   hospitals, educational institutions and road systems and not being
   maintained and upgraded?
   The worldwide problem of Globalisation
   Please read:
   http://www.larouchein2004.com/economics.htm
   and you will learn the truth about why the US is in the worst economic
   depression in history. Australia is following the same path at the US it
   seems… None of the leaders here seem to care about anything else
   except getting as filthy rich as possible, even if it means ripping off hard
   working taxpayers who do all the work in society. Watch out for
   March or April 2004… Larouche has predicted a major stockmarket
   crash in the US (the largest crash in history is soon to come), and
   most people are still in denial they they are living in a economic
   depression… (Larouche had successfully predicted the last 4 major
   stockmarket crashes in world history, and this time, he is certain the
   world monetary financial crisis is inevitable – banks and most of the
   world governments just cannot pay back their debts)
   A question of Incentive
   Why should the Government politicians have to care at all? They are
   all going to be multimillionairres when they retire ($1.5 million super
   payouts, at the taxpayer’s expense)… and if monopolistic energy and
   telecommunications company’s wish to charge an arm and a leg to
   rip us all off, then why should the Government come to the aid of the
   ordinary struggling tax-payer? Because the Government ends up
   collecting more money in tax from that privatized corporation that raised
   it’s prices unnecessarily… (eg. Why are Telstra monthly phone line
   rentals now around $25 per month, when they used to be only $13 per
   month a few years ago? Who else COMPETES with Telstra in providing
   phone line installation for houses? So clearly, Telstra is still a monopoly
   organization and faces no pressure to lower its prices)… so the truth is,
   the RICH WILL KEEP GETTING RICHER (from not doing extra work) and
   the vast majority of Aussies will keep GETTING POORER, feeling more
   financially hopeless as there is no more control over the ever increasing
   necessary costs of living… inflation is increasing at a MUCH faster rate
   than our DISPOSABLE INCOMES, and things are simply getting worse as
   the years go by… Why should the Government stop Banks from charging
   ever increasing fees (legalized theft) from our savings accounts, which
   is NOT done by many major banks overseas? Why? Because the ATO
   gets to collect MORE tax from such banks who rip off their customers,
   and more money is available for politicians to award themselves pay
   rises every month.
   Sky-rocketing house prices are also not justifiable… and pretty soon, it
   will be impossible for the average Aussie to afford a new home, let alone
   a deposit on a house, the way stamp duty and charges keep rising. Just
   look at the news stories lately. Most young Australians cannot afford to
   even move out of their parent’s home and buy their own house, let alone
   afford a wedding celebration. The costs of living have become too high
   for most people without a “white collar” stable job. The majority of the
   wage/salary earners in this country have been reduced to a “slave” class
   destined to spend the rest of their lives spending almost everything they
   earn and work hard for, on basic (essential) costs of living, while all the
   wealth and profit they generate goes to the coffers of a few rich business
   owners, banks and politicians. Australia is fast becoming an
   UNcommon-wealth nation, because most people do not have any
   savings, nor any potential for savings, under our current tax laws and
   over-pricing society.
   I grew up in Australia since the age of 2 (since 1974) and I have only seen
   our standard of living continue to get worse over the years. There are so
   many poor people now in this country, and I see many businesses
   selling out to overseas owners and abandoning this country to work
   overseas, where conditions and taxes are fair and reasonable. At least
   there, they feel like they can save some money for their retirement.
   The Solution
   Remember, the BEST that the average Australian can earn each year is:
   – $3424 (debt)…
   This is really a crying shame for such a resource-rich country with so
   much potential for productivity and economic growth.
   Get rid of unproductive jobs which do not involve PHYSICAL WORK or
   value adding. eg. too many politicians that are not doing anything useful,
   Bankers, Financers, Share-market speculators who trade nothing but
   paper (which keeps increasing in value)… Australia should follow the
   path of China’s economic progress by VALUE ADDING… forget following
   the Americans and the British… they don’t do much value adding anymore
   and they aim to maintain their control of the entire global financial world
   by manipulating currency values to their advantage, via the IMF/World
   Bank… in effect, adjusting the “value” of other currencies relative to theirs
   so they can exploit poorer countries and purchase products dirt cheap,
   at the expense of the hard work of people in developing countries who
   look up to the US and the UK for leadership. The “free trade” policies of
   the G7 (most developed) countries amounts to nothing more than
   legalized slavery and looting, taking advantage of people in poorer
   countries. Get rid of this unfair modern-day slavery system that enriches
   the laziest pleasure-seeking countries (the US, UK, Australia, and other
   Western-like nations). Return to the Gold-standard, where every
   currency is FIXED in value, relative to every other currency.
   For example, if I work 2 hours to buy a product that retails at AU$250
   here, a British person (with their higher UK pound currency) can come
   here and buy that product with only UK100 pounds, which would have
   cost him only less than 1 hour of hard work to earn, if he was doing the
   same job I am doing in the UK. In other words, why does the 1 hour of
   work by that UK person equal 2 hours of work for me? Are the British
   people just “better people” than Australians? Clearly, the much higher
   currency value of the pound gives the British a huge buying advantage.
   That’s how unfair the foreign exchange system is! And if I am going to
   the Philippines, why does my $1 equal around 20 of their peso (dollars)?
   Why does it cost me the equivalent of under 10c Australian to buy a can
   of Coke in Philippines? When I pay $1.40 for it here? Clearly, the world
   currency market was designed to allow the wealthier nations to exploit
   the hard work and efforts of people in the developing and poorer
   countries, so that people in the richer countries (with the higher currency
   values) don’t have to work as hard… That clearly goes against all
   principles of fairness and “equality” of all men.
   But watch carefully as the US economy sinks deeper and deeping into
   history’s worst depression… Australia is following closely behind, and
   we can expect more protests, strikes and social breakdown as people
   will find it harder to find work and pay off their essential costs of living.
   The super-rich bankers and financiers who control our monetary
   systems would rather say: “Screw the people, they must pay back their
   debts or let them die! So what if society stops functioning, as long as
   we get back our money with interest!” (Money earned from “interest”,
   which is not generated from value-adding, physical work… “interest”
   charges added to money that does not even belong to them, but which
   was printed by the country’s Reserve Bank)
   What Politicians must do…
   Lately, the organizations that protested against the Governments pay
   conditions & policies include: nurses, high school teachers, doctors,
   police and now, University lecturers! Don’t you think you had better give
   us Aussies a little breathing space so we can TRY to enjoy some
   rewards of our hard work, how little they may be? If you don’t, your
   government will quickly be voted out of office, I can guarantee you that.
   Your job, and the job of EVERY politician… is not to seek ways on how
   to shortchange taxpayers so you can all get increasing salaries, but to
   KEEP AUSTRALIANS HAPPY… and leave them with at least 50% of
   their income to SAVE as disposable income. Without any disposable
   income, people will only get deeper and deeper into debt, and become
   unable to support local businesses with regular spending activity.

   Comment by Dr Sam C — November 29, 2003 @ 2:47 am

2. 

   A very interesting and honest letter by an
   Expatriate Aussie living in Hong Kong…
   http://www.businessdaily.com.au/gottliebsen/message/letters080601.htm

   Comment by Dr Sam C — November 29, 2003 @ 3:13 am

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