The Age | 16 November 2012 Who says politicians can't sing in unison? This week we have seen the full array of politicians - Green, Labor, Liberal and independent - lining up to dismantle the Catholic Church's institution of sealed confession. The idea that a priest could hear another priest's confession of child sex abuse, and fail to report it to the authorities is, says Attorney-General Nicola Roxon, ''really abhorrent''. New South Wales Premier Barry O'Farrell ''just can't fathom'' it. Independent Nick Xenophon brands it ''a mediaeval law that needs to change in the 21st century''. No freedom-of-religion argument can succeed against this. The secular liberalism that … [Read more...]
Skills glass half full?
16/11/2012 by
The Australian | 14 November 2012 Rampaging growth in diploma completions augers well for a key Council of Australian Governments target, and contradicts suggestions that different targets are working at cross-purposes. The recent report by the COAG Reform Council found Australia is on track to over-deliver on the target to double diploma completions by 2020, set by COAG four years ago. It found that over 66,000 Australians had completed diplomas and advanced diplomas in 2010, 12,000 more than the previous year and 18,000 more than in 2008. If the sharp growth continued, some 160,000 Australians a year could be completing diplomas by 2020 – about 50,000 over the … [Read more...]
550 years, $66m “lost” in R&D cash fight
16/11/2012 by
The Australian | 14 November 2012 A survey by Queensland University of Technology of 285 applicants for National Health and Medical Council (NHMRC) research funding reveals applicants spent an average 34 working days writing an application. The Australian suggests this adds up to an estimated cost in salaries of $66 million and a seemingly astonishing 550 work “years” in research time. The NHMRC received 3727 applications, of which only about 20% were funded. Another way of looking at it is that it takes about 7 weeks to prepare an “average” application and costs $17,700. Is this unreasonable, given that funded projects extend over a number of years, often at a cost of … [Read more...]
