Universities get tough on bad English

This is a sensible measure but how long will it be before we hear shrieks of "discrimination" and "racism"?

INTERNATIONAL students, Aborigines and newly arrived migrants face tougher English language requirements to get into Victorian universities after institutions complained they were not performing as well as local students. The Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre has allowed universities to raise the entrance scores required for students who have completed English as a second language instead of English in their final year of school.

Secondary school students who have been in an English-speaking country less than seven years, are here studying from another country or Aborigines whose first language is not English are entitled to study ESL, which was previously worth the same marks as English. But under the changes to start in 2009, ESL students will have to get five points higher than students studying English to meet university entrance requirements.

The move came as Swinburne University decided to test the English language skills of incoming international and domestic students. Those who perform badly will be required to undertake extra English classes as part of their undergraduate degree. The University of Melbourne, the Australian Maritime College, Monash, La Trobe and Deakin universities have indicated they will increase ESL scores for course selection, making it five points higher than the minimum score needed for English. But RMIT University, Victoria University and the University of Ballarat have decided against the increase for 2009 entry and Swinburne University is waiting for the results of its new English testing project before deciding whether to raise ESL scores.

Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre director Elaine Wenn told the HES VTAC did a review of VCE English and ESL scores after requests from universities. She said institutions had done their own research and discovered ESL students often could not compete with local students who had studied English. "They found that students entering university with ESL were not doing as well, some even had a higher rate of failure than the students who had the same study scores in English," Ms Wenn said.

She said the VTAC study compared five years worth of VCE English and ESL results with general aptitude tests taken by the students. The research found there was a difference in the way the English and ESL students performed on aptitude tests. "It was telling us that a higher score was required for ESL to get the same score in English," Ms Wenn said. "We are just trying to be fair," La Trobe University admissions and selection chairman Peter Stacey said. He said the aim was to establish equivalent standards.

Monash University demographer Bob Birrell backed the move, saying there was strong anecdotal evidence international students with poor English skills enrolled in Australian high schools as a way of getting into university.

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A few posers for Rudd's green team

By Barry Cohen -- a former Labor Party environment minister. Barry is a great guy (His book "The Yartz" is hilarious) but forgive his grammar. Why the subbies on "The Australian" let pass "who" for "whom" is a mystery, however. The "Wayne, Penny or Peter?" reference below is a mockery of the way Rudd does not seem to be able to find a single competent spokesperson on "Green" issues

Kevin Rudd's magnificent victory and the smooth transition to power have been impressive, with the enthusiastic response in Bali to Australia's decision to ratify Kyoto a triumph. It won't get any better than this. The problems will start with the hard decisions, particularly in the area of climate change.

In days of yore when you wanted to besmirch someone's good name, you called them a communist or a fascist. Nowadays, climate change sceptic will do. That's certainly the first lady's response whenever I question new scientific "research" predicting plague and pestilence will be visited on us by 2050. I doubt Rudd will be around then.

My scepticism is based not on the threat as such but on the waffly solutions proposed to stop global warming. Instead of chanting the mantra Kyoto and Bali, the environmentally committed might try abracadabra. It won't help, but it wouldn't hurt either. Sample the vagueness of Labor's pre-election promises.

* Restore Australia's international leadership.

* Develop a carbon market.

* Lead by example.

* Drive a clean renewable energy revolution.

* Invest in cleaner businesses.

* Prepare for future impacts on climate change.

Heady stuff, isn't it? Such verbiage is the politics of the warm inner glow. Feelgood phrases that are short on specifics. Fortunately, there's no shortage of money. The price tag for the Government ranges from $100 million to $500 million. No surprises there. There will be no personal pain as we all live happily ever after in a carbon-free environment.

It was too much to expect either party to be giving us, before the election, the bad news, but if Australia is serious about global warming, everyone will have to make sacrifices. It won't be cheap and it will sort out the sceptics from the true believers. Governments can subsidise the battlers but the rest of us will have to pay up and change our lifestyles. Sweeping generalisations about the changes the purists are demanding are fine until you examine what they want abolished. At climate change rallies, the signs proclaimed: "Clean coal is a dirty lie". That should go down well in coalmining towns.

Question to Wayne, Penny or Peter?

Oil is out not only because of its emissions but because it enables Middle East thugs to hold us in thrall. Hydro is the ultimate clean, green energy source, or was until they flooded Lake Pedder and threatened to do the same to the Franklin River. It is a five-letter word no longer used in polite society.

Wayne, Penny or Peter?

Which brings us to nuclear energy, which has no carbon emissions. Here Australia takes a very moral position. It's fine for everyone except Australia, because we can make billions out of selling uranium to customers who don't make bombs with it, just as Iran isn't. It makes me very proud to be a nuclear-free Australian.

Wayne, Penny or Peter?

Finally, there is wind and solar. Wind is exciting until you see the windmills. Bats and birds can't stop bumping into them. Apparently they can see trees but not windmills.

Wayne, Penny or Peter?

Solar is definitely a winner but as it presently provides about 1 per cent of the world's energy needs, it has a long way to go. Incidentally, it's disappointing so few solar enthusiasts have got around to installing solar themselves. Who'd believe it?

To its credit, the Labor Party is placing great store in its program to solarise every school and provide loans and rebates to encourage "energy-efficient insulation, solar power panels and solar hot water systems". It's a step in the right direction, if only a small one. We'll learn a lot more when the Garnaut report surfaces.

There is also Labor's proposal to "establish a $500 million green car innovation fund". Fine, but surely the time has come for a really serious attempt to wean us off the motor vehicle? Spending billions on roads and almost nothing on public transport raises questions about our priorities. In 1972 I convinced Gough Whitlam to include in his policy speech a commitment to build a national highway system. It's almost finished. Now we need a national urban transport system to reduce cars and make our cities livable.

What is extraordinary is that successive federal governments have encouraged the use of private cars by making car expenses tax deductible while denying it to public transport commuters. Having it the other way around would be environmentally responsible and socially equitable.

While on the subject of cars, when will government phase out gas-guzzlers by taxing them out of existence? Labor has promised to "make half of all commonwealth cars environmentally friendly by 2020". Why only half?

Wayne, Penny or Peter?

With all the rhetoric about climate change, few make the connection between increased population and increased carbon emissions. All political parties propose increased immigration, baby bonuses, preschool and child care. All noble objectives, if the aim is to expand our population. If that's what Australia wants, so be it; but let's not pretend that 10 million more people won't affect the environment. It's about time we had a serious debate about the size of our population. All these issues will be raised in parliament, but who will the questions be directed to? Guess who the Opposition will be targeting?

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Leftist judges go back a long way

A little more than 100 years ago a court ruling was delivered that gave us what became known as the basic wage. The Harvester Judgment, delivered by Justice Henry Bournes Higgins in the Arbitration Court, established the living wage to be paid to a man, his wife and three dependent children in order to keep a family in what he termed "frugal comfort"....

As a reading of the Harvester Judgment makes clear, Higgins was dismissive of what he termed the "higgling of the market". This even though, in the first decade after Federation, Australia was exporting on world markets. Also he did not understand the difference between the private and public sectors. He did not comprehend why a private business, which depended on selling goods and services, operated in a different way to state subsidised "public bodies which did not aim at profit".

The flaw in the living wage concept even became evident when, in the 1909 Broken Hill Mines Case, Higgins declared that it was better for an employer to go out of business than to pay employees less than the prevailing basic wage as determined by the taxpayer funded and tenured judges on the Arbitration Court. Strange as it may seem, this position still engenders support today. In Choice for Whom? (Catholic Social Justice Series, No 58), Tim Battin supports the view that "if employers could not pay, perhaps they had no business being in business". Battin's pamphlet, published last year, is endorsed by Bishop Christopher Saunders, the chairman of the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council.

The problems with the Harvester Judgment went beyond Higgins's refusal to consider the ability of employers to pay. He declined to acknowledge geographical differences - namely, that it was more expensive for a worker to bring up a family in, say, Sydney than, say, Geraldton. In addition, Higgins overlooked the fact that not all male labourers were married with children and that life was no more expensive for a single man than it was for a single woman.

The economic historian W.K. Hancock, in his book Australia, maintained that - due to the Harvester Judgment - in 1920 Australian businesses were being forced to support 450,000 non-existent wives and over 2 million non-existent children. Today it is fashionable, especially in academic circles, to praise - even toast - the living wage. However, Higgins's contemporaries were more realistic in their assessments - especially during the economic crisis of the 1930s. The basic wage was cut during the Great Depression and only partly restored when prosperity returned. Industrial tribunals began to focus on the capacity of industry to pay - a phenomenon Higgins simply refused to consider.

In time, governments accepted the responsibility of ensuring a social safety net. Initially child endowment payments were a principal means to this end. In more recent times the Hawke, Keating and Howard governments focused on generous payments and tax concessions to families with dependent children. As the Rudd Government scales back Work Choices and moves to implement Fair Work Australia, it is important to remember that good will, of the Higgins kind, does not necessarily result in good policy. A century after the Harvester Judgment, Higgins's legacy is all over bar the toasting.

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Kiwis are Australia's poor relations

(And they hate it. Rivalry with Australia is the main thing that pushes economic rationality there. Kiwis are otherwise very socialistically inclined -- like the Scots from whom many of them originated.)

A FORMER New Zealand prime minister [Muldoon] once joked the migration of his citizens to Australia increased the IQ of both countries. But a study shows the joke is on NZ. Australians are far more productive and earn much more than their Kiwi cousins.

This is intriguing, because both nations enjoyed the same level of income for most of the 20th century, according to a report by the Centre for Independent Studies. The study, Why is Australia So Much Richer than New Zealand?, was written by Phil Rennie, an analyst for the CIS NZ policy unit.

It revealed Australia's GDP was $41,760 a head compared with NZ's $31,668. A leading hand on a major construction site earned up to $73,000 in Australia compared with $48,000 in NZ, the study said. Senior Australian accountants fetched up to $183,000, at least $50,000 more than NZ counterparts.

Mr Rennie ruled out laziness as the reason for NZ falling behind. "Australians don't necessarily work harder than New Zealanders, but they do work more effectively,'' he said. "Every hour they do produces an extra 37 per cent of output.''

Australia was more productive because its companies had invested more money in machinery and technology than NZ. "Prosperity does not come by accident,'' Mr Rennie said. "Australia has a stronger political consensus around policies for growth, which contributes to investor confidence.''

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Kiwis head across the Tasman to Oz

ALMOST 41,000 New Zealanders packed their bags to live in Australia during the past 12 months in the biggest net exodus for 19 years. The figures from Statistics New Zealand showed a flood of people had left New Zealand. In total, 76,000 people permanently left New Zealand, with nearly 41,000 departing to live in Australia.

Dr Lockwood Smith, from the main opposition National Party, said the exodus to Australia was up 70 per cent since 2003. "Last month, the 75,000 permanent and long-term departures were the highest for a decade. One month on, and the record's been broken again," Dr Smith said.

The figures showed the net outflow to Australia was 27,200 in 2007, the highest level for a November year since 1988. New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark this morning said there was a "brain exchange" going on between Australia and New Zealand. "Some people go to Australia of course. There's also quite a disproportionate number of retired people going now because over the years as families and working age people have gone, their mum and dad tend to follow. That's life. "Coming back to NZ the other way we are getting people who are more skilled on average than those leaving NZ, and over time their families come with them as well," Ms Clark said.

In the past 12 months 6600 more people arrived in New Zealand than left, although the trend is falling, with a gain of 14,800 a year ago. About 4.2 million people live in New Zealand.

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