How the Left hate the Brethren

What the report below omits to say is that the Federal government has part-funded church schools since the days of Bob Menzies. Church schools of all denominations ALWAYS get private as well as government funding. So many parents send their kids to private schools in Australia that they represent a significant voting bloc that no government can ignore -- as Mark Latham found out to his cost. So the report below is not news at all.

The furore is just another Leftist attack on a very conservative group. Although it is doubtful that anybody takes much notice of them, the leaders of the mainstream churches almost always come out in support of the Labor party at election time. The Brethren are a rare group that actually funds advertisements supporting the conservatives. And hell hath no fury like a Leftist scorned

A RELIGIOUS school run by the secretive Exclusive Brethren religion was granted more than $9 million in government funding despite getting $15 million from "other private sources", the MySchool 2.0 website reveals.

The government handout was based on it being rated one of the most disadvantaged schools in the nation, equivalent to an impoverished Aboriginal mission school. Yet despite its government classification as a "category 12" school, with private funding it is able to spend more than $20,000 a year on each student. The average for a state school is about $10,000 per student.

It runs MET (Meadowbank Education Trust) School, based at Oatlands near West Ryde, but is, in fact, 18 schools spread throughout the state as far as Albury and Condobolin.

"This is a complete, total abuse of the funding system," NSW Greens MP John Kaye said. "It's very hard to argue that these schools are impoverished when they're getting $15 million from private sources."

Australian Education Union federal president Angelo Gavrielatos said the school's arrangements highlighted the flaws in the federal funding system. "Like all private schools, this school is funded regardless of its income or wealth," Mr Gavrielatos said. "As a result it has almost double the average income per student of a public school."

The school, which had no input over its rating, failed to return calls over the funding issue yesterday.

SOURCE





Poll backlash: Julia Gillard and Labor punished for carbon tax

Julia is as stupid and self-destructive as Kevvy

LABOR leaders today warned Government MPs they were in for a long, difficult fight on climate change policy, but that they could win. With Prime Minister Julia Gillard in Washington, senior ministers were mobilised to reassure MPs, and voters, that crushing opinion poll figures did not mean the battle over a carbon price was over.

"It is a debate we can win," said Acting Prime Minister Wayne Swan. "We have got to get the facts out there, and we've got to communicate with people about the fact that its the big polluters that will be paying here, the revenue raised from the big polluters will go to households and industry."

But there will be increasing jitters among Labor backbenchers after Newspoll reported today that the Government's primary vote had fallen to a record low of 30 per cent, and the dissatisfaction rating with Ms Gillard was now just over 50 per cent for the first time.

Sports Minister Mark Arbib said the Government was attempting the biggest economic reform of the past 20 to 30 years. "It's always, when you take on tough reforms like this, you're always going to cop it in the polls," he said on MTR radio in Melbourne. "I think the one thing that our party is doing, is we are just focussed on getting the job done. This is the right thing to do. It's something we believe in."

The Government also attempted to turn the focus on Opposition Leader Tony Abbott by branding him a "wrecker" who was fighting the carbon price scheme for pure political reasons.

Greens leader Bob Brown today will join in by attacking Mr Abbott for using a speech overnight in Adelaide to call proposed compensation for low income earners a "slush" fund.

Climate Change Minister Greg Combet today said the collapse in Labor's opinion poll figures showed Mr Abbott was good at fearmongering and rejected his claim that a carbon price would make it hard to drive a car or turn on the air-conditioning. "That is garbage, honestly," Mr Combet told ABC Radio. "This guy really is nothing but a mobile scare campaign."

Opposition frontbencher George Brandis returned to the issue of Ms Gillard's "broken promise". He said she was in office because she promised before the 2010 federal election not to introduce a carbon tax. "We think this is a very bad idea and most Australians agree with us," he told Sky News.

SOURCE





Australians crippled by tax burden

So Julia wants to add a new tax -- in the usual destructive Leftist way

THE number of Australians failing to lodge a tax return has blown out to about 4 million and small businesses have racked up a crippling $9.4 billion in Tax Office debts. In a grim picture revealing many families are doing it tough, about 700,000 taxpayers entered into special repayment plans with the Tax Office in 2009-10 - an increase of 32 per in four years.

And while big business posts record profits, the Tax Office expects 260,000 small business owners - many of them struggling corner-store operators - to default on these repayment deals. This represents an increase of 100,000 in just two years, reinforcing concerns of a "two-speed economy".

A Daily Telegraph investigation shows that small business, the so-called engine room of the economy, is saddled with a growing tax burden and many are struggling to meet their tax obligations on time.

The complexity of Australia's self-assessment tax system is also baffling. Many taxpayers are simply not lodging tax returns, triggering an unofficial "cash economy" that could run into tens of billions of dollars.

As many as one in four taxpayers could be failing to file a return, according to the Tax Office's own statistics. Documents show 4.3 million individual taxpayers have "not yet lodged" a tax return for 2008-09 - a staggering 26 per cent increase on 3.4 million in the previous year.

The Tax Office snapshot was taken in October 2010 and experts say that tens of billions of dollars could be "leaking" from government revenues because of the dramatic hike in non-lodgment.

About 13 million individual taxpayers lodge an annual return with the Tax Office. "Even if half of the taxpayers with outstanding returns each owed just a few thousand dollars ... the tax that could be leaking from government revenues could add up to tens of billions of dollars," said Yasser El-Ansary, tax counsel with the Institute of Chartered Accountants.

While the big banks and giant mining companies are enjoying record trading conditions, many of Australia's 2.3 million small and medium sized enterprises are facing much tougher times.

Reinforcing concerns of a "two speed economy", about 450,000 "micro" enterprises are expected to enter into special "payment arrangements" with the Tax Office in 2009-10.

SOURCE





Australian country towns that want better access to river water are racist?

Meredith does of course have a long record as a far-Leftist ratbag. She is the real bigot, of course, with her superior attitude towards country people

COUNTRY councils were slammed as "racist and awful" by a Sydney City councillor last night. The spray from councillor Meredith Burgmann came when the Local Government and Shires Association wanted support for its election policy platform that contains a list of demands, many regional-based, on the State Government after the March 26 election.

The demands included $20 million for weed management, slashing health boards in the state's west, and refusing to stop taking water from the Murray-Darling system.

Ms Burgmann refused to vote for the document because she disagreed with major policy points and also said that Sydney councillors did not know rural issues. "I am happy to support the themes, but ... I don't trust these local governments out in the west," she said. "They have been racist and awful for years and years."

Ms Burgmann went on to say that she disagreed with quarantining town water supplies from the application of sustainable water diversion limits. "I don't agree with that, I reckon country towns should be taught how to limit the water they are using rather take more out of the Murray-Darling river system, which is a vital river system," she said....

The document also calls for councils to lift rates, restrict alcohol sales and run their elections locally.

Councillor Marcelle Hoff said refusing to support the rural councils' election platform points was "insulting" to them. "It smacks of a superior attitude if we say that's no good, we'll only support your themes," she said.

SOURCE







Experts say dam mismanagement added to Queensland flood damage

The flood could have been entirely avoided with even the most basic foresight. Even the flood compartment was not kept available, let alone precautionary releases of water from lower down in the dam

EXPERTS hired by insurance companies have blamed Wivenhoe Dam for contributing to the devastating floods in Brisbane and Ipswich. A report written for the Insurance Australia Group, which owns NRMA and CGU, details how releases from Wivenhoe, combined with intense rainfall, flooded hundreds of homes and businesses.

The expert opinion, written by engineering giant WorleyParsons, potentially exposes the State Government to legal action for negligence.

However, the report fails to ascertain how much of the January 13 flood could be attributed to Wivenhoe because Government-owned dam operator SEQWater has refused to detail its water releases in the days prior. The secrecy surrounding the releases has left in limbo victims such as David Stark, who is attempting to write submissions to the flood inquiry.

Mr Stark, whose insurance claim has been rejected by NRMA based on the report, suspects the rapid inundation of his Fairfield home was partly caused by huge volumes of water released by dam operators, in concert with the massive rainfall in other catchments. "Obviously Wivenhoe contributed, but how much I am not able to be ascertain," he said.

The report by WorleyParsons, which is also a member of the insurance industry's "panel of independent experts" assessing the flood's cause, said its results were based on the information available. "The elevated levels that were observed in the lower Brisbane River were primarily a response to the intense rainfall that occurred in the upper catchment areas to the west, including heavy rainfall in the headwaters of the Lockyer and Bremer rivers, combined with releases from Wivenhoe Dam," it said.

The report said Ipswich properties near the lower reaches of the Bremer River would have been affected from "backwater flooding from the Brisbane River".

The report detailed how the Brisbane city gauge peaked at 4.5m at 2am on January 13, 30 hours after Wivenhoe operators reportedly released water at a rate of 9000 cubic metres per second to prevent the dam overtopping. Water discharged from Wivenhoe usually takes about 36 hours to reach this gauge.

Mr Stark said he planned to claim $200,000 in damages because it was obvious the operators should have lowered the dam levels in anticipation of the wet season.

SOURCE