Australian Politics
Wednesday, July 10, 2024
Despite growing need, psychology ‘almost impossible’ to study at university
This is a bit of a surprise. There are always a LOT of students studying psych at the undergrad level. You would think that would carry over to postgrad. It is however true that modern psychological therapy can be hard work. It is not just sitting and talking these days
University psychology course closures are leaving desperate students – and a nationwide backlog of patients – caught in a bottleneck, as aspiring new clinicians struggle to enter the industry.
Psychology has become the most in-demand postgraduate degree in NSW and the ACT, but 79 of the 187 courses offered nationally have stopped new intakes, the majority shutting all together.
The demand for clinical psychology appointments has steadily risen since the pandemic. The health burden represents a $10bn loss in productivity for employers, as part of the $220bn in losses cited by the Productivity Commission’s mental health inquiry report
Australian Psychological Society president Catriona Davis-McCabe said students were falling victim to an underfunded tertiary sector. “There are thousands of students who want to be psychologists and want to go on and do the training, and they’re being turned away,” Dr Davis-McCabe said.
“It’s a very, very expensive course to run because there are placements and there’s a high lecturer to student ratio.”
According to the APS, Australia meets only 35 per cent of its psychology workforce target.
“When we reduce the training to what we have now, there’s a massive shortage of psychologists,” Dr Davis-McCabe said.
“The government has looked at some really good initiatives, like introducing digital platforms and digital support for people. But that is not going to help people with complex mental health issues.”
In specialised areas of practise like forensic or community psychology, the university offerings are even more dire.
“We’re seeing those programs close one after another. Some of these postgraduate programs only have one left in the country, and we’re losing them,” she said. “It’s almost impossible to get in.”
According to the University Admissions Centre, psychology postgraduate courses topped the preferences in NSW and the ACT, taking five of the top 12 courses. This included the first and second most lucrative offerings.
Provisional psychologist and forensic psychology student Nita Roschanzamir was locked out of her masters and PhD in psychology despite securing dual scholarships for her research.
“I fell in love with psychology in high school, and with what makes people the way they are,” Ms Roschanzamir said.
The 27-year-old successfully enrolled in UNSW’s Bachelor of Psychology, before passing her honours with a 90 per cent assessment average.
When she applied for the Master’s and PhD combined program, she secured both the government Research Training Program scholarship and a Westpac Future Leaders scholarship.
“This was like $200,000 worth of scholarship money. That’s highly competitive to get,” she said. “But when I applied for UNSW, I didn’t get in, because that year, they were only taking six students out of about 800.
“I just had to keep trying year after year. I tried for three years.”
She now works in provisional psychology, a more restricted profession, and warns aspiring students of the slim prospects.
“It’s just become harder, and harder, and harder to get in,” she said. “I’ve spoken to so many people in the university sector … about this issue, and they’re all on the students’ side.
“They want to admit these students, and they feel like they’re making a decision between a rock and a hard place.”
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Backlash over proposed Tasmanian wind farm’s toll on eagles
Greenies are NOT onservationists. They are just a crazy Leftist religion bent on maximum disruption and destruction
Tasmania’s approval of a major wind farm, despite the proponent’s projections it could kill up to 81 endangered eagles, has prompted calls for federal intervention.
The proposed 300-megawatt St Patricks Plains wind farm – comprising 47 turbines 231m high in Tasmania’s Central Highlands – was on Monday approved by the state’s Environment Protection Authority.
However, opponents on Tuesday flagged a potential legal challenge and urged Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek to block the project, given the likely impact on the endangered Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle.
According to the EPA, proponent St Patricks Plains Wind Farm, owned by Korea Zinc, estimates the blades will kill on average two eagles a year, or 41 to 81 eagles across the farm’s 30-year lifespan, based on mitigation reducing 58.5 per cent of collisions.
The proponent argues its use of technology to halt turbines when eagles approach could further improve collision reduction to 85 per cent, and the total number of deaths to between 11 and 33.
However, eight eagles have been killed at the neighbouring Cattle Hill Wind Farm in the past four years, despite the use of the same IdentiFlight collision-avoidance technology.
“IdentiFlight represents an unreliable technology,” Victoria Onslow, of the local No Turbines Action Group, told The Australian.
St Patricks Plains project spokeswoman Donna Bolton said “learnings” from Cattle Hill had improved IdentiFlight’s effectiveness, and these would help keep eagle mortalities at her wind farm to “the lower end” of the modelling.
The EPA imposed a $100,000 “offset” to be paid for each eagle fatality, but opponents questioned how many eagles would be found by monitoring, as well as the morality of the arrangement.
“The sacrificial slaughter of birds … is an unethical bounty monetising the environment,” Ms Onslow said. “Developers should instead avoid high-density eagle sites.”
It is a view shared by eagle experts, who have repeatedly called for wind farms to be built in lower-density eagle areas.
The EPA said the St Patricks Plains wind farm site had a “very high” presence of wedge-tailed eagles: about 40 birds, and 17 nests across the site or within 1km of its boundary.
It is estimated only 220 Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle breeding pairs remain, and there are fewer than 1000 birds overall.
Experts warn there is insufficient consideration for the cumulative impact of multiple wind farms and fear Tasmania’s “wind rush” poses a “major threat” to the species’ survival.
Ms Onslow said a third wind farm for her area – the 58-turbine Bashan Wind Farm – was only 10km away from the St Patricks Plains site.
Ms Bolton said the St Patricks proponent, also known as Ark Energy, had “worked hard to avoid and minimise potential impacts to eagles”, reducing the number of turbines from an original 67 to 47.
“The latest technology and proactive avoidance have been combined to achieve the least impact possible to eagles and other threatened species while still delivering the new renewable energy generation that Tasmania needs,” Ms Bolton said.
The EPA acknowledged cumulative impacts “may be significant” and a lack of certainty over “the number of mortalities that can be considered acceptable”.
“However, the measures and conditions proposed are considered precautionary and sufficient to minimise eagle deaths to a level unlikely to have a significant impact,” it said.
Collision with electricity infrastructure, poisoning and shooting, as well as habitat loss due to logging and land clearing, are blamed for the decline of wedge-tailed eagles.
Ms Plibersek declined to comment but her department said it was reviewing the EPA assessment report. Ms Plibersek is not bound by the state decision and must make her own decision under federal environmental law.
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Reason counts for nothing in Labor’s blitz on international students
Chinese students in particular are gold in many ways so Albanese has been doing a bit of foot-shooting in this matter
If reason counted for anything the Albanese government would pull the political blinkers from its eyes, take a look at the dire economic and educational consequences of its mission to decimate Australia’s international student industry, and rapidly reverse course.
But reason counts for nothing because, instead of examining the issue with a clear mind, it is tripling down, driven by a perceived political need to head off a Coalition attempt to paint Labor as weak on migration in the coming federal election campaign.
Last week came the third major intervention designed to scare away international students. The government raised the student visa application fee from $710 to $1600. The disincentive impact of this 125 per cent fee hike is magnified by the fact that the fee is non-refundable when a visa application is refused.
Since December the government has followed a policy of turning down a higher proportion of student visa applications under criteria that appear arbitrary, rather than using clear guidelines. So for students, the question of whether they are going to have a visa application refused, and lose their $1600 fee, increasingly looks like a lottery.
December’s move was part of the government’s first sally against the education export industry. Apart from upping the rate of visa refusals, the Home Affairs Department also slowed down student visa processing.
The next attack came in the May budget when the government announced it would cap the number of international students and decided to do it in the hardest way possible by applying a different limit to each institution and reserving for itself a power to limit numbers by location of campuses and by individual courses.
Education Minister Jason Clare will only wield this power if the government manages to pass legislation, which is currently before a Senate inquiry and must pass the Senate to be enacted.
At this point we need to remind ourselves of the size of the education export industry. International students spent $49bn in Australia in the year to March 2024.
They not only spend on tuition fees (where it directly supports education jobs) but also on accommodation, food, transport and other living expenses, which directly boosts the economy. The Business Council of Australia pointed out last week that international students were responsible for nearly a quarter of Australia’s economic growth in the year to the March quarter.
The only rational part of the government’s international student policy is the necessary crackdown on dodgy colleges and education agents, which used the return of students after Covid to exploit loopholes in the system to bring in non-genuine students seeking only to work in Australia.
But the rest of it is purely political, placing what Labor sees as an election imperative before responsible policy. It is having a devastating impact on universities. Institutions with high numbers of richer Chinese students, who are of lower visa risk, are relatively protected under the government’s new policies. But other universities are not. “Three-quarters of the sector is seriously underwater,” says RMIT vice-chancellor Alec Cameron.
He says the post-Covid return of international students was very uneven across universities. “Higher enrolment (of international students) is concentrated in a very small number of universities. Most universities are not back to their pre-Covid numbers,” Cameron says.
Much depends now on whether the government’s international student caps legislation passes the Senate.
Trying to apply different caps to different institutions is a cumbersome policy that is administratively nightmarish. As ANU higher education researcher Andrew Norton says in his blog, even the Home Affairs Department and the Australian Skills Quality Authority, which regulates vocational education, are pointing out the difficulties of implementing the caps in their submissions to the Senate inquiry.
It doesn’t look remotely possible to implement caps before the election, after which the political motive for them is lost. For this, and other reasons, the government has to change course.
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Woolworths to stock Aussie flags just months after Australia Day controversy
Woolworths will put Australian flags back on shelves, just months after the supermarket giant chose not to stock Australia Day merchandise.
Woolworths revealed it will make Aussie flags available to customers ahead of the Paris Olympics and Paralympics.
“With the 2024 Paris Olympic Games beginning later this month, and as a proud Australian retailer, we are pleased once again to be the official Fresh Food Partner of the Australian Olympic & Paralympic teams,” Woolworths said in a statement to staff.
“Given the Australian flag is the official flag of the Australian Olympic Committee and of our team competing in Paris, a locally made handheld Australian flag, made from long lasting materials such as timber and polyester, will also be available for customers to purchase across our Supermarkets and selected Metro stores.”
Woolworths went on to announce flags will now be regularly available for customers, with the supermarket deciding to bring the item in “all year round”.
“Once available in store the locally made handheld flag will be available to purchase all year round from the general merchandise section and also online,” the statement said.
“Locally made handheld Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags will be available for purchase later this year.”
The move comes six months after Woolworths dumped all Australia Day merchandise from stores across the nation, sparking outrage from customers.
In the statement sent to stores across the country, Woolworths said it acknowledges it “disappointed many” when it chose not to sell Australia Day merchandise in January.
“We have listened and accepted that, as a proud Australian retailer, that many in the community expected us to offer customers the choice of purchasing the nation’s flag when shopping with us,” the statement read.
At the time, a Woolworths Group spokesperson said a “gradual decline” in demand for the merchandise over the years and a “broader discussion” about the January 26 date and “what it means” to different parts of the community.
Woolworths has also revealed it will be releasing a limited edition range of “Green and Gold” bakery products as part of the store’s Olympics festivities.
The range will include yellow doughnuts with green sprinkles, green and gold cupcakes and a “smash cake”.
For every product purchase in the new bakery range, $1 will go towards supporting Paralympics Australia.
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Australia Appoints Jewish ‘Special Envoy’ to Combat Antisemitism Amid Israel-Hamas War
Jillian Segal is an exceptionally distinguished person but one would have thought that someone more neutral than a Jew would be a more effective mediator. Is this just a sop to the Jewish community? Sounds like it. They won't be deceived
The Albanese government has announced a special envoy to combat antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas war in the Middle East.
The appointment of Jillian Segal comes after months of pressure from the Opposition to do something about antisemitism in Australia.
Since the Israel-Hamas conflict ignited on Oct. 7, Jewish communities in Australia have faced antisemitic phrases at protests, including “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
The government highlighted that it is continuing to “press for a ceasefire” and has advocated for a two-state solution at the United Nations.
Given the conflict in the Middle East’s deeply affected communities nationwide, the federal government is touting Ms. Segal’s appointment to ensure Australians feel safe and included.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Immigration Minister Andrew Giles noted every Australian, regardless of their race or religion, should feel safe and at home in any community, free from prejudice or discrimination.
Mr. Albanese said there is no place for “violence or hatred” of any kind in Australia.
“Australians are deeply concerned about this conflict, and many are hurting. In times like this, Australians must come together, not be torn apart,” Mr. Albanese said.
“We have built our nation’s social cohesion together over generations, and this is why we all must work together to uphold, defend and preserve it.”
Mr. Albanese added that the appointment is critical to ease tensions in Australia amid the “devastating conflict” in the Middle East.
Albanese Pushes Back on Judicial Inquiry
In response to questions from reporters about the need for a judicial inquiry into antisemitism, Mr. Albanese said, “You don’t need an inquiry to know there has been a rise in antisemitism at some of the universities.”
“What we are doing is acting, appointing an envoy. We are very clearly aware of what has occurred.”
Ms. Segal’s background includes serving as former President of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) and as chair of the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce.
Current ECAJ President Daniel Aghion expressed strong support on an Australian envoy in response to an “unprecedented surge” of antisemitism since Oct. 7, 2023.
“These developments have threatened the safety and security not only of Australia’s Jewish community but also of Australia as a whole and its future as a peaceful, free, cohesive, and tolerant multicultural society,” he said.
“We have seen antisemitism rear its ugly head on Australian campuses, in schools, in the media and social media, in the arts and culture sector and other parts of society.”
He said a special envoy will provide the policies, legislative proposals, and programs to address antisemitism and counteract the harms and social divisions it causes.
“We are delighted that Jillian Segal AO has been appointed to this important position. She will bring deep knowledge of the issues and immense energy to the role, and we are confident that she will carry out her duties with integrity and distinction,” Mr. Aghion said.
Liberal Jewish MP Julian Leeser Calls for Investigation
Jewish Liberal Member for Berowra Julian Leeser said this appointment is the first thing the government has done in a concrete sense on antisemitism since the conflict began. He believes Ms. Segal should support his calls for the government to hold a judicial inquiry into antisemitism at Australian universities.
Mr. Leeser also urged Ms. Segal to launch and investigation into antisemitism at the Australian Human Rights Commission as well as in politics.
He said the “test for the government is whether they will take action following her advice on these matters.”
Ms. Segal said combating antisemitism in Australia has never been more important than it is today.
“Jewish Australians want to feel free to live their day-to-day lives, and also want to feel safe to practice and express their religion without fear. They also want to be able to contribute as they have previously to the vibrant multicultural society that we value in Australia,” she said.
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Also see my other blogs, (All Sunday to Thursday, incl.) Main ones below:
http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
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Evelyn Rae, a conservative Australian political commentator
Margo Robbie -- a beautiful australian
My son Joe at ANU
One of the happiest pictures ever -- Cleo Smith, aged 4
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