<< AUDIO CHALLENGE ~ MAIN ~ HEAD USED >>
DOWN WITH RICH QUEUE-JUMPERS
Former Midnight Oil drummer turned magazine whiner Rob Hirst complains about preferential treatment for stupid wealthy people:
We’re getting thicker. Our unis are filling up with dumb, rich kids whose daddies have paid to queue-jump them over the heads of their brighter, poorer peers.
Which more or less describes how millionaire former Midnight Oil singer Peter Garrett vaulted over longtime ALP members to become the Labor representative for Kingsford Smith.
I sympathize, since I am now represented in the House by a naked guitarist.
#1 exactly, he can’t tell the difference between full-fee and commonwealth-supported places… who’s dense now?
as you and others have probably noticed… this misapprehension that full-fee places are “taken” from commonwealth-funded places is a very convenient misapprehension that, remarkably enough, goes uncorrected by student unions and other nuisance groups.
Posted by benson swears a lot on 2007 02 05 at 12:17 PM • permalink“We’re smucky . . .”
Is that how you spell it? I thought it was “schmuck”? And can you use it as an adjective?
The guy reads like he’s lived the last 20 years in the bush, and the only TV he’s watched is Andy Rooney’s cranky chatter on 60 Minutes. Who’s doing the math, here? Tim Lambert? Listen up: Ex-Drummer ≠ Sagacious Columnist. Not necessarily, anyhow; and definitely not in this case.
To assume that poor people are smarter than well-off people is deeply, deeply stupid.
But hey, he’s rich, right? So I can see where he got his anecdotal evidence from.
Posted by Don't Bogart that Midget, Comrade! on 2007 02 05 at 01:01 PM • permalinkI wonder if John Edwards ever got his PS3. Course, I’ll only vote for a Wii man.
Posted by Brian O'Connell on 2007 02 05 at 02:55 PM • permalinkBecause that has never ever happened before in the history of universities anywhere…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 02 05 at 04:16 PM • permalink#5 There was no such assumption. There were two assumptions:
1. There exists some poor kids who are smarter than some rich kids.
2. University places numbers are fixed and every full fee paying student means one less non-full fee paying student.
The first one is a perfectly fine assumption. The second one is pretty damn stupid.
We’re smucky (smug and lucky) because most of us are still alive and well, having survived SIDS, SARS, AIDS and HECS.and polio, and measles, mumps, rubella, smallpox, chickenpox, tb, diptheria, cholera, malaria, snakebite, spider bite, all sorts of childhood accidents due courtesy of our superior vaccination programs and health system. We drink pricey bottled water in one of the few countries where you don’t have to, dine in fine restaurants and refuse to leave a tip.People choose to drink the water, and not all places charge for it. As for tipping? In my opinion, tipping is a mechanism used in some countries that ensures that minimum wages remain incredibly low, and has become enshrined as a right, not a genuine gratuity. We need to get over ourselves. Our so-called civilisation is a chimera, our institutions a hoax. Beneath our bespoke threads, we’re still The Great Unwashed. Rednecks with foccacias. The spawn of convicts, regiments and reffos, clinging by our high-gloss fingernails to the crumbling edge of an ancient, vast, barbaric island.
the problem with this is???As someone who has taken advantage of what this so-called civilisation offers, methinks you protest too much.
I mean, just look at us:(a) We’re getting thicker. Our unis are filling up with dumb, rich kids whose daddies have paid to queue-jump them over the heads of their brighter, poorer peers.
Thank those who have been dumbing down our education system, and ensuring that we have had a couple of generations of teachers that do not teach, as well as students who do not know how to learn.
(b) We’re getting bigger. As a nation, we’re starting to resemble American theme-park dwellers - people whose girth and gait suggest that, at any one time, they’re carting around at least five kilos of undigested red meat in their colons.
Evidence, please. And I’m not talking TodayTonight spots. In any case, it is the individual’s responsibility to maintain their physique, not yours to bleat on about it. Those more primitive cultures you are no doubt harking back to would be more likely to regard our larger physiques with respect and envy for our wealth.
(c) We’re getting crustier. The states’ highways are littered with gigantic billboards plugging over-50s gated communities, featuring unlikely older couples emerging from the surf, forever fit, tanned and laughing, or squinting myopically from a deck into the salty middle distance.
Hit with the stupid stick here. How on earth does advertising using older people as a demographic illustrate us as crusty? Perhaps using a few examples of idiotic litigation encouraged by an activist judiciary would serve better.
And don’t get me started about our wise and glorious leaders, or the outrageous liberties they take. Sydney’s mob is the worst: what the hell happened to my old town? A city where the premier can close the Harbour Bridge for an entire morning so that a Formula One racing car driver from Queanbeyan can make a bunch of ads.For an obscene fee, too, I’ll bet. I’m sure that if Midnight Oil had wanted to close the Bridge for a clip they would have been able to also. Most councils have fees in place for this sort ofthing.What about closing the Bridge down so a bunch of bleaters can walk across moaning about being sorry to the indigenous population? A city that forks out $300K to provide security for the world’s richest man, Steve Forbes, so he can hold a talkfest at the Opera House.[hahahah. And you wonder how he got rich? A city with a magazine - enigmatically entitled The Sydney Magazine - that uses more toxic, high-gloss lacquer on its front cover than there is in the collective quiffsthe word is coifs. Need I say more? Or am I being too pedantic? of every Elvis impersonator on Earth.And another thing. It’s hard to have any good old-fashioned fun any more. The litigious ogre of public liability has wrecked any chance of doing anything dangerous or spontaneous, or just for kicks. Better laugh loudly and drink deeply now, before they cut off another avenue of pleasure.again, all due to the doom and gloom merchants of the socialist left that you obviously support. Perhaps if people were encouraged to accept responsibility rather than handing it over to the State and expecting to be compensated for the silliest actions, there would be less of this litigation and more fun.
Sorry for the length, but this idiot makes me mad. I have never read such drivel from someone who has taken such advantage of what this Lucky Country has offered.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 02 05 at 04:49 PM • permalinkSing these songs of no denying.
Seems to me old rockers lying.Posted by curious george on 2007 02 05 at 05:03 PM • permalinkTim b,
IS wally angle sea (one of your readers a sceptic cult?_member)? pictures from woollongong?
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/view_profile.php?userid=214509
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/06/21/1023864503334.html
Wally, just let us know you’re a cult watcher please!
Ignoring the idiotic way it is expressed, I agree with the basic point though - I do find it outrageous that somebody can get into a course which they otherwise would not have qualified for purely on the basis that they can buy their way in.
Posted by attilathepun on 2007 02 05 at 05:40 PM • permalink“We’re getting thicker.”
Using the “Royal We”, is he?
Posted by Harry Bergeron on 2007 02 05 at 05:58 PM • permalinkOn the subject of buying an education (and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that, while it subsidises other places) Midnight Oil have an interesting history.
There appears to be something of a smoke-screen about the privileged background of band members.
It is reasonably well known that Peter Garrett attended this rat infested school in the deepest darkest recesses of Hornsby on Sydney’s north shore. Here you can enrol even the dumbest rich kid so long as you have a spare 14 grand.
What fascinates me is that this here history claims that Midnight Oil were formed at university.
However, thissy here claims they were formed at school. Many of the band’s biographies discuss them “coming together” in the vaguest of terms, which makes me suspect it may have been at one of these schools for dumb rich people that Hirst is talking about.
Anybody out there know?
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 02 05 at 06:18 PM • permalinkI just read the entire Hirst article.
It sounded autobiographical to me, especially this bit, We’re smucky (smug and lucky) because most of us are still alive and well, having survived SIDS, SARS, AIDS and HECS. We drink pricey bottled water in one of the few countries where you don’t have to, dine in fine restaurants and refuse to leave a tip. We need to get over ourselves. Our so-called civilisation is a chimera, our institutions a hoax. Beneath our bespoke threads, we’re still The Great Unwashed.Tip Rob: If you make up a corny tag like smuckymake sure it’s meaning is selfexplanatory.
One more thing Rob, the only song I like of the Oils is Wedding Cake Island. The lyrics are very moving.
#25 Atilla the Pun
I have said it before and I will say it again. Anyone can undertake tertiary study. What you must realise is that the OP system, etc, where students are graded on their score from high school is only a mechanism to stop too many people being able to enrol in popular courses. It is NOT to weed out the dumb ones.
Got that?
#33 - I consider it fundamentally wrong if two students have identical ENTER scores (or whatever they call it nowadays) below the minimum cut off for a course, but one can still get into the course if they can pay the full fees.
Posted by attilathepun on 2007 02 05 at 07:16 PM • permalink#s 16,19,32. Thanks, guys. My first real attempt at a fisking, but this article just shat me so much.
I can’t believe drivel like that gets printed.
Of course, a few more articles like that will drive the Bulletin’s circulation down below replacement level and save a few more trees.
Especially when in tandem with bloody Ameer Ali’s Ode To Australia.
Read that and then the comments.
I love this country.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 02 05 at 07:18 PM • permalinkOK Attilla, but I don’t think you are hearing me. The scores mean nothing. They are just a mechanism to reduce numbers in popular courses.
The other student can get into the course if he does one year of tertiary study and increases his score, he can then transfer over to the desired course.
For example, if this person wants to be a veterinary practitioner, he can do two semesters of Arts or whatever, preferably something that he enjoys and finds easy, increase his score, and then apply to get into the vet course. It happens all the time. The only decision that needs to be made is What should I study? Something cruisy to get a good GPA to get into the course which requires the higher GPA, or something that I can use later if I am unsuccessful in my attempt to increase my GPA enough to get in.Or take out a loan and buy my way into a course. Too easy.
Buying entry into a degree course at University does NOT displace any other students. And they can still knock you back because your score is too low because places are limited.
I am hearing you kae, i just don’t agree with you.
The scores do mean something. Yes, they are a mechanism for selecting people for popular courses - and selection should be based as much as possible on merit and academic ability, rather than ability to pay.
I did not say that the “poor” student (with identical marks) could never get into the desired course, I said that it is wrong that the “wealthy” could get in by paying whereas the “poor” student misses out. They may be able to get in later by doing a different course, but that is beside the point.
As for taking out a loan to also buy their way in being “too easy” - have you considered what the repayments would be on a loan of $15,000 P.A? Being a student can be hard enough without trying to service a $60,000 loan by your final year.
I think HECS is a great idea - I think allowing people to buy their way in is a terrible idea.
Posted by attilathepun on 2007 02 05 at 07:50 PM • permalinkAttilla
I don’t make the rules at the Uni, I just work there as a very small cog. Trust me, I have been TOLD that the OPS whatever are just to get rid of excess students on popular courses - not to get the smart ones (although that may be a side-benefit).
When I said too easy I was being facetious. Just borrow a shitload of money to go to uni, and spend the rest of your life paying off your degree. I’m not nearly as stupid as I look!
People critical of full-fee courses need to consider that the majority of full-fee paying students in Australian universities are from overseas. I’ve yet to hear an explanation of how local fee-payering students take away places, but overseas ones don’t. Or why foreigners should be allowed to buy a place, but not Australians.
I’m not one for stereotypes, but he is a drummer… and a fuckwit.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 02 05 at 08:27 PM • permalinkWhat a sour, pissy, mean little rant. Hirst has finally shattered my remaining two or three illusions about rock stars. I thought that at least drummers were the most happy-go-lucky members of bands; obviously not.
He should count his blessings instead of pissing and moaning. After all, he could have met his demise in a bizarre gardening accident.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 02 05 at 08:40 PM • permalinkOne of the few things making tertiary institutions marginally viable is the number of full-fee students- HECS doesn’t cover 1/3 or the cost of tuition, less if you factor in the bureaucracy required to collect and administer it. Most full-fee places are taken by foreign students as well, aiding the balance of trade. Personally I think all places should be full fee- how many Subverting the Dominant Paradigm- The Cruciality of Dissent in Modern Capitalist Phallocentric Oligarchy and Performance Art- A Nice Little Earner For Your Colossal Ego and Superficial Abilities courses would be being offered then.
Perhaps when the Attack Squirrel gains power, the Socialist Slaphead can take on Robbie as a special adviser; I’m sure the input of a ‘tard who’s spent his adult life whacking the flayed hides of dead hogs would be invaluable, especially in light of his astounding insight on this issue.
I must admit I agree with one of Histute’s points however:- We’re getting thicker…
Pantently obvious by the growing number of idiots who suck up every bit of propaganda spruiked on enviro-religion, the burgeoning ranks of embarrasing reality and cretinous game shows on TV, the fact that the likes of Bob Brown, Barnacle Joyce and the abovementioned Socialist slaphead can get elected (and the continuing re-election of state governments whose ranks appear to be filled by the residents of sheltered workshops, rehab centres, lunatic asylums and low security prisons), the fact that the likes of Terry Lane and Rob Hirst can not only be published but paid for their inane gibberish, and the existence of Australian rap.
QED I reckon- devolution, not evolution.
“The spawn of convicts, regiments and reffos…”
and bloody proud of it!
Didn’t we do well, for such low-grade scum?Posted by Crusader-Rabbit on 2007 02 05 at 10:19 PM • permalinkAttila/kae, you might also like to consider that students can apply to multiple universities - if you don’t get into U-Sydney, then you could try UNSW, UWS, Newcastle, or Wollongong.
My careers adviser told me I could do law at Sydney (UAI is 98+) or I could do law at Townsville (UAI was 69).
If the poorer student doesn’t get accepted to one campus, there’s nothing stopping him from going elsewhere.
#50 Ian Deans
Yes, another point which I didn’t cover. However, surely that shows that the score is not the be-all/end-all of getting into University - it’s just a mechanism to lower the number of applicants to popular courses.
I had a person one year who wanted to be a vet (she had already worked in a vet surgery for some time as an assistant). She said that she had seen the courses that a vet student had to study and said that it was ‘easy’. She didn’t understand that the score number was just to keep people from applying for popular degree courses.
Pull the other one, Tim. If the ALP’s Kingsford-Smith preselection had been chosen by the local party, you would be saying the member was a faceless party hack (in the unlikely event that you ever had reason to mention him or her). And rightly so.
Posted by Captain Wacky on 2007 02 05 at 11:04 PM • permalinkIf OZ is anything like the US, uni’s are run, with few exceptions, by people who cleave hard to the left side of the spectrum. So I find it hilarious when some lefty class warfare jackass criticizes them on the basis of their elitist or profit making policies. The divine Ms Pelosi has made “the rising cost of college education” one of her signature issues. Yet her solution never seems to be the same as it is for the “rising cost of oil”, which is try to impose taxes and price controls on oil companies. No, instead it is to artificially lower interest rates on college loans so that her pals in the universities continue to rake in exculpatory fees and we get stuck with the loan defaults when the women’s and black studies grads can’t make a living.
Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2007 02 05 at 11:29 PM • permalink#41 - I was going to mention that. Hirst is actually being nastily racist given that many (of not most) of the full-fee paying students with rich dads are from Malaysia, China, Singapore, Japan, India, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, &c.
In a couple of subjects for a post-grad degree I finished a couple of years back I was the only local present, and in general the proportion of locals never rose over 1/3.
Posted by walterplinge on 2007 02 06 at 03:37 AM • permalinkAttila
It probably helps if you don’t think of it in terms of merit/queue jumping but just think of it from the point of view of all services or products. Anyone willing to pay the price can attempt a tertiary education (attempt being the operative word) just as anyone willing to pay the price can go on an overseas trip or buy a car. With university education though, if you meet the academic criteria for a gven subject, you can access the HECs scheme which partially funds you as well as giving you easier repayment options.
It’s just a matter of which perspective you see it from. Tertiary education as some privilege or a service available with a variety of funding options. I would have thought in today’s world a flexible approach was sensible.
At a practical level, it would seem silly that overseas students could buy an Australian university education while Australians can’t, just as it seems silly to me to not allow full fee paying Australian students and so have them go off shore to someone who will provide it.
I might add that a limited number of public institution universities providing education to students who meet the criteria (which as Kae pointed out is based only on course demand - not some magic calculation of the merit of the course or likelihood of the person achieving the academic criteria passing the course) is outdated and stems from when universities were truly elitist institutions servicing a limited number of students most of whom came through private schools.
Relying on a university entry method from those times is anachronistic in an era which has a wide variety of education service providers and internet-based degrees which facilitates the delivering of educational services across national borders.
So how do we sleep while the beds are burning?. More importantly, what the fuck does that mean?.Put down your latte and fucking explain it to me, Hurst!.
Posted by Daniel San on 2007 02 06 at 10:27 AM • permalink
Page 1 of 1 pages
Members:
Login | Register
| Member List
Full-fee places are places provided on top of the ones people qualify for through their grades. Buying a full-fee place does not do anymore to keep a poor student out of uni than that student’s own grades did. What it does do is ensure that more students are educated at a lower cost per student to the public.