I found it very useful. Thanks for the knowledge. I am personally trying to follow the advice & try to be independent….

Dont answer! You also get a week at Noosa!

I seem to recall reading some time back (I think it was in the Canberra Times) that when water restrictions were eased in Canberra, the water utility (ACTEW-AGL) was allowed to increase its water prices. The reason for this was that the enforced water restrictions during the previous period had reduced consumnption of water and thereby reduced their revenue. The interaction of the water conservation and price regulation policies resulted in a very silly outcome. When water became LESS scarce in Canberra, the price of water INCREASED.

The second example involves farmers choices about what crops to grow in Australia. Admittedly, I don’t know very much about the nature of various crops, so I may be wrong here. But I have the impression that cotton and rice are very water intensive crops. If this is the case, it seems ludicrous that these crops are grown in Australia, where water is a relatively scarce resource.

Both of these problems could be overcome by a sensible pricing policy on water. If water was rationed at least in part by prices during times of relative scarcity, then the reduction in demand might not result in falling revenues for water utilities, reducing the need for compensatory price rises being allowed by the regulator when water becomes less scarce. Furthermore, sensible pricing of water would reduce the profitability of cotton and rice crops and, with a bit of luck, might even stop them from being planted in Australia altogether.

Students should be allowed to swipe a smart card that charges them if they attend a lecture and decide not to leave in the 1st 5 minutes.

This was the way in Adam Smith’s day at Scottish Unis. Professors only received payment if they could attract and retain students.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/02/male_arts_graduates_beware.html

The main reasons for abolishing quotas are to increase competition and to improve resource allocation. The desire to avoid competition is why you don’t hear much from unis on this issue, though they are so fed up with DEST bureaucracy that they probably are more open to change than in the past.

My CIS background does mean that some people won’t listen. But without it, you wouldn’t even hear about the problems of quotas.

These are interesting ideas. One question though - do you think working for the CIS is an impediment to them getting a fair hearing?

I’m sure there are plenty of parents who’d like to hear you would like to improve student opportunities along with outcomes, which is something we don’t hear much of from conservative think tanks (not that the Evatt foundation and their ilk are much better at concealing their partisan approaches to social and economic issues).

There are already some excellent, and many good, state schools (not co-incidentally often in the richer suburbs). I think it’s a failure of support by parents and governments, and a failure of management, that there are schools that don’t deliver what every child deserves.

Rajat asked why I had confidence in government to micro-manage education successfully. It’s because I’ve worked in parts of the public service which run really well, and in parts which are a disaster - and the difference is management, and resources. If the Education Department was properly resourced and managed I think it would overall do a better job than the market. It’s Ministers and Directors-General that are failing and need to be held accountable.

When I’m depressed I think maybe politics isn’t ever going to work - the interest groups, the media, the process by which people get pre-selected etc, but I’m not ready yet to ditch it for more of a market approach to ordering the most important aspects of our lives.

We in WA have perhaps seen more of Julie than the rest - my impression: smart, quick, very ambitious, not very deep. One can only wonder about Julie and Ross Lightfoot …..