Month: October 2009

Are we headed for a big jump in uni unmet demand?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 6 Comments

On Monday, the AFR reported that several state university admissions centres were reporting big increases in applications for next year: 12% up in WA, 11% up in Queensland, 7% in Tasmania. There were smaller increases of 2% in NSW/ACT and 4% in SA. Victoria is yet to report numbers. Possibly a weak labour market for young adults is making education more attractive.

Due to new rules for Youth Allowance eligibility from next January, more people offered a university place are likely to seek university admission in 2010 rather than defer. More students will be able to get YA via the parental income test and not need to take a gap year to get ‘independence’ from their parents, and it will be harder (though not impossible) for students from upper-income families to take an ‘independence’ gap year and then go on welfare.

So demand for places in 2010 is, on the evidence of the early applications data, and on the theory of lower deferments, likely to be well up on 2009.

Will there be places for these additional university hopefuls, or will many of them end up in the ‘unmet demand’ statistics? Continue reading “Are we headed for a big jump in uni unmet demand?” →

Educational Standards Institute

~ Andrew Norton ~ 2 Comments

In the Des Moore model of one-man think-tanks, Kevin Donnelly has established the Educational Standards Insitute.

I’ve had my disagreements with Kevin in the past, since the conservative ‘standards’ approach easily turns into top-down bureaucratic control of schools. The Coalition-backed national curriculum is an example of how this line of thinking ends in what is likely to be a policy disaster in the long term.

Still, Kevin has had many sensible things to say about the unhappy results of ‘progressive’ education, and I wish this new think-tank well.

The cooling of climate change

~ Andrew Norton ~ 63 Comments

As the media have been reporting today, the annual Lowy Institute public opinion survey shows that whatever is happening to the planet, climate change as an issue is cooling.

There were signs of this in an August Morgan poll, but its finding that the proportion of respondents believing that climate concerns were exaggerated had doubled since 2006 was ambiguous. As I suggested at the time, this could be a reaction to the relentless and seemingly hyperbolic predictions of doom over that time, rather than showing any real gains by the sceptics.

One of the Lowy questions does however suggest that the sceptics, while still being a small minority, are gaining ground. The proportion of respondents agreeing with the proposition that until we are sure climate change is a problem we should not take costly actions has nearly doubled, from 7% to 13%.

Despite passionate debates about climate science among activists (please don’t re-run them in comments), this isn’t the main political issue. Rather, that is how much pain the electorate is prepared to suffer to solve a problem that an overwhelming majority (76% in the latest Lowy survey) say is real. Continue reading “The cooling of climate change” →

Policy survey

~ Andrew Norton ~ 31 Comments

As regular readers know, wearing one of my hats I edit Policy, the quarterly journal of the Centre for Independent Studies.

If you read Policy – even if only occasionally or online – I’d like to hear your views on it via a short survey on the Policy website.

Also online from the Spring issue is Henry Ergas on government as a risk manager, Eric Crampton on public health and the new paternalism, and me on what economic liberals believe (using the political identity survey results many blog readers contributed to, but combining classical liberals, libertarians, and social conservatives and economic liberals into one ‘economic liberal’ group).

Will a human rights charter be popular?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 13 Comments

The public opinion research accompanying the report of the National Human Rights Consultation suggests that those proposing a charter of rights have a tough task ahead.

These days, only bastards and people who know a little political philosophy are likely to question the whole idea of ‘human rights’ (‘nonsense upon stilts’, as the utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham memorably called them). So on questions about parliament paying attention to human rights or increased education on human rights only one or two percent of respondents express opposition.

But only 7% of respondents disagreed with the proposition that human rights are adequately protected (with a large 29% not expressing a view).

Worse for the main advocates of putting general human rights into legislation or the Constitution, the public isn’t in general very sympathetic on some of the issues that are driving the human rights push in the first place. Continue reading “Will a human rights charter be popular?” →

Politics & partners

~ Andrew Norton ~ 10 Comments

I’ve argued that political philosophies differ in what role they see emotions playing in public life. While I suspect these differences spill over from (or into?) private life emotional styles to some extent, overall I would expect more emotional overlap in private than public.

While it’s not direct evidence, I thought a recent survey by Essential Research on qualities people seek in a partner by political affiliation was interesting. Out of 13 possible qualities respondents were asked to select the three they saw as most important (table under the fold).

With differences in order and rating, the Coalition, Labor and Green supporters all seek the same top five qualities: honesty and integrity, kind and considerate, sense of humour, similar interests, and caring friend.

The most surprising difference between them is that Greens (66%) are much less likely than Coalition (81%) or Labor (79%) supporters to put ‘honesty and integrity’ in their top three. The most sanctimonious group in public life is the most forgiving of moral failure in private life. Or perhaps Green supporters are just on average younger, and less likely to have felt the sting of romantic betrayal.
Continue reading “Politics & partners” →

What do We Believe? The George Brandis version

~ Andrew Norton ~ 5 Comments

Many years ago George Brandis and I were part of a committee to re-write the Liberal Party’s ‘We Believe’ statement, first published in 1954. Despite trying to keep it to ‘broad church’ motherhood statements the committee found it difficult to win support for its efforts. But I thought Brandis’s contributions were really good, including some elegant drafting (I don’t think many of his words are in the version on the Party’s website, which reads like it was written by – sigh – a committee).

Without the deadening effects of writing and editing by committee, he wrote an excellent chapter on John Howard in last year’s book on the Liberal Party’s future.

And I expect he will again produce a very interesting analysis for this year’s Alfred Deakin Lecture (I am a member of the Alfred Deakin Lecture Trust).

His topic “We Believe: The Liberal Party and the Liberal Cause”.

Venue: JH Mitchell Theatre, Richard Berry Building, University of Melbourne (the maths building near the main Swanston St tram stop, map here)
Date: Thursday 22 October 2009.
Time: 6:30pm

Seeing racism where it isn’t

~ Andrew Norton ~ 27 Comments

Some people are just too anxious about race and racists. At The Stump, Sophie Black (Crikey‘s deputy editor) writes about last night’s Hey Hey It’s Saturday reunion Harry Connick Jr protest against a ‘Jackson Jive’ Red Faces sketch. Connick’s problem was that the performers had blacked-out faces, which has a cultural meaning in the US that it does not here. But Black sees more sinister potential:

Ray [Hadley] should ask Daryl [Somers] this question over lunch – do Channel 9 capitalise on this incredibly negative publicity by taking the Howard on Hanson approach? Don’t condone any racist undertones, but by all means, exploit the ignited base. Pit the PC snobs against the true blue battlers.

It’s the old assumption that racism is a big part of the Australian psyche, with any reaction to an issue with a racial or ethnic angle evidence for this nasty undercurrent in Australian society, one unscrupulous politicians and – it seems – TV entertainers are just waiting to exploit.

But in this case, if there hadn’t been a Red Faces judge from the old slave-holding, black-lynching American south it’s unlikely there would have been any ‘race’ controversy. Continue reading “Seeing racism where it isn’t” →

Social democratic consensus

~ Andrew Norton ~ 6 Comments

In my Quadrant Online piece on the left sensibility, I argued that the Australian left sensibility had accommodated contradictory ideas over time, including:

protection and free trade, nationalisation and privatisation, empire and republicanism, White Australia Policy and anti-discrimination law.

But I should also have noted that if my political identity survey is a guide, current-day social democrats show a high degree of policy consensus. In the latest issue of Policy, I have an article that collates the survey responses of the three varieties of economic liberal (classical liberal, libertarian, and social conservative and economic liberal) and compares their views with those of social democrats: Continue reading “Social democratic consensus” →

Liberalism and the emotions

~ Andrew Norton ~ 36 Comments

In response to my left sensibility post, Dave Bath suggested that

Are most self-identifying rightards best characterized by a lack of sensibility, if not sense? Could they be described as suffering some kind of social autism?

People with autism or Asperger’s typically have difficulty in reading and appropriately responding to other people’s emotions. I know of no evidence that this is particularly common among right-of-centre people (though Tyler Cowen has a sympathetic chapter on the issue in his latest book, prompted by a suggestion that he might have Asperger’s). But liberalism does, I think, have a more constrained and sceptical view than other political philosophies on the role of the emotions in public life. Continue reading “Liberalism and the emotions” →