Judith Ireland is a final year journalism student at the University of Sydney and is doing a stint with Webdiary.

 

Five years ago, a young, single woman had an epiphany in New York. And for once, it wasn�t Sex and the City�s Carrie Bradshaw.

Fresh from yet another New Year�s Eve without someone to pash at midnight, Sasha Cagen came to the conclusion that whilst she was almost always without a boyfriend, she wasn�t abnormal. She was just �quirkyalone.�

According to Cagen, quirkyalones are independent people who would prefer to wait for Mr or Ms Right than settle for someone ugly, stupid or just plain inferior.

Following Cagen�s epiphany and the essay she wrote about it, quirkyalone-ness has become something of a grassroots movement. Her book Quirkyalone: A Manifesto for Uncompromising Romantics was published in Australia in March.

Her web site, celebrating single life and love, has up to 5,000 �quirkyvisitors� a day. And on February 14, the second annual International Quirkyalone Day (IQD) was celebrated in over 40 cities around the world.

Thanks to Cagen, being single is no longer seen a failure; it�s something to be proud of. �Quirky� just might be the most liberating thing for relationships since the pill or Cosmopolitan magazine; doing for Bridget Jones what the term �metrosexual� did for straight men who like wearing pink shirts.

Eight years ago, Australia woke up from a wild night at the polls beside its very own Mr Right.

Whilst for some voters it was an arranged marriage and for others it was economic convenience after the �recession we had to have�, he was still ours. And we have stayed with him for three terms.

But as we head toward the altar of elections again, with the prospect of renewing our vows for a whopping fourth time (here�s looking at you, Menzies), it�s all beginning to feel a little bit Anita and Paul.

Mr Right is used to having things his own way. Until recently he has been able to ignore dissent within the community and side step his critics. Tampa, schmampa. We have still voted for him. After all, the man has given us tax cuts.

But all of a sudden, there�s another man on the political scene. The polls are looking shaky. And the unresolved issues are adding up.

John, we need to talk.

There are some serious problems with trust in this relationship. A GST was introduced after you promised it wouldn�t be. You deregulated university fees when you said it wouldn�t happen. Then it was children overboard, ethanol and weapons of mass destruction.

And you won�t say sorry.

Mr Right has always been good at talking his way out of trouble. In a recent opinion piece for theSydney Morning Herald, Labor�s Kevin Rudd noted Howard�s knack for “choosing words carefully to make sure there is a linguistic escape route”.

Just look at what Mr Right did to the Republic referendum question. Or the �deep and sincere regret� he expressed over the Stolen Generations.

But after eight years of playing verbal Houdini, Howard is running out of things to say. As Rudd said, “The political script is starting to look as threadbare as its author.”

In parliament when Mark Latham fired question after question asking for details on the gagging of Mick Keelty, Howard�s big tactic was to say nothing at all. And he used the same approach over Lance Collins� call for a Royal Commission into Australia�s intelligence agencies.

And when he�s coming up with comments like legislation banning same-sex marriage �is not directed at gay people�, maybe he is better off giving us the silent treatment.

But there is hope yet for our Mr Right. Not only is he free to wear pink shirts without sending the �wrong signal�, but as we move ever closer to the polls, using the budget surplus to re-elect himself can be quirky.

That makes the m�nage with Alan Jones and David Flint s little bit quirky. And the one with Blair and Bush very quirky indeed.

So what if Army intelligence simply has a few quirks? And yes, that�s right, they were just weapons of quirky destruction.

Or perhaps it�s time for Australia to stop settling. Granted, we don�t have the option of going without a Prime Minister until someone absolutely perfect comes along. But at the very least, we need to see other people.

Sorry John. It�s not me – it�s you.

***

Cagen�s essay

judith_ireland82@hotmail.com

Last November’s shake-up of higher education is set to make life even tougher for students and staff. Judith Ireland, a final year student in media and government at the University of Sydney, reports on what’s gone down in our universities in the eight years of Howard’s rule, and what is yet to come.

 

 

“We have no intention of deregulating university fees The Government will not be introducing an American-style higher education system. There will be no $100,000 university fees under this Government.” John Howard’s promise to Parliament in 1999.

Fees are on track to be deregulated by 25 per cent in 2005, after the four independent Senators passed John Howard’s higher education package last November. But some domestic undergraduate full fee paying students (DUFFS) are already paying more than $100,000 for their degrees, and fee increases would see Australian students paying more money as a percentage of their public education than students in the United States, the home of user pays higher education .

Since Howard’s election in 1996, $5 billion and 20,000 government-funded places have been cut from the higher education system. HECS fees have increased between 33 and 122 per cent. And next year at eleven universities, fees are due to rise as much as 168 per cent above 1996 levels.

In 1997, DUFFS places were introduced for up to 25 per cent of students. For those with the cash to pay up front, University Admission Index (UAI) cut-offs were lowered by five points. This has lead to unfavourable comparisons with the pre-Menzies era of university education, where only the very rich and the very smart were able to study. (See Destroying Menzies’ noble revolution.)

So far, the take up of DUFFS places has been relatively restrained, generating just $69 million in 2002. But next year the number of available DUFFS places will rise by 10 per cent if the Liberal Government is reelected, and a new HECS-like loans scheme called FEE-HELP will make it easy for students to acquire a debt of more than $50,000 before they leave their teens.

Since 1998, Austudy payments, for students over 25, have put recipients as much as 39 per cent below the poverty line. Austudy is the only Australian social welfare category that doesn’t include Rent Assistance. Youth Allowance payments for younger students are 20 per cent below the poverty line. In 1999, cutbacks to Abstudy saw a 15 per cent drop in Indigenous Australian enrolments for 2000.

Education Minister Brendan Nelson claims recent reforms are “finally placing students at the centre of the university experience” He has certainly tried to place them at the centre of university funding.

In 1987, 85 per cent of funding for higher education came from the federal government. By 2002, government funding had fallen to 44 per cent at a time when the scope of higher education and the demands placed upon it increased dramatically. Between 1985 and 1989 there was a 63 per cent increase in enrolments. Over the last decade more than 300,000 extra students have entered the system. The number of universities has also grown since Labor reforms in the late 1980s saw colleges of advanced education either amalgamated with old universities or re-opened as new ones.

But under a changed and stressed system, the Liberal attitude is that higher education is a privilege, and students shouldn’t complain about fee increases. Education minister Dr Brendan Nelson said last September: “A doctor leaving university with a $43,000 debt to the Australian taxpayer and lifetime medical earnings ahead, carries dreams many kids – brickies included, would love to share.”

However, the vast majority of students and staff are “not talking about a system where you don’t pay for your degree,” Sydney University Student Representative Council President Felix Eldridge said, but a funding system which does not deter poorer students from attending university.

“I don’t have a problem with people paying HECS, but it must be kept at a very low level such that it can be payed by almost everyone, ” Suzanne Jamieson, a senior lecturer in Industrial Relations and fellow of the Senate at Sydney University, said. “The large core funding must come from the federal government and what the students pay is what it’s called – a contribution. We are moving towards [students paying for] the cost of the education, and I think it’s absolutely wrong.”

In its present incarnation, the effectiveness of HECS is questionable at best. If Universities increase HECS fees by 25 per cent across all courses next year, it is estimated that the extra income will be absorbed by the system within three and a half years, leaving universities with no option but to ask the government to ask for more money. If they’re asking a Liberal Government, students can expect yet another rise in HECS fees.

HECS looks even more ineffective in the face of a national HECS debt now close to $10 million. Almost 20 per cent of HECS may never paid back because graduates aren’t earning enough to make the current $25,348 repayment threshold (to be raised to $35,000 in 2005).

Even Alan Jones sees the stupid side. Last October in a 2GB editorial, he asked: “Wouldn’t it be better to send them [students] for free in the first place? What is the point?”

After years of funding cuts which began under the Hawke Government in an increasingly profit driven environment, it’s easy to be believe that nothing can or should be done.

University administrators are between a sandstone rock and a hard place over HECS increases. It’s the only way to go to cope with less government funding and more students. The University of Sydney vice chancellor Gavin Brown is a self-confessed “unashamed advocate” of full deregulation, and Suzanne Jamieson notes that within university administrations there are some “fairly aggressive businessmen”.

“I often wonder to what extent things might have been different in the whole political debate if the universities had not acted as competitors with one another,” she says. ” If they had acted in a more cooperative sense than they did.”

In Facing the Music, the 2001 documentary about Sydney University’s music department, associate professor Winsome Evans said of the drastic funding cuts: “I think that too often we give in. We accept the status quo.”

Australian students pay some of the highest fees in the world for a quality of education even Nelson admits is poor by international standards. There is no Australian university in the world Top-100. In 1999, the only OECD countries with less public funding for higher education than Australia were Japan, Korea and Luxembourg.

Between 1990 and 2002, student to staff ratios rose from 14.2 per cent to 19 per cent. In my first year at university, students complained that tutorials were packed with 40 students. The department’s answer: it changed the name to ‘seminars’. Once upon a time, before HECS, a ‘tutorial’ meant eight students.

In the 1980s, an Arts degree had about 20 hours of face-to-face teaching per week. Today, most full time Arts students have ten to twelve hours a week.

In 1989, during a recession, the Hawke Government introduced a flat HECS fee of $1,800 that didn’t rise about levels of inflation until the Liberals got their hands on it in 1996. The ALP now pledges that a Labor Government would “immediately” legislate to reverse next year’s increase in HECS payments and abolish all full-fee paying places for undergraduates.

Under its Aim Higher package, Labor would pump an extra $2.34 billion into higher education, the University of New South Wales vice chancellor Kwong Lee Dow doubts that Labor could deliver. Still, it’s a step in the right direction.

The National Union of Students president, Jodie Jansen, insists an accessible, affordable and quality higher education need not be a pipe dream. “It’s a matter of our priorities and our values.”

Webdiary intern Judith Ireland is a fourth year media and government student at Sydney University. She plays the piano in a cafe and teaches music.

 

Chris Corrigan’s Patrick Stevedores corporation has been found guilty of three criminal breaches of occupational health and safety laws, seven years after he described wharfies’ rest breaks as a rort.

The New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission found on Friday that Patricks knowingly allowed workers to suffer soft tissue issues because of the postures heavy crane drivers in Port Botany were forced to adopt and the repetitive movements of their work.

In the aftermath of Corrigan’s 1998 victory in the waterfront dispute, 800 waterfront workers lost their jobs. Following a hastily devised new enterprise agreement, remaining straddle drivers were forced to work prolonged shifts using run down equipment, with breaks only for meals.

Justice Wayne Haylen found that Patricks implemented the new work system despite warnings from a medical expert that it was unsafe. Despite Patrick’s knowledge of the health dangers of bad seating and unsafe cabin conditions, it persisted with these work practices.

The Maritime Union of Australia’s Sydney Branch secretary, Robert Coombs, began proceedings against Patrick Stevedores four years ago, arguing that a high percentage of workers at Port Botany were experiencing serious back and neck injuries due to prolonged working hours without enough time to exercise, stretch and stand.

While finding that the potential risk of injury was “real rather than theoretical,” Justice Haylen was not satisfied that the effects of the work place conditions were widespread. “The evidence, however, does not allow me to conclude that all drivers, or even a significant majority of drivers, have suffered these type of injuries,” he said.

Maritime Union Secretary Paddy Crumlin said workers went to court “in desperation” after discussions with Patricks failed to get action. Corrigan refused all opportunities to settle out of court.

Chris Corrigan pleaded guilty last year to two charges of failing to provide adequate training to workers and agreed to change work practices established under the last enterprise agreement.

A spokesman for Patricks has said the issues had already been dealt with and there were now additional breaks for workers at Port Botany. With both parties now in mediation, Crumlin said “substantial progress” had been made and that the court case was a ” catalyst for a much more mature and transparent approach” by Patricks.

Corrigan faces what could be millions of dollars in fines, with the Commission yet to decide penalties.

So far only the ABC has reported the judgement, on The World Today.