What is the cost of Rudd and Gillards shameless self promotion over new school sheds and fences;

All up, the Government expects to supply 9,285 school plaques at $200 a pop. There will also be 6,000 roadside signs at $295 each. The total cost is $3.8 million.

Now there is a value spend.

Spinning wheels with nothing to show for it must get very tiring, very quickly;

THE Rudd Government is about to lose another senior staffer with the resignation of Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard's chief of staff, Ben Hubbard.

It follows the departure late last year of Kevin Rudd's chief of staff, David Epstein, and the resignation of several other key staffers amid a frantic pace being set by the Prime Minister and his senior colleagues.

The Truth is out;

Senior Government sources have confirmed to the ABC that asylum seekers on board a boat that exploded last week had doused the deck with petrol as a threatened act of sabotage.

The Government says it will not comment on what caused Thursday's fatal blast while a police investigation is underway.

But the ABC has been told the asylum seekers doused the boat in petrol to try and force the navy to let them land in Australia and not turn them back to Indonesia.

Scant hours after Gillard was continuing the information stonewall on the incident;

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard says the Government is not suppressing information about last Thursday's fatal explosion on a boat carrying asylum seekers.

Gillard was not just lying about the amount of information she knew, she was not only suppressing the details that West Australian Premier Colin Barnett has known, and has been pushing for the release of. Gillard has engaged in a cover up of facts while the Rudd government can concoct its spin approach to the matter.

Rudd cannot avoid his culpability in this. It is his policies that are pulling these illegal boat people into the arms of people smugglers, and to our shores. His policies that place people on the boats, and by extension into the very real grave danger associated with dangerous people prepared to douse a boat full of people with fuel as a procedure.

Why would sabotage to their own boat be procedure? Rudds 2007 Election Promise is why;

Rudd said Labor would take asylum-seekers who had been rescued from leaky boats to Christmas Island, would turn back seaworthy vessels containing such people on the high seas, and would not lift the current intake of African refugees.

"You'd turn them back," he said of boats approaching Australia, emphasising that Labor believed in an "orderly immigration system" enforced by deterrence.  

Obviously Julia Gillard was looking to make a statement regarding nurses numbers soon;

The Australian Nursing Federation slammed the Minister for Education, Julia Gillard's decision to approve federal government funding for Holmesglen TAFE's Bachelor of Nursing degree.

Ged Kearney, ANF federal secretary said the decision was a bitter disappointment and is in complete contradiction with the wishes of the nursing profession at a time when well established and professionally supported courses are screaming for funding.

"In making this decision Julia Gillard has let the nursing profession down," Ms Kearney said. "The nation's nurses and midwives are categorically opposed to any attempts to move undergraduate education away from the university sector." 

Australia doesn't need half-arsed nurses. but apparently Rudd and Gillard need a statement on the numbers of Government funded Nurses about to hit the sector.
 

More kids at a loose end on the streets with nothing to do and no one to help them. Great outcome Joolia. Seems the ALP couldn't give a rats about kids getting jobs, well they should, after all some of these kids will need jobs to pay for their compulsory student unionism. 

Or is this just more unintended consciences;

...most of the nation's job providers that work specifically with disadvantaged young people will stop operations in July.

Under the Government's overhaul of the sector, the number of services targeting youth at risk has fallen from more than 100 to 33.

Jobs Australia represents job providers and chief executive David Thompson says young people may not do so well in general services.

"In many cases they will need skilled youthworkers that have the ability to engage them, to understand who they are and what sort of issues and barriers they've got," he said.

"The services have got to meet those people where they are rather than making assumptions about what they might need, etc."

With unemployment a daily news event, jobs lost, factories reducing shifts, and the outlook for at least 10% unemployment.

Why would the government be screwing over companies, non-profit companies, who are there to help the jobless and employ staff of their own? 

Rudd and Swan can scratch about 2500 jobs from their list of those they are supposedly supporting. Like I have said before its the decisions and Policies of the Government that will determine the position we are in, during the good and especially the bad economic times. Not any stimulus packages.

WITH almost 600,000 Australians on the dole queues and 300,000 more predicted to join them before the next election, you'd think the Rudd Government would be making absolutely sure its job placement services were working as well as they possibly could be.

Instead, it seems the $4billion tender for the next three years of the privatised Job Network - the hundreds of providers who receive government payments to help people get a job - has been bungled.

Actually, it's not called the Job Network any more but Jobs Services Australia. It's not clear where else in the world we'd be offering employment services, but given the surprised folk across the globe who will be receiving $900 stimulus payments in the next little while, it's probably no bad thing to make it absolutely clear.

But putting unnecessary name changes to one side, this tender seems to have resulted in a terrible mess right when we need these services to be working like well-oiled machines. And it's not just the Opposition saying so, or disaffected service providers who have dipped out in the tender.

People who have watched, or worked in, the privatised employment service market for the past decade say this reform was badly thought out and badly timed, and has resulted in outcomes that defy common sense, with excellent providers penalised, substandard or ordinary providers rewarded and the entire system in upheaval when it can least afford to be.

With the media looking on incredulously (when they should be ripping the Gov a new one) Gillard has taken a step backward and one of her underling ministers is left in the firing line;

But the Employment Participation Minister, Brendan O'Connor, says the Government had to make changes and an independent review is not needed.

But I don't think the stink of this insane, job destroying, decision will disappear;

Greens Senator Rachel Siewert says she plans to take the matter further.

"We will be referring this matter to a Senate inquiry," she said.

Gillard is quoting her own explanation of Labors IR Bill as proof of its validity. More precisely Julia Gillard is now quoting her own explanatory memos as nonpartisan or independent facts;

Under pressure to explain whether or not Labor's Fair Work Bill would add to rising unemployment, the Deputy Prime Minister has this week highlighted a detailed "regulatory impact statement" published by the Government. According to Ms Gillard, the impact statement goes through all the economic consequences of Labor's Fair Work Bill, including employment costs.

...Mr Anderson (Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive) said the regulatory impact statement contained in a 100-page explanatory memorandum that accompanied the Government's Fair Work Bill was a political document that could not be considered independent economic analysis.

Why let facts, and the truth, get in the way of reinstating the Unions in Australian workplaces;

The Australian Industry Group workplace director Steven Smith said that unions could previously enter worksites only if they were parties to enterprise agreements or awards. But Ms Gillard had relaxed the provision, so unions could gain access if they were "eligible" to represent workers, even if no members were on site.

There is no doubt that the Rudd government has failed to gage the full impact of the Global Economic Crisis on employment in Australia; 

Last month the Treasury forecast unemployment would reach 5.5 per cent by June and 7 per cent by June next year, the equivalent to an extra 300,000 unemployed.

But the Coalition's employment spokesman, Andrew Southcott, said that forecast was now optimistic given the rate at which jobs were being shed: "An additional 80,000 Australians became unemployed in January and February alone."

The investment bank J.P. Morgan said the unemployment rate would be at least 9 per cent by the end of next year. 

As one would expect Industry pleads for the insanity of Gillards Workplace reforms be halted for fear that the problem be exacerbated;

RETAIL companies employing hundreds of thousands of workers have demanded the Rudd Government delay its overhaul of award conditions by 12 months, warning that the revamp would force up costs and cost jobs.

Richard Evans, the (Australian Retailers) association's executive director, said that in the current economic climate, small retailers could not cope with the labour costs associated with the planned introduction of the Fair Work Bill in July, followed by the modern retail award coming into effect from next January.

"No other economy in the world is introducing new labour laws in the context of the global financial crisis, and this government policy is fraught with danger to the retail sector," Mr Evans said.

"To save jobs and small retail businesses, we're urging the Government to recommend the Australian Industrial Relations Commission defer the introduction of the modern retail award for 12 months."

The Australian National Retailers Association, whose members includes Coles, Bunnings and Woolworths, also backed the 12-month delay.

"The new retail award will increase employment costs by up to 20 per cent for small and medium-sized retailers,' said the association's chief executive officer, Margy Osmond.

When will this idiotic Labor government learn. Industry needs good policy to encourage growth, not cash splashes. Gillard wont be convinced of the danger;

Ms Gillard dismissed this, saying demand created jobs and this depended on economic circumstances. "Australians aren't falling for the Liberal Party spin that somehow these unemployment numbers are about a piece of legislation in the Australian Senate that isn't even law yet."

No Stupid. Its the future under your idiotic policy that has us all fearful.

 The Greens think the Gillard "fair work" bill is spot on, and Senator Steve Fielding rolled over for a tummy rub, so its down to one man again;

Senator Xenophon said he is concerned about the right of trade unions to access the records of non-union members.

"My concern is there were some aspects of the legislation ... shifted the balance a bit too much towards unions," he said.

Senator Xenophon described the coalition's Work Choices regime as bad law, saying it was fundamentally unfair.

"It's a matter of getting the balance right, particularly in the worsening labour market."

Xenophon has feigned national interest previously to gain some gain for South Australia. Lets hope this time he is sincere in his opposition to an irresponsible and damaging policy shift at a time Australia can lest afford it.

Joolia... If yas upped the edumacation leval for hi Skool them there pore kids wood hav tops marcs and not nead ya qwotas.

The Federal Government has committed to a goal of having 20 per cent of university enrolments filled by students from poorer backgrounds by 2020. 

In a speech at a higher education conference in Sydney today, Education Minister Julia Gillard said about 55,000 more students from disadvantaged backgrounds had to be enrolled to fulfil the goal.

"For the past decade, equity has not been a priority and it shows, particularly when it comes to Australians from remote, Indigenous, regional and low socioeconomic backgrounds," she said.

"Today, a secondary student from a low socioeconomic background is only around one-third as likely to attend university as a student from a high socioeconomic background."

Kiss our ambitions to have universities in the world top 200. While an admirable goal someone should ask the question; why is the state public education systems letting these kids down, by failing to educate them to a university entry level? 

Open checkbook deals seem to be the order of the day for the Rudd government, as it desperately tries to halt the migration of business overseas;

The Government was made aware of by Pacific Brands of its decision several weeks ago but Employment Minister Julia Gillard says she is not aware at this stage of plans by any other companies to shed large numbers of jobs.

But she says the Government is in constant discussions with companies.

"The Government and the Minister for Industry and Innovation is in dialogue with businesses all day and every day," she told Radio National.

Ms Gillard has also defended the Government assistance of around $20 million given to Pacific Brands over the past two years.

"Our Government understanding that this is an industry in a period of great change - that's why the support was there," she said.

But this sort of patchwork "cheque book" diplomacy, nor $52 Billion in Stimulus packages, cannot combat the destructive impact of ALP policy on the business environment.

As an employer why would you stay in a county whose government is committed to pro-union workplace reform, an ETS that will explode the cost of energy, and will not consider basic measures such as tax cuts to support business?

And now the very real prospect that the Populist Rudd will be "shamed" into supporting another impost on business he made as an election promise. Paid maternity leave. 

I'm not disappointed that this business left our shores, I'm angry ALP policy chased it away.

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard mocked the Coalition for choosing Christopher Pyne as the manager of opposition business, rather than Tony Abbott, who did the job in Government.

"In a choice between macho and mincing I would have gone for macho myself," she said. "The leader of the Opposition faced with the choice of a doberman or the poodle has gone for the poodle."

I guess thats why her "Ex hairdresser" boyfriend remains a handbag.

Lets take a look at the Australian Education Union (AEU) 8 point plan to improve outcomes for Indigenous students and their communities:

The development of different educational structures and models for the provision of public education to Indigenous students that take into account their needs and those of particular communities and include the following characteristics:

• The establishment of programs operating from schools, involving appropriate government agencies, to support parents and their children aged 0 – 4 and establish important links between school and community from an early stage.
• The establishment of education complexes from pre-school, school and post compulsory education (TAFE).
• The establishment of genuine inter-agency programs operating from schools with significant Aboriginal populations, ensuring the school is the centre of community.
• Without compromising the entitlements of employees, the establishment of extended operational hours and days - up to forty eight (48) weeks per year.
• Strategies to attract and retain experienced teachers in difficult-to-staff schools.
• The early appointment and in-servicing of new teachers including principals, who will teach in schools with significant Indigenous enrollments to ensure continuity of programs.
• Improvements in the recruitment and retention incentives for geographically isolated, difficult-to-staff schools in Indigenous communities.
• Promoting the development and support of local Indigenous teachers and support staff.

I know their hearts are in the right place but this list of motherhood statements, and wishes without consideration of real life costs, will do little in delivering a plan to rectify the insidious situation Aboriginal children find themselves in.

As the union itself admits there has been no substance behind the symbolic "Sorry" given by Rudd. The Union's federal president, Angelo Gavrielatos; "..as we progress towards the one year anniversary of the apology we can start to progress this thing through action, not just words."

Ahhhh... Mal.See... Now they realise!!!