Thinking of Moving to Australia

[Montalban]

My point is that it doesn't negate them at all. Did the "middle easterners" (for want of a better word) behave well after the riots? In many cases no. Did the "main stream" community behave well? As I have just highlighted there are examples where they did not.

I don't think he's hampered police.

I think you're grasping at ways of comparison.

You've got an example of a loud-mouth radio dude -v- a population that actually hampered police so much in their investigation that the minister had to comment on it.

And at best you're offering a tu quoque to the 'wider community'; that one can't criticse a bad behaviour unless all behaviours are examined.

 

[ebia]

I think the discussion of the riots has drifted off-topic, don't you guys?

 

[Montalban]

Post #281, what a riot!

 

[Tahoenite]

I have found the conversation about the riots enlightening through the arguments made by all and the references to events and statements that were not readily known by people from other countries.

The arguments about integration are probably the most pertinent to me since in the US the lack of integration may soon break the country...and all of my questions so far have been focused on how my family and I would be meld into Australian society. For the most part the questions are focused on major concerns I have with the way things are done in the US and if things are done better in Australia.

With the last few pages I have a few new questions pop up.

1) Is there a lot of religious freedoms over there? In the US people can claim almost do anything even sometimes criminal, claim it is part of their religion and be safe from prosecution. Is it similar in Australia?

2) Do worker unions and company lobbyist have a lot pull with the government? Currently in the US we have a few unions that I believe are doing more harm than good. One is the teachers union that will defend a teacher's job even after said teacher is no longer allowed to be around children. (They get sent to a building where they do nothing and collect pay).

700 NY Teachers Paid $70,000+ to Sit in “Rubber Rooms” | Business Pundit

 

[glymph]

I don't think he's hampered police.

I think you're grasping at ways of comparison.

You've got an example of a loud-mouth radio dude -v- a population that actually hampered police so much in their investigation that the minister had to comment on it.

And at best you're offering a tu quoque to the 'wider community'; that one can't criticse a bad behaviour unless all behaviours are examined.

You can criticize bad behaviour all you want. In fact I encourage it. But when you start trying to draw parallels by saying well... in this one thing (ie cooperation with police) the Islamic community behaved worse than the wider community then I find it a bit odd. Would you not criticize them if the wider community had been equally bad? Surely it is the bad behaviour of the Islamic community that deserves criticism, not that it was worse than that of the wider community?

If the Islamic community behaved poorly then criticize it. If the wider community behaved poorly then criticize it. If the wider community behaved poorly and the Islamic community behaved even worse then criticize them both.

 

[Shemjaza]

I’m not sure if anyone has brought this up yet, but if you guys ever become citizens my opinion is that we have one of the best voting systems in the world.

Many people can take or leave the parliamentary system… but I’m pretty sure we are all grateful for preferential voting.

In Australia, when we vote for a party aside from the big two, we aren’t “throwing out vote away” we can customise exactly where our preferences lie. For example in the last election I was able to put the Greens first, while still leaving my preference to go to Labour ahead the Liberal Party, where as my aunt was able to vote for Family First and still make sure the Liberals got her support ahead of the dreaded pro-union Labour.

This gets very strange in the senate where you can either trust one party to assign their own preferences or put in all 60 numbers yourself to micro manage your tastes about all the individual senate candidates for your state.




P.S. I hope you guys are very happy here.

 

[Montalban]

You can criticize bad behaviour all you want. In fact I encourage it. But when you start trying to draw parallels by saying well... in this one thing (ie cooperation with police) the Islamic community behaved worse than the wider community then I find it a bit odd. Would you not criticize them if the wider community had been equally bad? Surely it is the bad behaviour of the Islamic community that deserves criticism, not that it was worse than that of the wider community?

It was worse

You've got:

Wider Community: Riots
Islamic Community: Initiating beating, counter-riots, obstruction

 

[Montalban]

I’m not sure if anyone has brought this up yet, but if you guys ever become citizens my opinion is that we have one of the best voting systems in the world.

Many people can take or leave the parliamentary system… but I’m pretty sure we are all grateful for preferential voting.

In Australia, when we vote for a party aside from the big two, we aren’t “throwing out vote away” we can customise exactly where our preferences lie. For example in the last election I was able to put the Greens first, while still leaving my preference to go to Labour ahead the Liberal Party, where as my aunt was able to vote for Family First and still make sure the Liberals got her support ahead of the dreaded pro-union Labour.

This gets very strange in the senate where you can either trust one party to assign their own preferences or put in all 60 numbers yourself to micro manage your tastes about all the individual senate candidates for your state.

I agree. They brought this in to stop parties running 'dummy candidates' - where a so-called independent might bleed away votes from one party - and then those votes would be lost

 

[TheDag]

1) Is there a lot of religious freedoms over there? In the US people can claim almost do anything even sometimes criminal, claim it is part of their religion and be safe from prosecution. Is it similar in Australia?

Not sure. Howeve I think one would find that if a minister accidently drowned a baby while doing a baptism they would be charged. (please no comments anybody on right or wrong of infant baptism)

There was a case of a pastor and another person charged for inciting hatred in Victoria. The judge found that they took the Quran out of context hence the guilty verdict. If the judge was right then I agree 100% with the ruling despite the cries of persecution from christians. Many christians seem to think they deserve special treatment because Australia was supposedly founded on christian principles. I say supposedly because I don't agree that it was (in practice or theory)

2) Do worker unions and company lobbyist have a lot pull with the government? Currently in the US we have a few unions that I believe are doing more harm than good. One is the teachers union that will defend a teacher's job even after said teacher is no longer allowed to be around children. (They get sent to a building where they do nothing and collect pay).

I don't think it is so much a case of lobby groups having a lot of influence but rather sometimes it is seen as the easy path and they follow that. Sometimes they want to avoid bad publicity that might result from sacking a person so they pay hush money and then it may be found out. I am not saying this is right (or wrong) but rather just how things are sometimes.

 

[Montalban]

I have found the conversation about the riots enlightening through the arguments made by all and the references to events and statements that were not readily known by people from other countries.

Australia is a pluralistic society. However we've got in out midst a group that don't just want to be a separate culture but would rather change our culture to theirs. Already they're trying to make us all Moslem - or at least dhimmi

With the last few pages I have a few new questions pop up.

1) Is there a lot of religious freedoms over there? In the US people can claim almost do anything even sometimes criminal, claim it is part of their religion and be safe from prosecution. Is it similar in Australia?

God is mentioned in the preamble of our constitution

s.116 of our constitution mentions a freedom of religion. However it's not an absolute right

2) Do worker unions and company lobbyist have a lot pull with the government?

Unions have a political party - the Australian Labor Party (ALP) which is currently in government.

Currently in the US we have a few unions that I believe are doing more harm than good. One is the teachers union that will defend a teacher's job even after said teacher is no longer allowed to be around children. (They get sent to a building where they do nothing and collect pay).

We get some of that too

However the current (and Labor) government introduced the MY SCHOOL site to enable parents to judge how their school fares against other schools.

 

[ebia]

However the current (and Labor) government introduced the MY SCHOOL site to enable parents to judge how their school fares against other schools.

Hmmm

 

[Montalban]

Hmmm

I had a look at my old school (which I hated), but they're doing okay. My local HS on the other hand are below average

 

[ebia]

"We value what we measure because we can't measure what we value".

Statistics about schools are pretty meaningless.

 

[Montalban]

"We value what we measure because we can't measure what we value".

Statistics about schools are pretty meaningless.

I think they're right with the schools I know.

 

[ebia]

I think they're right with the schools I know.

Perhaps. The data we get on NAPLAN is fine enough that it can, in principle, be used to try to identify which groups within the school are failing particularly badly so that interventions could be targetted (though doing so is not an easy task unless the school has the money to pay a consultant to do that for them - I've been there and tried). But a basic comparison of the school average to like school averages tells you nothing useful. And that's assuming that (a) none of the schools are teaching to the tests (some are) and (b) there isn't huge unexplained statistical variation (there is between cohorts, so there will be in other ways), that "statistically like schools" are genuinely like (they aren't), and that one is only interested in the basic literacy and numeracy skills tested for (and of course there are huge problems with doing that on a national basis with a printed test when there is so much variation between and within states and no national curriculum).

 

[Montalban]

Perhaps. The data we get on NAPLAN is fine enough that it can, in principle, be used to try to identify which groups within the school are failing particularly badly so that interventions could be targetted (though doing so is not an easy task unless the school has the money to pay a consultant to do that for them - I've been there and tried). But a basic comparison of the school average to like school averages tells you nothing useful. And that's assuming that (a) none of the schools are teaching to the tests (some are) and (b) there isn't huge unexplained statistical variation (there is between cohorts, so there will be in other ways), that "statistically like schools" are genuinely like (they aren't), and that one is only interested in the basic literacy and numeracy skills tested for (and of course there are huge problems with doing that on a national basis with a printed test when there is so much variation between and within states and no national curriculum).

I'm a great believer in information empowering people. MySchool doesn't just rely on NAPLAN

"The National Assessment Program (NAP) encompasses tests endorsed by the Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs (MCEECDYA) including the National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) and three-yearly sample assessments in science literacy, civics and citizenship, and ICT literacy."

 

[ebia]

I'm a great believer in information empowering people.

That's okay if the information is going to help people make the judgements they want to make.

MySchool doesn't just rely on NAPLAN

The heart of it is NAPLAN - and that's actually the best data amongst it. But, at best, NAPLAN measures what kids can do in a test. As a measure of their actual numeracy (say, since that's my field) that's a distorted measure without a national curriculum and with schools able to teach for the test. The tests themselves are only accurate for students near the middle of the bell-curve (because there are too few questions at the extremes for reliable assessment) - the computerised adaptive AIM tests that preceeded them in Victoria were better on that particular aspect. And you certainly aren't measuring what schools do - comparison to "like schools" is a step towards what you need to do but there aren't proven models to actually make that do what it would need to do. And you are comparing schools entirely on a few academic aspects but actually expecting them to do far more.

The data that is being presented about a school is not enough to actually be useful or meaningful to the school, so it won't be useful or meaningful to anyone else, and it far too limited in scope to reflect what schools do.

It's about governments wanting to appear transparent, not about actually giving people useful information. Some of the statewide information might give people a useful shock (eg showing them how desparate education is in the Territory), but beyond that its data liable to do way more harm than good.

"We value what we can measure, because we can't measure what we value". We are publishing what we can measure because we can't measure what parents actually want to know.

 

[TheDag]

I know people who did not do well academically but they can defeat people who did in a debate using simple logic. The point being that all tests show is who can remember information better in a specific time frame. Once again I know people who can recall the information but don't test well and at the end of the day there aren't really that many jobs that require you to be spot on very quickly. So really the whole testing system is useless.

 

[TheDag]

Australia is a pluralistic society. However we've got in out midst a group that don't just want to be a separate culture but would rather change our culture to theirs. Already they're trying to make us all Moslem - or at least dhimmi

what do you mean A group. Are you denying christians are trying to convert people? Please tell me you are kidding.

 

[Montalban]

what do you mean A group. Are you denying christians are trying to convert people? Please tell me you are kidding.

Informing someone about Christianity and encouraging them to become Christian is not the same as forcing someone to convert, or to submit to Islam. Perhaps you aren't aware of incidents?

From the very minor of trying to get councils to remove ham sandwiches from their meetings to more severe tests

There's a general (i.e. deals with incidents around the world) site here