Rudd and Gillard's Attack on History

DOGS refer readers to Press Release 263 for examples of Rudd and Gillard's attack on the lessons they might learn from history. They have attempted to wipe out the concept of public education, the difference between public and private education, and the proud history of the public system in Australia.

Other ALP Attacks on History.

    Australian Year Book 2009 will not be printed:

The 2008 Australian Year Book was the centenary Year Book issue of this publication. However, because of the Federal ALP so-called savings, it has been abandoned. The Year book has provided resources of historical information for one hundred years. Contained in this year book is a wealth of information available to taxpayers. DOGS realise the value of this document for their research. We do not find it surprising that the decision to abandon this publication has been made by a Labor Government as they  expound sentiments of transparency.

    Victorian Educational History Section Shut Down

DOGS remember that one of the first acts of the Victorian ALP when they gained office in the early 1980s,after being left out of office from the mid-1950s, was to get rid of the Victorian Education Department's section which dealt with Departmental history.

Value of History: Introduction

History is basically knowledge and information about the past. One of the values of history is that it enables the present to realise that others have worked to solve or understand a multitude of  problems in the past. We do not have to ''reinvent'' the wheel and its uses. Effort and time are saved if we do not have to re-discover what those who have gone before us have learned. Consider the following:

 Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Santanya

 History is a vast, early warning system: Norman Cousins.

 History provides instructive examples.

 By learning from the bitter lessons in history, one can avoid the same mistakes in the future. Anon

Without history we would be largely ignorant of the workings of the world and of human existence. Anon

The value of history allows citizens to develop a wiser understanding of who we are, our potential, and dangers threatening individuals, communities and nations. Anon

Historical knowledge is not to make us clever for next time, but wiser for all time. Anon.

Thomas Jefferson believed that in American democracy education should be chiefly historical. ...history by appraising the citizens of the past enables them to be able to then be judge of the future...it will avail them of the experience of other times and of other nations.

Woodrow Wilson pointed out that history endows us with " the invaluable mental power which we call judgement".

Wendell Holmes Junior said that A page of history is worth a volume of logic.

George Orwell said that who controls the past, ran the party slogan, controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

Orwell anticipated Rudd and Gillard. They are attempting to control the present and future of public education in Australia by controlling the past.

George Orwell said in Why I Write in 1947: (I) desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.

Rudd and Gillard : Move On and Cover Up.

When one reads and listens to Rudd and Gillard, one is reminded of Bush and Howard. As Anthony Ashbolt noted:

We are encouraged frequently to move beyond stale debates and to leave behind old baggage. This was the sort of language used by Bush and Howard or their PR men when W.M.D. ( weapons of mass destruction) were not discovered in Iraq. Conveniently, they had moved on from this uncomfortable fact.

Far from embracing a newly invigorated form of political thought ' moving on ' or ' beyond' now tends to constitute political amnesia in the service of the ruling class interests. One is also reminded of another Bush White House idea. 'History begins today.'

Decisions Should be Based on Information and Knowledge

How are we to understand current reality? On what basis should we make decisions about the future? Shall we act blindly out of passion and ignorance, or shall we attempt to act rationally, based on information, knowledge and experience gained from those who have gone before us. A consideration of history and information would lead Australians to reject many of the ALP educational schemes.

Rudd and Gillard Fear the Searchlight of History

Neither Rudd nor Gillard want to have their statements and proposals exposed to the searchlight  of history, knowledge and experience. The lessons gleaned from history would hinder both their 'logic' and 'arguments'. Like skaters on thin ice, they must move on, never looking back at the pages of Australian educational history.

 George Orwell, in his writings, anticipated the Rudd/Gillard approach. He understood the battle in the public domain regarding the control of history.

Rudd and Gillard want to control our memory. When history gets in the way of their schemes, they merely discard it altogether, rushing regardless into a future which spells disaster for public education, and the majority of Australian children.

The ALP strategy is not about wise decisions but  bringing to fruition their ideas and schemes without anlaysis or criticism but with an eye on benefits for the church school lobby.

What are Some of the Lessons of History are Rudd and Gillard sweeping aside?

Rudd and Gillard do not want the citizens to know the real lessons of educational history because, for them, the citizens are not even permitted to distinguish between public and private schools. The public systems do not even exist in their vocabulary. No comparisons and differences are to be debated in spite of the fact that the public and denominational systems have been at logger heads in Australia since 1848.

The major beneficiaries of the Rudd/Gillard approach are the right wing of the ALP, private church schools, and the private good.

The losers are the majority of children in the public education systems of Australia and the public good.

What have Rudd and Gillard Declared to be 'Out of Bounds?'

In the Rudd and Gillard's Orwellian world , Australian citizens are not permitted to discuss the following:

• Why public education was set up in Australia as early as 1848

• Why the denominational system has never succeeded in educating the majority of Australian children

• Why State Aid was withdrawn in the period 1872 to 1895

• Why free, secular, and universal public education systems were established in the first place.

• Why public education is the cornerstone of our democratic, just, cohesive society

• Why the church school system is a cancer in the body politic

• Why the Founding Fathers attempted to prevent theocratic states within the Australian State by inserting Section 116 in the Australian Constitution.

• Why the Founding Fathers believed in the separation of Church and State.

• Why State Aid to church schools offends religious liberty.

• Why State Aid is a folly for both public education and the public good.

• Why public and private education are established for different reasons

• Why public and private education are as different as chalk and cheese

• Why public schools are established for public reasons and private schools established for private reasons

• Why public and private education differ in purpose, outcome, access, ownership, control, funding, accountability and provision.

• Why public and private schools differ in outcome.

• Why there is a differential fighting strength between public and private education.

• How the church school faction has broken down the checks and balances in Australia. The checks and balances in Australian society in areas such as the Media, academia, the legal process, the bureaucracies, and political process, have been broken down. Church school influence has directly and indirectly led to the abnegation and abdication of responsibility for the strongest possible public education system.

• How the church school faction contributes to wilful ignorance of the growth of social, economic and tribal divisions in Australian society.

• How the church school faction has gained influence in Australia far beyond that wielded in other English speaking countries.

• The nonsensical conceptual framework of the Rudd/Gillard educational revolution in which individual schools and children are treated as equal units in a power vacuum,  isolated  from the real world. In the real world they exist in an historical and political context. In this real world Church schools are backed by Treasury billions and a powerful corporate, centralised bureaucracy. They are further supported by racial and religious tribal affiliations. Public schools on the other hand have either lost their centralised bureaucracies or had them taken over by church school sympathisers. Public systems have been starved of public funds that have been diverted to the private sector, and are now under threat of privatisation by Rudd and Gillard themselves.  

Rudd/Gillard's Ignorance Leads to Absurdities

Australian Trade Centres

The establishment of the ALP Australian Trade centres would have to be the most idiotic educational scheme created in the English speaking world. Imagine the training of tree surgeons split up into institutions run by different religious organisations

In the past Australian States had the sense to never split tradesman on the basis of religion. Why now?

New Concept of Needs

Gillard claims that she is setting up a 'new concept of needs to assess federal funding'. If Gillard had any idea about Australian educational history she would be aware that the Church School faction has long since made the original ALP "Needs" policy a sick joke. Howard only added to the joke with the SES model. The joke started with Whitlam's Schools Commission and his so-called Needs policy.

Shared Facilities

The policy of 'shared facilities' will lead to the destruction of public education in Australia. Public education will be unequally yoked with church school operatives that have proved insatiable. They have never been satisfied, and the Church school faction will never be satisfied until Australia returns to the denominational system.

New Era of Transparency and Accountability

On this matter Rudd and Gillard cannot afford to know anything about even recent history. There has been no real public transparency or public accountability for State Aid since it was introduced in the 1960s. The church school faction/supporters, fellow travellers and the gutless ones have wrecked the federal and state educational bureaucracies. The Australian National Audit office is a bad joke.  Readers should go back in recent history and read DOGS material on the website. The politicians and bureaucrats have long been in the thrall of the church school faction. In NSW citizens cannot even obtain enrolment figures for private schools because government authorities fear that they might be used against the business interests of those schools.

In Gillard's 21st Century there is no place for Public Education

If you think the above schemes of the Rudd/Gillard educational revolution are idiotic, consider the wipe out of public education in their 21st Century world view.

In a 7 September Media Release entitled 'Stand Up for Education in the 21st Century' Julia Gillard proposed that interested persons and organisations should speak up for education in the 21st Century. Nowhere  in her News Release and a 13 page document prepared for at least all federal, state and territory educational ministers is there any mention of public education. These documents exhibit the overwhelming influence of the church school faction in Australia.

So there you have it. In her world public education has been swept out of the past, the present ,and the future.

For Julia Gillard, history is bunk, while the present and the future belongs to church schools, private corporations, and their influence.

The Real World of the Australian Depression

Many parents are starting to realise that they cant afford the mortgage and the private school fees. Enrolment trends towards the public system in NSW are already obvious. What are Rudd and Gillard going to do when parents come knocking for free secular and universal education for their children and find that they cannot even talk about such public things because public schools no longer exist in their history, their present  or  future of Australian children?

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