Graeme Blundell interviews New England romance/crime writer Bronwyn Parry

I see from Bronwyn Parry's blog that Australian actor Graeme Blundell has published a very favourable interview and story on Bronwyn's writing. The story is indeed favourable and well deserved. 

Moree records its Aboriginal oral history

I see from the Moree Champion that Moree has taken steps to record its oral history. And a good thing too!

Belshaw’s World: Indonesia downgrades Australian degrees

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express on Wednesday 2 September 2009. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the Express columns are not on line. You can see all the columns by clicking here.

In June 2009 the Indonesian Government released new rankings for degrees from Australian universities. I was alerted to this by Tikno, an Indonesian blogging colleague, who was worried about the impact on the 14,000 or so Indonesian students studying in Australia.

Tikno’s concern lay in the fact that the ordinary bachelor degrees from major Australian universities are classified as associate degrees for Indonesian purposes. This means that Indonesian students returning to Indonesia find that their qualifications are not recognised when applying for jobs back home, especially in Government agencies.

I was quite startled by this and tried to find out more. After all, education is now our third largest export sector, and I had seen no references to this in the Australian media.

A check of the official Indonesian list of degree equivalences confirmed that ordinary Australian bachelor degrees do not qualify as full degrees.

There appear to be two reasons for this. Indonesian regulations require 144 credit points for a degree, whereas the ordinary Australian degree requires 120. Indonesian degrees also require a thesis, something that is generally required in Australia only at honours level.

From a story in the Jakarta Globe, it appears that the problem first emerged about four years ago. Mohamad Fahmi, interim chairman of the Indonesian Student Association of Australia (PPIA), is quoted as saying that his group wanted the Ministry of National Education to resolve the four-year-old issue.

“Some who have finished undergraduate programs here and returned home with high expectations are disappointed,” Fahmi told the Globe by telephone from Australia.

Indonesian officials defend the current position.

According to Fasli Jalal, the education ministry’s director general of higher education, “It is not fair for university students studying in Indonesia who have to finish a minimum of 144 credits, while other people who studied overseas, with smaller credits, ask for equal approval,”

Presently, students who graduate from undergraduate programs at Australian universities take an additional year at an Indonesian institution to fulfil the 144 credit point requirement. After that, they are officially holders of recognized bachelor degrees.

The question of equivalence of qualifications across borders has always been a difficult issue.

Australia has, rightly to my mind, been cautious about recognising certain degrees from certain countries in areas such as medicine. Indonesia is entitled to set and apply its own standards.

However, accepting this, I can understand the position of PPIA’s Mohamad Fahmi when the effect of the changed approach is to disadvantage Indonesian students already studying in Australia.

I also found it interesting that discussion around this issue actually centred first on questions of standards, not credit inputs to use modern jargon.

Ramana, an Indian blogger wrote:

“I am not qualified enough to comment on this without having more information…. What I do know is that there are a number of fly by night institutions in Australia that rip off unsuspecting overseas students by promising a lot, but not delivering. This is a matter of great concern here in India too. Many of our students go to Australia and return with qualifications that do not compare in quality to their literal equivalents in India.”

Ramana is actually talking about private vocational colleges, not universities, something that I pointed out.

However, the fact that I and others first interpreted this matter in terms of the standards of Australian education shows just how much damage has been done to Australia’s education reputation by recent events.

The entire education sector has been tarnished by the actions of a few.

I will be watching the statistics on overseas student numbers with interest. My feeling is that we are likely to see a significant decline.

Linking this back to one of my recurrent themes in this column, a recent story in the Financial Review began:

“All Vice-chancellors are deploying corporate style tactics to lift employee output and create leaner, more responsive workforces before a new era of performance-base funding agreements with the Commonwealth.”

Now compare this to what I have just written.

There is little room for students in a world of lean, mean, fighting machines!

UNE has again ranked high on the recent student satisfaction rankings. It does so because it is still, to my mind, a university.

This is UNE’s real competitive advantage. The issue is how to build on it.

ABS releases new population projections - implications for New England - 1

Note to readers: I felt a bit dumb about this post. I found the release referred to on a click-through. I read the release date as 09 when it was in fact 08! Now I remember it coming out.

I have let it stand because I want to comment anyway!

Today the ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) released new population projections for Australia. The chart shows the results. Series C is low, series A combines higher migration with higher birthrates, while series A is sort of a mid point.

As ABS points out, they are projections, not forecasts. I looked at this most recently in Belshaw’s World: Problems with projections.

On the midpoint projections, the population of New South Wales is projected to reach 10.2 million people by 2056, an increase of 3.3 million people (or 48%) since 30 June 2007.

Series B projects Sydney to remain the most populous city in Australia, with 7.0 million people in 2056. This means that around 2.5 million of the 3.3 million increase will go to Sydney. We need to exercise a little care here. While the ABS talks about Sydney, they in fact mean the Sydney statistical division. This includes the Blue Mountains and Central Coast.

The ABS does not provide regional or local break-ups. However, we can draw from other trends to make some judgements.

The number actually show in a rather startling way the importance of to Sydney of overseas migration.

The mid range projections show Sydney attracting a bit over 54,000 overseas migrants per annum, the rest of the state something over 2,000. Quite a big difference isn't it?

Partially offsetting this, Sydney is projected to lose 34,000 people per annum through interstate migration. By contrast, the rest of NSW is expected to gain around 14,000 per from interstate migration. Those already living in Sydney continue to vote with their feet. Sydney rises or falls on Australia's migration program.

The NSW South will continue to gain in importance relative to the North. We don't have a capital, they do.The population of the Australian Capital Territory is projected to increase by 169,500 people (50%) between 30 June 2007 and 2056, reaching 509,300 people. As as happened over recent decades, this growth will flow through to population growth in surrounding areas. Increasingly, Canberra is taking over from Sydney as the metropolis for Southern NSW.

I will stop here until I have had a chance to analyse the figures further.

Belshaw’s World: Information, access and the transmission of knowledge

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express on Wednesday 26 August 2009. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the Express columns are not on line. You can see all the columns by clicking here.

I was surprised to discover in a conversation with eldest that she had not been aware of the constitutional difference between the states and territories. Apparently the matter came up in a Politics’ tutorial discussion on gay marriage and the ACT.

I am not sure why I was surprised. You only have to look at things such as the debate on the republic to see just how thin real constitutional knowledge is. Still, it got me musing on the way knowledge is transmitted from one generation to the next.

All societies have mechanisms for transmitting knowledge, ideas, attitudes and beliefs between generations. These are central to society’s stability and continuity.

In oral societies such as the Australian Aborigines, transmission relied on memory, the transfer of the memory of the older generation to the younger. This was carried out in a variety of formal and informal ways, immersing the young in a still living past.

The invention of writing created another transmission mechanism because it allowed knowledge and beliefs to be recorded independent of memory. With writing came concepts such as schools, tutors and teachers, creating new transmission mechanisms.

Writing also brought new suspicions and discontents because it facilitated the spread of alternative views.

The religious schisms within the Byzantine church spread because alternative interpretations became more readily available, in time adding a new word – byzantine – to the English language.

Many of those in power were deeply suspicious of writing and indeed of schools. Ideas must be controlled in order to preserve social order and the true way.

The Reformation, one of the defining events in European history, centred in part on the desire to make the bible available to all. This helped drive the spread of printing, a further transmission mechanism.

Those promoting the new ideas were in fact just as zealous in defending the true beliefs as those on the other side. People must have access to the bible, but which bible?

One outcome was the King James bible, one of the most beautiful pieces of literature in the English language.

The influence of the reformation continued in the growing support for schooling. Again this was seen as a way of access to the bible and the truths of the Christian faith.

The industrial revolution brought a new phase. Increasingly education was seen in terms of its contribution to competitive economic performance among nations. The concepts of economic efficiency and of education as training had arrived.

This new increasingly secular education marked a completely new stage.

Increasingly, the education system came to be seen as the central mechanism for intergenerational transmission of knowledge, attitudes and ideas. However, the focus was utilitarian and on the now. Concepts such as the wisdom and role of the elders were relegated to history’s scrap heap.

Recent debates over values in education reflect social concerns about the role of education. However, to a degree they miss a key point.

Values cannot be separated from education. Yet the thing that drives longer term change is not so much debate about value, but what gets included/excluded from the curriculum.

Given that the education system is now the dominant inter-generational transfer mechanism, that which is not included dies, although the effects may not be immediately apparent.

This explains the personal venom of Australia’s recent culture wars. These wars may sometimes have been expressed in terms of opposing values and indeed disputes about facts and interpretation, but the real issue was just what information about our past should be included.

Such a simple thing, information, yet so important and so little seen.

New Posts

I have been delayed this week in posts. I have a few part completed posts. I am going to bring them up on their due day, so they will suddenly appear behind this post!

Belshaw’s World: Problems with projections

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express on Wednesday 19 August 2009. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the Express columns are not on line. You can see all the columns by clicking here.

I have been re-reading volume two, the commentaries, of the University of New England’s Geography Department’s 1977 Atlas of New England. In this case, New England covers the Tablelands, Western Slopes and part of the Plains.

Edited by David Lea, John Pigrim and Lesley Greenwood, the commentaries contain a series of generally short essays explaining the maps. These cover nearly every aspect of New England’s geography, physical, human and economic.

I thought that the Atlas was a remarkably interesting piece of work when I first looked at it all those years ago. Now, re-reading, the commentaries provide a fascinating if sometimes depressing snapshot of the area as it was in the 1970s.

Fascinating because the Atlas presents a slice of the past frozen in time. Depressing because now looking back we can see what has and has not come to pass.

Take a simple example.

In 1971 New England-North West had a population of 164,128. Tamworth with 24,092 people was the tenth largest town in NSW; Armidale with 18,156 was fourteenth largest.

Projections prepared by the NSW Department of Decentralisation (remember that word?) and Development in May 1974 suggested that the region’s population would grow to 238,708 in 2001. Tamworth would grow to 45,613, Armidale still faster to 47,301.

In fact, at the 2006 census the Northern Statistical Division had a population of just 172,395.

Well, what happened? Why did the wheels come off?

A number of factors intervened: the then still high regional birth rate slowed more than expected, while out-migration was higher. But beyond factors such as these, the single most important cause was Armidale’s failure to grow.

The problem with projections based on present and past is that, by definition, they cannot accommodate future changes. No one recognised that Armidale would lose so badly in subsequent restructuring of tertiary education.

A second problem with projections, and we can see this with economic forecasts, is that they affect attitudes.

In Armidale’s case, expectations about future growth led to resistance to new developments for fear that they would affect the city’s life style. This complacency and resistance occurred just at the time when, in retrospect, it is clear that the city and its institutions should have been pursuing new directions.

In fairness to the Atlas itself, the commentaries actually pointed to the risks facing the city as a consequence of potential changes in higher education. It’s just that too few took the risks seriously.

This lesson from the past has current implications.

Governments use projections all the time for planning purposes. They have to. Yet projections can be wrong. Perhaps worse, they can become self-fulfilling.

Government resources are short. Resources (schools, houses, playgrounds, roads etc) therefore flow to the areas of projected growth and away from low growth areas. In doing so, they strengthen one, weaken the other.

This may sound dry stuff, but it’s actually very important.

Take a look at the NSW Department of Planning web site - http://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/. You will see there that NSW planning is based on population projections showing growth concentrated in certain areas.

Increasingly, NSW planning fragments into a greater Sydney from Newcastle to Wollongong plus the North Coast plus the SE corner where Canberra is dominant. The rest of the state is simply called Western and has no plan at all.

Consider, for example, the regional cities project. This is designed to boost job, housing and lifestyle opportunities in regional cities across NSW. It will also help these cities become drivers of the NSW economy.

And what are the cities so far selected to drive growth across NSW? - Wollongong, Gosford, Parramatta, Penrith, Liverpool and Newcastle!

Really!

New England Australia - most popular posts 8

Time for another look at what is popular on this blog. I try to do this regularly because my stats package is limited to the last 100 visits. However, I got sidetracked and it is months since my last review!

With 15 visits, the most popular post has been  Margaret Olley's New England connection, followed on 11 by The Poetry of Judith Wright - South of My Days. The posts about Judith are always popular, but I have been wondering about the hits on Margaret Olley; this has been a new trend.

With 6 visits, Round the New England blogging traps 10- a miscellany came in number three.

Two posts followed, each with 4 visits: Armidale-Kempsey Road - pretty but difficult and Fossicking in New England. The fossicking posts always get hits, but the interest in the Armidale-Kempsey road is new.

Then came four posts, each with three visits:

• Secrets of New England - along the Fossickers Way Day Two
• the monthly archive for April 2007
• Peter Allen, Armidale and Claire and Eileen Napier - an attack of nostalgia
• New England Story - Stockton Beach 

Looking at this group, no less than five were included in the top group last time.

Round the New England blogging traps 10- a miscellany

This really is just a meander.

In Introducing the Armidale poets I began a series on a particular New England poetry school. One of the poems is Gwen Kelly's On Hungry Head Beach.

Here, alone, the rock cliff juts
above the wave-whorled sand,
ruts in a crumble, aeons old,
to filter through my hand.

This Drew Hopper photograph shows the beach with its jutting rocks in mystical mode.

For those who do not know New England, Hungry Head beach is just south of Urunga. Urunga, in turn, is on the coast due east of Armidale.

This is one of the beaches of my child hood.

I see from 18th Century Historical Trekking,1680-1760 (Australia) that on Wednesday 7 October, the New England Colonial Living History Group will have a stall in the Armidale Mall from 10am. The Mall days are always fun, so if you are in town do drop in. The blog is also fun because it is different.

To be a New Englander is to travel. We really have too, but we also like it.

Gordon Smith's outback tour continues. This photo shows Aboriginal art from Wilpena Pound, at Arkaroo Rock, Flinders Ranges National Park, South Australia.

While not a New England blog, Will Owen's Aboriginal Art & Culture: an American Eye remains a great way to introduce yourself to Aboriginal art.

Still on the Aborigines, while not a blog at all (!), the Muurbay Aboriginal Language and Culture Co-operative web site provides a great introduction to some of the Aboriginal languages on New England's coastal strip.

Continuing on the travel theme, Graham and Gaye (Snippets and sentiments) have headed north from the Hunter into Queensland. You can follow the trip on Gaye's blog.

It is a little while (ten days) since there was a post on LYNNE SANDERS-BRAITHWAITE. Still, I took the time to browse back over past entries. I really like this blog. There are all sorts of insights, especially for someone who knows a little about the area.

Lynne commented on the difference between Clarence and Bellinger River floods. I think that she is dead right. The Bellinger rushes. As befitting its role as the Big River, the Clarence spreads more slowly and majestically.

Mulubinba Moments has also been travelling, this time to Lord Howe island. There are some great photos.

Paul Barrett's Australian Observer continues with some absolutely fascinating posts drawn from his own senior official experience. Like me, Paul is an expatriate who writes on many things. He seems, however, to have taken more photos!

Belshaw’s World: The Palais Royale and memories of a Newcastle past

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express on Wednesday 12 August 2009. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the Express columns are not on line. You can see all the columns by clicking here.

Didn’t I see you at the Palais last night? Pick-up line, Newcastle beach.

May saw the final demolition of Newcastle’s old Palais Royale.

Growing up in Armidale, I never visited the Palais. I was also a very bad dancer.

In a now distant past there used to be a thing called the TAS walk. Grasp the girl, stride forward a few paces, turn right a few paces, turn right a few paces, turn right once more and then begin again!

My mother always wanted me to take dancing lessons, they were offered by the school, but I really could not come at the idea of practicing with other boys.

Still, while I never visited the Palais, I walked past it many times and was always interested by it.

The loss of Palais marks another step in the progressive erosion of Newcastle’s links with its own past.

Growing up, Newcastle was New England’s big city. The place fascinated me because it was just so different.

We stayed at the old Great Northern Hotel when we were young.

Looking back, it is hard to imagine my excitement when we went to stay at this pub. This was a seriously big hotel. It had a lift!

I am not sure how long we stayed. It was a little while. Early in the morning, brother David and I would go down to the waterfront to look at the trains and ships. This was exciting stuff.

The Great Northern was a pretty posh place. When Tooths upgraded the hotel in 1938, it was the largest single hotel expansion in the company's history. When we stayed it had started to run down, but it still retained some of its previous grandeur.

Talking to Newcastle people today, few can remember the old pub or even imagine what it was like when Newcastle actually was still New England's metropolis.

In many ways, Newcastle has been its own worst enemy.

Proudly union and Labor, Newcastle never quite fitted in.

Its industrial tradition is North English, the world the Belshaws came from. With its Protestant/Anglican/English mix, Newcastle was somewhat isolated in a clannish Labor world dominated by the Irish Catholic tradition.

Always loyal, its loyalty was often poorly rewarded because it meant that Newcastle and the lower Hunter could be safely ignored.

If Newcastle did not properly fit in on the Labor side, economy, life style and political orientation created divides with other parts of the North.

For much of the colonial period, Maitland and the nearby river port at Morpeth were the major New England mercantile centres.

The building of the Great Northern Railway transferred traffic to Newcastle, making it the head of what Lazlo has called a Northern economic commonwealth.

Newcastle’s period of economic power was brief.

As soon as the line to Sydney finally crossed the Hawkesbury River in the 1890s, the New South Wales Government Railways set freight rates so as to attract traffic to Sydney. Initially, this meant that freight on the Newcastle-Sydney stretch was effectively carried for free!

In the 1967 New State plebiscite, Newcastle remained loyal to its traditions.

In polling carried out before the plebiscite, 55% of Newcastle people responded yes to this question: if New England is to gain statehood, should Newcastle be part?

The follow up question gave a very different result.

It simply asked: the Labor Party is opposed to New England self-government. Would you support a New England New State? The yes vote dropped to around a third.

The answer to this question revealed what the result would be. The plebiscite was lost on the Newcastle and lower Hunter industrial and dairy farmer vote.

Today Newcastle is simply emasculated in political terms. A once proud city is now no more than the northern extension of Greater Sydney on many Sydney Government planning maps.

Newcastle still retains its own unique character. A Newcastle writer described the city this way:

Newcastle is a contrary and perplexing social microcosm: broadminded citizens of a global village yet disconcertingly xenophobic, parochial, even naive, to foreign visitors.

I would like to think that Newcastle could once again regain its public place as a major and distinct independent Australian (and New England) centre.