Gonski model was corrupted, but Labor and Coalition are both to blame

The Gonski report was designed to clean up Australia’s opaque and complex system of school funding and address significant inequalities by establishing a new needs-based funding model, but then messy politics got in the way at the point of implementation. Glenn C. Savage (University of Melbourne) Steven Lewis (The University of Queensland) argue that the result was a perversion of the Gonski ideal – an inconsistent patchwork of approaches across the nation that protected the vested interests of non-government schools.

Turnbull announces a new refugee plan, but will it solve the crisis?

Alex Reilly (University of Adelaide) questions why the government is extending the source countries of its resettlement program and notes that the increase is merely a re-announcement of an Abbott Government pledge. While the Government will likely herald the benefits of regional co-operation, the announcement smacks more of cynical politics trumping common sense.

The democratic paradox

Brian McNair (Queensland University of Technology) explains that there is no necessary connection between liberalism and democracy. Our democracy is increasingly enabling the expression of illiberal, demagogic, populist viewpoints on key issues of our time such as migration and multiculturalism. The most accessible and easy to use communicative environment human beings have ever enjoyed is also one of political extremes in which he, or she who shouts loudest gets heard by the most people.