Weekend Wrap for 22 September 2024

Essam Al-Qhalib and Niv Sadrolodabaee: A job helping end people's lives? Bu says 'it's a privilege to do'
"Since voluntary assisted dying (VAD) was legalised across much of Australia, almost 2,500 terminally ill people have chosen to end their lives this way. VAD is currently legal in every state of Australia. Victoria led the way, passing laws in 2017 to make the practice legal in the state from 2019. ... A recent report by Go Gentle Australia found that, while VAD only made up somewhere between 0.5 per cent and 1.6 per cent of deaths in Australian states, demand was growing and there were still several barriers to access. The report also raised concerns about a shortage of VAD practitioners. The Victorian VAD review board's recently released annual report showed the proportion of VAD deaths that involve practitioner administration in the state was 19 per cent, which is significantly lower compared to other states." (15 Sep 2024)
Read more at SBS News

Chris Bonnor: Damned lies and school statistics… again
"The AEU research is entitled “A decade of inequity, How Australian governments have funded private schools above public schools since 2013“. From the beginning, it states that a majority of private schools in Australia receive more government funding per student than public schools of very similar size and geographical location, with student populations from very similar socio-educational backgrounds. It has repeated and enlarged on this methodology several times. ... Amidst all this, Catholic school peak groups have apparently remained quiet on the AEU revelations, but Catholic Schools NSW also parades average funding figures as apparent proof that the funding of private schools represents a huge discount to taxpayers – perhaps believing that a “discount” avoids the need to elaborate in any detail. It is also the case that CSNSW has issued claims about school system equity that defy the evidence test. ... More bluntly, when will the AEU properly engage with the problem created by the unlevelled school playing field, in which one system has obligations to all and the other can choose who and where to serve, whom to enrol and even whom to 'disenroll'?" (18 Sep 2024)
Read more at Pearls & Irritations

Tom Wark: Labor’s ‘fully funded’ schools claim misleads
"AAP FactCheck: Federal education minister Jason Clare claims a new agreement signed with the Western Australian government will “fully fund” public schools in the state, to the level recommended in the landmark Gonski Review. This is misleading. The federal government has not removed a “loophole” which may leave schools four per cent short of the Gonski level." (19 Sep 2024)
Read more at AAP

Michael Bachelard and Lucy Macken: How much money the Exclusive Brethren’s ‘ecosystem’ really makes
"Fundamentalist Christian sect the Exclusive Brethren has amassed hundreds of millions of dollars in its tax-free charities at the same time as private companies run by the family of the church’s supreme leader have made millions from COVID contracts. Recently released financial records give an indication of how cash circulates around what the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church calls its “community ecosystem” revealing, in particular, a massive boost from the pandemic for its leaders’ private business and the central role of one its charities. The new figures come as the family of global leader Bruce Hales – known by some inside the sect as the “royal family” – continue their multimillion-dollar trade in high-end Sydney housing. ... Women in the Brethren are treated as second-class citizens, taking the back seats in church meetings. Homosexuality is condemned, and Brethren members do not vote, even though they have been active in conservative political campaigns, including secretly donating to the Liberal and National parties and growing close to former prime minister John Howard." (20 Sep 2024)
Read more at The Age

Mike Seccombe: ‘Abbott was up to his neck in it’: The collapse of the Victorian Liberals
"Irrespective of whether the court finds Deeming was defamed by Pesutto, the undeniable reality is that she was and is a huge problem for the Liberal Party. She is not only an anti-trans activist. She is opposed to voluntary euthanasia, is anti-abortion and considers the authors of the Safe Schools policy to be “paedophile enablers”. She is also an anti-vaxxer. In her first speech after being elected in November 2022, she condemned left-wing school curriculums and the decriminalisation of sex work. She is a hardcore member of the religious right in Australia’s most progressive state. According to one of her former party colleagues, she is “a populist conservative … an activist more than a party member”. The irony is, he says, that she was selected by the party to fill a vacancy created by the expulsion of former upper house MP Bernie Finn from the Liberal Party after he said abortion should be banned in Victoria, even for rape survivors. Deeming is a case study of the battle that has gone on in the Victorian branch for years, between moderate and centrist forces and the religious- and hard-right." (21 Sep 2024)
Read more at The Saturday Paper