Posts by Ben Austin
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For what its worth I fully support requiring undergraduate courses whether they be science, commerce, arts or misc. to include subjects from outside of the core course(s). Thats what I did, it is not particularly hard to do, even if you are trying to complete the degree course quickly or on time.
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Just another reason why students studying science at university should be forced to study rhetoric
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Perhaps Kate this amendment is just the first step - a very public statement (almost a declaration) that this is an issue and will no longer be tolerated. Whatever happens to this legislation (and I fall close to Riddly on this) at least it is now clear that something will be done.
Of course as you point out there is far more that needs to be done before the child abuse problem will be under control. This will be true test of our resolve.
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It is very interesting to watch all this playing out, to have a legislative record of how public morality has evolved over the last decade.
Any guesses as to what will be the next like issue that makes it way to parliament?
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I think this an opportune time to reference the following work to once and for all settle all arguments here:
http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=ecb1327dc03ab345e618
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Not all statute law is ‘good’ or even able to be obeyed easily. There is simply too much that is produced in any one year, too many different people (stakeholders?) involved in the drafting process and too little resources to ensure consistently high quality. Errors creep through, and for every bill that gets attention like this one there would be dozens or more which slip through with little attention paid to them.
Take a look at any large bill or act, examine it with your mad grammar skillz, read the purpose statements, explanatory notes (etc), apply basic statutory interpretation tests and see how well they stack up. I think you will be unpleasantly surprised.
Oh, and what Kyle said.
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Putting a $ value on a life then basing health purchasing decisions based on that is always going to be fraught with difficulty, however it is the simplist way of comparing multiple different situations and deciding priority. The other alternatives I guess would be age or some sort of quality of life index - which are also going to be fraught. Basically glad its not me making these choices (outside of buying private health insurance as added security)
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I'm in the same boat Joanna. Lets refer to ourselves as "the lost generation"
We can build up a set of cultural expectations around this, I'm already at work on my lost/moody yet not emo facial expressions. I'll try and incorporate "Monicagate was in many ways the death of my innocence" into at least one conversation today as well.
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Is it possible to incorporate a compulsory NZ English (or AU/UK?) spell checker here?
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I can't help but laugh anytime I see the "Generation Next" label thrown about, way to co-opt a failed Pepsi marketing theme!