So a bit of goggling and I found this:

… OECD’s PISA study shows that there is also a significant negative relationship between the money countries extract from national resources and the knowledge and skills of their school population …

So here is the picture and data are here.

Australia is in the top right hand quadrant – high education outcomes and high(ish) natural resources. What does the OECD say?

The most troubling implications of these data relate to the developing world. Many of the countries with below-average GDP succeeded to convert their national resources into physical capital and consumption today, but failed to convert these into the human capital that can generate the economic and social outcomes to sustain their future.

I am not convinced that conclusion follows from the data. That sort of argument is usually described as the ‘resource curse‘. Okay – but what the analysis leaves out are the domestic institutions apart from the education system. Before we can make that sort of argument we would need to control for a whole bunch of other factors.

What I do agree with is this:

Particularly in these times of economic difficulties, it is tempting to resource our standard of living today through incurring even greater financial liabilities for the future. But in the long term, there is no way to stimulate our way out or to print money our way out. The only sustainable way is to grow our way out …

Exactly correct, but then the OECD falls into the old ‘education is the solution to everything’ trap.

… and that requires giving more people the skills to compete, collaborate and connect in ways that drive our economies forward. Without sufficient investment in skills people languish on the margins of society, technological progress does not translate into productivity growth, and countries can no longer compete in an increasingly knowledge-based global economy.

I don’t want readers to get the impression that education in skills is unimportant, but the benefits are over-sold.

The OECD also says,

Exceptions such as Canada, Australia and Norway, that are rich of natural resources but still score well on PISA, have all established deliberate policies of saving these resource rents, and not just consuming them.

I’m not convinced that argument is correct.

Anyway – back to the Chief Scientist. From his comments I got the impression that Australia performed poorly – we’ve got high natural resources but poor education outcomes. But the actual data don’t support that view. In fairness, however, he speaking off the cuff at that point.

Single mother Katrina Hart, 42, a member of the scandal-ridden Health Services Union, who earns $51,000 a year as a clerical worker and pays $603.20 in union dues, watched the Central Coast MP’s 59-minute self-justification with distaste.

For Hart and her equally appalled colleagues, Thomson’s melange of conspiracy theories, “cloned” phones, score-settling and accusations did nothing to rebut the damning findings from Fair Work Australia that he had spent $500,000 of HSU members’ money on prostitutes, ATM cash withdrawals, fine dining and election expenses when he was the union’s national secretary (which Thomson denies).

“That’s it, we’re out,” HSU members told Hart, as soon as Thomson finished.

“He didn’t even explain himself,” said one.

“That’s pathetic,” was another’s verdict. “Hopeless.”

“A lot of them walked off in disgust,” says Hart.

“A lot said it was crap, it was staged, he didn’t address anything that was real. It was always somebody else’s fault Who wrote that speech for him? Who coached him?”

Hart, who also is an unpaid union official, president of the Randwick campus general sub-branch, and a supporter of whistleblower Kathy Jackson, had managed to stop members quitting – until then.

These former unionist will no longer pay the $603.20 for membership – but they will still be ‘represented’ by the HSU.

So how does that work? There are two measures of union influence – union density (membership) and union coverage. Australia is a low density – high coverage economy.

To provide a visual sense of these two dimensions of union strength, Figure 1 depicts a scatterplot of union density and union coverage. As can be observed, countries fall into one of three fairly denite patterns. In the lower left corner are countries that are low both in density and coverage, in the upper left countries that are low in density but high in coverage, and the upper right countries that are high on both measures. Students of comparative politics will not fail to notice the similarity between these three clusters and similar typologies of welfare states, with liberal welfare states corresponding to low-density, low-coverage countries, conservative welfare states with low density, high-coverage countries, and social-democratic regimes with high-density, high-coverage countries. There are some anomalies, Australia being the most prominent, where the disjuncture between the labor movement and welfare-state development has been frequently noted. But in general the correspondence is striking.

It is not enough to withhold funding from unions that they loathe and despise, people need to more choice. Either to join competitor unions – currently not allowed – or to not be represented by a union at all. So it isn’t just the governance of the trade union movement that needs reform but also the industrial organisation of the labour market that needs reform.

Please allow for slackness on details (it was early in the day). It seems that  much of the $200M to date has been spent in very strange ways. Many cases were cited. For example in marginal electorates that are not areas of medical need, competing with existing services that could use support, not competition.

But then what is $200M compared with Billions for renewable energy projects?

It is a party that puts its own self-interest before any standard, principle or institution… It is about staying in office and doing whatever is required to stay in office. This narrative suffocates any other Labor message and is killing the government.

Paul, this is not something that happened overnight. It has been coming since the 1970s when a the new class of politicians and camp followers turned up to use the ALP as their vehicle for their ambitions and aspirations.

You should know, you were there over the whole period. In fact you are effectively one of them, one of  the camp followers, setting the tone for the current generation of journalists and media people who are almost all rusted on ALP supporters. The Party has reached its current state of corruption behind a smokescreen of partisan reporting by the press. Even moderately competent investigative journalism would have headed off  the scandals that have wrecked the economies of Victoria and NSW, not to mention the serial debacles of the current administration.

To your credit you keep your ALP bias under control most of the time, but not when elections loom up and it is time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.

And to your credit again, the party has at last exceeded the limits of your tolerance.

How come it took so long? I suppose it is the “frog in the saucepan” effect. You were there from the time the water started to warm up and it had to get scalding hot before you woke up. So where do you go from here?

Are you prepared to wear some of the responsibility for the slipping of  journalistic standards? What are you going to do to counter the half-baked and biased commentary by the new generation of journalists, trained by the people who have become prominent in the crusade against free speech?

Update. An interesting comment at Bolt’s site

Labor is poised to refer a second Liberal MP to parliament’s privileges committee as it escalates a tit-for-tat war with the Opposition over parliamentary standards.

The Australian Financial Review has learned Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella is in the government’s sights over an alleged failure to make an accurate declaration on her register of members’ interests.

The government could refer Ms Mirabella as soon as Tuesday, though government strategists have not made a final decision on timing.

So what is Sophie’s offence?

Professor Howard died this month at the age of 83 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. His children, Lesley and Mervyn Howard, plan to mount a challenge in the Victorian Supreme Court contesting Mrs Mirabella’s role as main beneficiary of his will and executor of his estate, which includes a valuable terrace house in the trendy Melbourne suburb of Carlton.

Why would she be the beneficiary of a will?

Neither did she say that Howard had lived for nearly a year in a cottage at the back of Mirabella and her husband’s country farmhouse as his mental and physical heath deteriorated, he grew incontinent and paranoid, and eventually had a fall which nearly killed him.

Really? This is akin to using a corporate credit card to procure the services of prostitutes? This is what the Gillard government is reduced to in order to deflect attention from their own failings? This is our tax dollar at work.

As far as I can work out Sophie (and her husband) cared for an elderly former lover in his declining years – where were his children then?

The 1930s was a decade-long bout of desperate mass unemployment and poverty self-inflicted in the West, only finally relieved by the vast investment required to wage a World War.

Just not convinced that it true. I’ve used Angus Maddison’s database to look at GDP and then GDP per capita for Australia, the UK and the US. The Great Depression was a huge problem in the US with policy mistakes extending the length and duration of the trough.

GDP

GDP/Capita

This ‘WWII ended the Great Depression’ meme is being repeated a lot. So here is a great clip talking about that myth (and two others).

(HT: Paul)

There is quite a bit of current public controversy over refugees indefinitely held in immigration detention as a result of adverse ASIO security assessments which they cannot effectively challenge. Secret evidence provisions in ASIO regulations mean they can be denied all knowledge of the reasons and supporting evidence for an adverse assessment.

The issue the asylum seekers face is that they have been found to be genuine asylum seekers but ASIO have determined that they are a security risk to Australia. This is a difficult problem – how to weigh up the competing claims. While it is reasonable to detain individuals for brief periods of time to establish their bona fides and the like, it is unacceptable to detain people indefinitely on the basis of a secret assessment that they might commit a crime in Australia. We don’t have life imprisonment for people who actually commit crimes.

To my mind this is part of a larger problem. Ken points to a growing trend of illiberal laws and law enforcement. Laws designed to inhibit bikie gangs now allow the authorities to collect and use ‘secret evidence’. This does make a mockery of the notion that people should be charged and prosecuted in open court.

We’re seeing the growing use of Star Chambers. Many government regulators have the right to question individuals and demand information from those individuals. Trials for some offences cannot be reported in the media. And so on. We’re being invited to simply trust the courts.

In Gypsy Jokers, the majority decided that the Court itself was perfectly capable of ensuring that justice was done; there was no need for either the party or counsel to be told. Also now see K-Generation Pty Ltd v Liquor Licensing Court, which holds to similar effect that keeping evidence secret from a party and their counsel does not of itself offend basic notions of judicial power.

The difficulty we face is that laws are being made to deal with individuals where the public has little sympathy – refugees, bikie gangs, union thugs, white-collar criminals, and the like. Mind you, refugees hardly belong on any list that includes bikie gangs, union thugs and, white-collar criminals. Yet we are seeing growing, and unchecked, power of the state.

While judges in a common law legal system are not simply bureaucrats nonetheless it is troubling that laws are made and enforced outside of the glare of public opinion and accountability.

Update: Chris Berg elaborates.

The Responsible Investment Association Australasia site details how much money member funds have put into responsible investment (as a proportion of their total funds size) and also looks at their investment approach.

SuperRatings ranks the environmental, ethical and sustainable credentials of the different funds. The Ethical Retail Superannuation Fund won SuperRatings’ inaugural Infinity Award for its ethical and sustainable policies. SuperRatings managing director Jeff Bresnahan says superannuation funds will start coming under more pressure to show how much their environmental credentials measure up.

“It’s one of the biggest chunks of money going around,” he says. “Pressure needs to be brought to bear on not only the companies but also the investment managers that are investing in these companies.”

So which are the Australian green super funds?  Back in 2006 only two could be identified by ECO Invester

Our research turned up only two super fund which offer a clearly labeled green investing option: Health Employees Superannuation Trust Australia (HESTA) and Non Government Schools Super (NGS).

HESTA offers the Eco Pool option. The Australian equities component of this option is invested in a fund managed by BT Funds Management with the ecological ratings determined by Monash Sustainability Enterprises.

Back then the health workers were being pillaged by the union management and at the same time were seeing their super funds directed into a warm and fuzzy direction.  I wonder how that panned out.

Not well unless the Australian investments were unusually fortunate or skillfully chosen.  Benny Peiser has the following graph on the performance of the green index worldwide

The article also catalogues the demise of the particular firms.  Not pretty.

Mr ALBANESE: … The member for Hughes may have failed to declare directorships of several companies, failed to declare potential liabilities arising from the collapse of a company with which he was involved, failed to declare possible criminal charges arising from that collapse and failed to declare that he has been practising as a solicitor at the same time as serving as a member of the House. For the benefit of the House, I will briefly outline the facts that I say potentially constitute contempt against the House. I refer to paragraph 2(d) of the House resolution.

I put it to you that Albanese lied. A very quick look at the Parliament of Australia website shows that the member for Hughes – Craig Kelly – is not a solicitor. In fact he worked as an ‘Export Manager’.
This is important, because Albanese – political staffer before entering the parliament – made mention of being a solicitor twice.

Finally, we come to the question of the member for Hughes practising as a solicitor while at the same time serving as a member of the House. There have been reports that after ceasing employment with this company the member represented it in several outstanding legal matters. A search of court databases confirms the member’s involvement in this litigation. I table another document.

Please note ‘practising as a solicitor’ and ‘several outstanding legal matters’.
So what is the reply?

Mr CRAIG KELLY: Earlier today the Leader of the House made a number of assertions relating to me and my register of members’ interests. His comments to the House were incorrect, and I would like to clarify the inaccuracies in those assertions.
The Leader of the House asserted that I am a solicitor. I am not a solicitor, and I do not have a law degree. I have never held myself out to be a solicitor nor made any representation to that effect to any person. I have not derived any income or personal benefit from any matters relating to this allegation.
The Leader of the House also asserted that I failed to declare my directorship of several companies. I took steps to resign my directorships of all companies named in August 2010. I provided instructions to my accountant to this effect. My accountant today has confirmed that this is correct, but he did not act on my instructions until March 2011 due to ill-health and hospitalisation on his behalf. At the time I completed my register of members’ interests I understood the instructions had been implemented, and I believed them to be correct. I regret that the ASIC record did not reflect the circumstances that I believed to be correct at the time.
The Leader of the House also asserted that I am a shadow director of a company, DV Kelly Pty Ltd. There is no substance whatsoever to this allegation. Further, I have not, nor have ever been, a shareholder or a director of this company.

So what does Albo do? He ‘assists‘ the House.

“Mr ALBANESE: In my statement I raised the question of whether the member for Hughes had been practising as a solicitor while at the same time serving as a member of the House. To assist the House, this was based on two judgments of the New South Wales Administrative Decisions Tribunal, one on 6 April 2011 and the other on 2 August 2011. In the 6 April 2011 document, next to ‘Solicitors’, it lists Mr Phillip Kelly and Mr Craig Kelly as ‘agents for applicant’. In the 2 August 2011 judgment of the tribunal, next to ‘Solicitors’, it lists C Kelly as the agent. I table both judgments. I am advised that at the Administrative Decisions Tribunal of New South Wales it is possible to represent interested parties as an agent without being a qualified solicitor. I note the member for Hughes’s statement that he was not acting as a solicitor during these hearings. The other matters raised remain matters to be considered by the Privileges Committee. I thank the House.”

Yes. Well. Perhaps Albanese could assist the house by not being a grub. Perhaps he could assist the house by knowing the difference between ‘two’ and ‘several’. Perhaps he could assist the house by doing some background checking before standing up to smear others.