Miranda Devine
The Daily Telegraph
December 7, 2013
SO Joy Burch, the Education minister of the ACT, publishes a tweet describing her federal counterpart Christopher Pyne as a c**t - and gets away with it.
Her excuse for retweeting the foul abuse is that she is inexperienced on Twitter, despite the fact she has been publishing her thoughts on the social media site for four years, during which time she has written 1161 tweets.
"I haven't finessed my social skills, my Twitter skills on this," she said, while considering an offer by the University of Canberra for remedial social media training.
In other words, Burch has published six tweets a week for the past four years and she still hasn't worked out how to use Twitter.
Slow learner, much?
Joy Burch, Labor's Silly Old Cunt "in residence" ? in the ACT Government
Her boss, fellow feminist and Emily's Lister Katy Gallagher, the ACT Chief Minister, accepted Burch's explanation that the tweet - which she later deleted - was a mistake.
"I also believe that she has done the right thing and accepted responsibility for what happened ... and has offered an apology to Minister Pyne,'' she said.
We all make mistakes. But imagine if the roles were reversed. Imagine if Pyne had used what I view as the most obscene word in the English language, describing an intimate portion of the female anatomy, in reference to Burch. He would be crucified. Twitter would be ablaze! The destroy-the-jointers would be apoplectic. The entire Abbott government would be implicated.
"If I had done that, before my head hit the pillow [Thursday night] I would have resigned or been sacked," Pyne says.
"If it was me saying such a thing, the howls from the left would be cacophonous."
But there has been barely a peep against Burch, who also happens to be the ACT's Minister for Women. Moving right along. No double standards here.
That's the Left for you, hysterical overreaction when it suits them, benign tolerance when it doesn't. If you're on their side, anything goes. If you're a conservative, a minefield of 'isms lie in wait - sooner or later you will be accused of sexism, racism, elitism, homophobia and misogyny.
Of course, the upside is that conservatives become battle - hardened and vigilant while their establishment foes grow sloppy and complacent.
The truth is that Burch doesn't like Pyne because he is an ideological enemy and a fearsome warrior.
In fact there are few politicians as tough. Pyne relishes combat. As the much-loved youngest of five children growing up in Adelaide, he learned his skills at a family dining table where vigorous debate was nightly sport.
The photograph that had Burch and comrades so furious that they called him "c**t" last week shows Pyne smirking, or, as one tweeter put it, "smugly loitering", in the background of one of those ranting press conferences NSW education minister Adrian Piccoli held about Gonski funding.
This was supposed to be the moment when Pyne was on the ropes, chastised by the media for executing backflips, supposedly humiliated by Prime Ministerial intervention, and yet here he was looking exceedingly pleased with himself.
How infuriating for his enemies!
Having unwisely promised to match the extra billions pledged by Labor before the election under the so-called Gonski model of redistributing education funding, the Abbott government is stuck with it.
But don't expect Pyne to capitulate.
He knows giving extra billions to the very state education bureaucracies that have presided over a decline in standards over the past decade of record funding increases is no answer to our woes.
The latest OECD rankings show Australian students have fallen even further behind their peers in 65 industrialised nations, dropping out of the top ten for reading, maths and science for the first time.
The test results released last week show Australian 15-year-old students ranked 13th in reading last year, down from 9th in 2009; 19th in maths, down from 14th; and 17th in science, down from 10th. An earlier report showed the reading skills of our Year 4 students are the worst of every English-speaking country tested.
This sorry result is despite the fact Australia increased spending on schools by more than 40 per cent last decade.
More money does not automatically mean better education.
In fact it can make things worse, if you are just entrenching the progressive education ideology that has infected teacher training for decades, and which fails disadvantaged children the most.
Pyne understands completely.
"The failing in education is not money," he says. "[What's needed is] an acceptance that what we've been doing for decades doesn't work. Child-centred learning, whole language teaching of reading, acceptance of failure, is not going to get our students to the top of the tree around the world."
The federal government doesn't control what happens in schools. But what Pyne can control is teacher quality, the single biggest determinant of student success.
"We are going to intervene in the training of our teachers ... to ensure that [when they graduate]from university they are properly trained in how to teach students to read, and to do so from phonics, through orthodox teaching methods."
He has lots of other plans too, from expanding direct instruction to ensuring principal autonomy, all of which is anathema to the progressive education establishment.
He should wear their foul abuse as a badge of honour.
And what does this silly old Labor Green Loon Affirmative Action Emilys List Cunt do for a living?
Australian Labor Party, Brindabella Electorate
ASSEMBLY SERVICE
Elected 29 October 2008
Re-elected 20 October 2012
COMMITTEE SERVICE
Standing
Administration and Procedure (December 2008 – November 2009)Education, Training and Youth Affairs (December 2008 – November 2009, Deputy Chair)Health, Community and Social Services (December 2008 – November 2009, Deputy Chair)Public Accounts (December 2008 – November 2009)
Select
Estimates 2009-2010 (April 2009 – June 2009)Campaign Advertising (April 2009 – August 2009 Chair)
PARLIAMENTARY POSITIONS
Assistant Speaker (November 2008 – November 2009)Government Whip (November 2008 – November 2009)ALP Caucus Secretary (October 2008 – November 2009)
MINISTERIAL APPOINTMENTS
Minister for Community Services (November 2009 – October 2012)Minister for Multicultural Affairs (November 2009 – present)Minister for Women (November 2009 – present)Minister for Arts (May 2011 – present)Minister for Gaming and Racing (May 2011 - present)Minister for Ageing (November 2009 – October 2012)Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Affairs (May 2011 – October 2012)Minister for Disability, Children and Young People (November 2012 – present)Minister for Education and Training (November 2012 – present)
QUALIFICATIONS AND OCCUPATIONS BEFORE ENTERING THE ACT LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY
Registered nurseBA Liberal StudiesPost grad: Health Administration, Information Systems Management
Past Membership Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD)Executive Director - Australian Rural Health Education NetworkExecutive Director - Northern Territory Remote Workforce AgencyCEO - rural health and community support servicesOwner and operator - Child Care Centre.
PERSONAL
Married with three sons, lives in Tuggeranong
INTERESTS
Family, community, swimming, gardening, walking, reading and music
