Hyperbolic

Prime Minister Howard has upset lefty blogger Tim Dunlop:

On pretty much every level, Howard's comments are insulting and delusional and indicative of a person not fit to be guiding policy in the twenty-first century. They are almost criminally negligent, the sort of thinking that would leave us a backwater.

Gee, the PM must have said something really outlandish, you know, like, we should kill and eat all those currently in immigration detention or, Aborigines are subhuman. Nope, here, in all its delusional, insulting, almost criminally negligent, backward looking grandeur is the PM on Seven's Sunday Sunrise program:

Mark Riley: Prime Minister, one of the big problems in the economy at the moment is lack of skilled workers, which you've identified, and talking about 20,000 skilled workers coming in, additional 20,000 under immigration. Bill Shorten says that only one in ten companies is training Australian workers at the moment who could fill those gaps. Haven't they abrogated their responsibility to train Australians?

John Howard: I think it does vary. I think some companies are better than others. I know some that have an outstanding record in this area, but the truth is that we have shortages of skilled people because the economy has grown so strongly in a number of areas. This is a problem of success. It's not a product of failure. The reason we have shortages is that the economy has grown strongly and there was no promise more prominent in my last election campaign than the investment and the commitment I made to have a technical qualification as prized as a university degree. Now, we are putting a lot of extra money into that. We are building these 24 Australian technical colleges.

Mark Riley: How much of the problem, though, will that address?

John Howard: Quite a lot of the problem in that it's a deep-seated cultural problem. We went through a generation in this country where parents discouraged their children from going into trades, and they said to them, "the only way you will get ahead in life is to stay at school until year 12, go to university." Year 12 retention rates became the goal, high year 12 retention rates became the goal. Instead of us as a nation recognising there are some people who shouldn't go to university, and what they should do is at year 10, decide they are going to become a tradesman. They will be just as well off, and from my experience and observation, a great deal better off than many others. I think we have to change that, and it's a very big challenge because 30 years ago, we started getting this foolish bind that everybody had to go to university. Everybody doesn't have to go to university, and a lot of people will be a lot better off if they don't go to university and they recognise that at age 15 or 16, and go down the technical stream.

Dunlop should be delighted the PM is going to contribute to Australia's cultural diversity by recruiting 20,000 skilled workers from abroad. Instead he gets all lathered up at the PM stating something that's glaringly obvious to the wider community, that is, there's been way too much emphasis placed on keeping kids at school through the end of year 12.

Dunlop's anger can be attributed in part to the source he uses as the basis for his post:

JOHN Howard has urged young people to consider quitting school in Year 10 to pursue careers in traditional trades as the nation faces a growing shortage of skilled workers.

Dunlop has used a secondary source that has it wrong. The PM did not suggest that anyone should quit school in year 10 to pursue a trade. Rather, the PM specifically stated that students should make a decision in year 10 whether to attempt university entry or opt for a trade. Nowhere does he urge anyone to quit school.

All things considered, it's Dunlop who's insulting and delusional. The almost criminally negligent nonsense is too silly to revisit.

Why must lefties be so shrill?

Update: The ABC also gets it wrong:

The report comes as the Federal Opposition branded Prime Minister John Howard as irresponsible for saying more teenagers should consider leaving school at the end of year 10 to learn trades.

Update: The whole education and training scenario is a very complicated one, which Tim Dunlop obviously knows little about. I say this as the father of two young men, one who has completed a traineeship, the other just completing an apprenticeship. Almost any student who does quit school at the end of year 10 looking to enter a trade won't be successful and will either end up back at school or enrolled in a TAFE high school course. Sure there are exceptions to this, in instances where family connections help secure employment or an apprenticeship, for example. But, for pratical purposes, kids don't quit school at the end of year 10, and won't quit school at the end of year 10 in the future.

Tim Dunlop's the typical academic lefty, he gets himself all worked up on behalf of the downtrodden masses when he wouldn't have a clue. It must be terrible to be so confused.