The Bureaucratic Nightmare at the University of Sydney

Don't be fooled. This is a portal to hell.

Call centres, waits to get through, queues, byzantine rules, very little appeals process and no hope of actually speaking to a real person, certainly not a person who can solve your issue. Centrelink? No, it's Australia's oldest and most venerable institute of higher learning, the University of Sydney. 

The University of Sydney has gleefully embraced the centralised customer service and efficiency plague which has swept across public agencies worldwide. The university no longer sees us as students, but as clients. In the media, students with queries and appeals actually get to go speak to someone in charge of their faculty. No such luxuries at the University of Sydney. All student enquiries are now directed through a central student enquiries centre, where you take a number relating to your enquiry and wait for it to flash on the overhead screens - they use the same exact numbering system as Service NSW (RTA), right down to the weird noises, which left me with a knot of recognition in the pit of my stomach as if I was going to have to sit my driving test again.

Anyway, once you finally get to talk someone - when I was last there, three weeks before semester started, the wait time to see a customer service officer was forty minutes - you're speaking with a very nice and well meaning (well, the person I spoke to was) but seriously overworked and more critically, generalist member of staff. who can help out with things like Opal card applications but for academic matters like credit applications and special consideration, simply can't have the specialised knowledge of courses needed to provide specific information. 

So isn't that the kind of thing you're supposed to be talking to your faculty about? Well, no - you're not allowed to talk to your faculty any more. (I asked, and was told they're not allowed to refer students to their faculties). The university last year reduced the number of faculties from 16 to six and have gone even further with the cost cutting by removing the administration departments, funnelling all the students through the centralised service centre. (In fact, the cost cutting has extended so far that the University's web site hasn't been updated to reflect the change, still listing the original 16 faculties). 

With the loss of specialised staff and services of course comes an end to rational processes and decision making. Staff and faculties are no longer allowed to use logic, nuance or best judgement when making decisions on matters from credit transfers through to students experiencing illness or bereavement; every decision must be funnelled through central bureaucracy, with university rules strictly applied (you had to fly overseas to attend your brother's funeral? You'd better have that essay in the day you return! You were away for five days so five days' extension is all you're going to get). 

But whilst all this is going on, the university has been embarking on a massive building program. Far from being short of cash, the uni is splashing out on fancy new facilities but not actually employing staff to put in them. The focus is on attracting investment and new overseas students; the uni's existing students are like flies at a picnic - an annoying side effect of running a university, not the core business of university itself. (And the administration woes are only the start. Arrive at either of the main campus libraries after 9am and you'll end up sitting on the floor; there are so few desks to meet the needs of the student body). 

The university paid $1.4 million last year to its Vice Chancellor, Michael Spence, so he could read about Centrelink's service woes and think to himself "that's nothing, have a look at what we can do here.". One imagines they're working on getting things so centralised they can do away with having to provide for undergraduate students altogether. It's all very Weberian - if only I was allowed to talk to someone who knows what that means.

If you've had a similar experience you'd like to share, please leave a comment on the form below. 

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Measles isn't the Brady Bunch

Anti vaxxers have been citing an episode of The Brady Bunch as supposed proof that measles vaccination is unnecessary. In the Season One episode "Is There a Doctor In the House?", all six Brady kids come down with the measles, suffer no worse than raised temperatures and spots, and have a joyous time staying home from school to play board games and never go to the toilet.  Anti vaxxers cite this as proof that measles was just a normal childhood illness until vaccination came along and ruined the whole party. 

However inconsequential a bout of measles was to childhood memories or sitcom scriptwriters of the 1960s, if you want to know how horrid measles can really be, read on about a measles infecting all five children of the last Tsar of Russia. They were in their teens and twenties, well nourished without any processed foods or pesticides - and they nearly died. Yes, it was over a century ago but the scary thing is, we don't have any better treatments for viruses today - only prevention. Vaccination.

Despite what Hollywood says, measles isn't that much fun

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Pauline Hanson, Proud Australian Parasite

A couple of months back, I wrote a blog post about how the Australian alt-right, in their rush to venerate Trump, were betraying the Australians lost on MH-17, shot down with who-knows-what involvement by Trump's Dear Friend Putin, who refuses to allow proper investigation of the massacre. What did he do? What does he know?

So I thought that was as far as they could sink. I am of course wrong.

 Pauline Hanson, arguably a figurehead of the Australian racist right, has come out in support of Vladimir Putin, a "strong leader", whose homophobic, racist, anti-dissident policies are presumably just what she wants for Australia.

And what of MH-17? The plane that was shot down by Russian missiles. Big missiles. Not the sort left lying around. Not the sort you can have a casual go at. The sort of high grade military equipment that is heavily guarded, requires extensive training to use. The sort of missiles a group of rogue fighters couldn't just help themselves to and try out. The sort of equipment and training that must have come, with permission from high up the chain of command, from the Russian army,

The 298 lives lost by a shot-down that if Putin didn't know about then, he certainly knows about now. The lives that Putin won't justify by allowing the perpetrators to be brought to justice.

Well, says Pauline Hanson. Not such a big deal. So what if Putin orchestrated and/or is covering up for the murder of hundreds of innocent people? "Everyone has done something". Everyone has done something bad, come on, we need to look at the big picture here, not the slaughtered civilians, blasted from the sky, lying in fields of sunflowers.

38 of them were Australians.

Pauline Hanson is absolutely disgusting. All Muslims must be barred because terrorism, but 298 innocent people slaughtered by Russians "whoopsie, who amongst us hasn't?". If Hanson really cared about Australians she'd be the loudest voice demanding justice. It's not about protecting Australians, it's about her having a cushy well paid platform for her racism and 38 dead Australians are just an inconvenient side effect. I couldn't hate her more right now.

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Celebrating Australia's Break Up With America

You can love someone for so long. Be there to support them through thick and thin. Maybe you weren't always so close. Maybe you knew they didn't think about you nearly as much as you thought about them. But you were, you know, a partnership; you knew it, the world knew it, and you knew they'd always have your back. We were the wind beneath their wings, the Garfunkel to their Simon, the Buzz Aldrin to their Neil Armstrong, the Marge to their Homer.

And then they let you down, in an unimaginably public and humiliating way. They invite the person they'd been having an affair with to your dinner party, and you realise everyone knew. They gamble away your entire savings, and you don't realise until the sheriff arrives to repossess your house. Or maybe, in what was always going to be basically a public phone call to reestablish and strengthen your bond, they crack the shits at you and hang up.

Now, you can sob and eat a tonne of ice cream then lawyer up, delete Facebook and hit the gym. Or you could celebrate a blessing in a very thin disguise of fake tan and atrocious hair transplant.

Australia, it's tine! We've broken up with America, and we should be absolutely delighted about it.  

The long overdue split came today, with the bombshell report that in a call between new "President" Donald Trump and long-suffering* PM Malcolm Turnbull, Trump went off like a frog in a sock about the agreement that America will take 1,250 refugees currently in Australian custody reached between Turnbull and former President Obama. A furious Trump declared it the worst deal ever, accused Australia of trying to import the next Boston bombers, fumed that this was his worst call of the day - by far! - and ended the expected hour long call after 25 minutes by hanging up on Turnbull in a fit of pique.

There's two astonishing aspects to this. Firstly, it's plainly obvious that Trump had no idea about the refugee deal before Turnbull informed during the phone call:

So who the hell is supposed to be briefing this guy? Does he not do any background or preparation before important calls (or anything else)?

But from our point of view, what the hell is Trump doing kicking America's most loyal and devoted sidekick like this? Trump carrying on with this much lack of respect, anger, disregard for diplomacy?  For Trump doesn't see any of this in terms of the long standing US Australia relationship. He simply views it through the lens of, what is the best deal for me? (And yet more proof he is unfit to be President. even if he was a great businessman, which he wasn't; running a country is not the same as running your own corporation). "I can't stand Turnbull, but fuck Trump for speaking to him like this", is the common refrain. By insulting Turnbull, Trump has by proxy insulted all of Australia.

The alt-right, however, are already circling the wagons. It's amazing how fast these "patriots" will turn on their own country. It's astonishing enough that the American alt-right is just fine with foreign interference in their election (and a president thus beholden to a foreign power), if it helped their guy win. But it's worse here; those fine Australian patriots of the right are actually saying that Trump is right, that Australia is humiliated, that Turnbull should step down because he has lost the respect of the US President.

 The far right imagines that somehow, a Trump presidency will be great for Australia. How? By giving politicians here the motivation to copy his draconian policies? Can we not be authoritarian shit heads who ignore the rule of law and the traditions of democracy and freedom on our own?

But this is exactly where they're wrong, and exactly why the break up with America couldn't have come at a better time for us. Because a Trump presidency could well be an unprecedented disaster for Australia, and the world. Our biggest concern is for our relationship with China - our biggest trading partner. If some form of a new cold war breaks out between China and America, how are we  going to fare if we're still suction-glued to America? That's being optimistic.

Imagine Trump losing his shit over some perceived slight by Xi Jinping, deciding no one talks to him like that, and sending American naval ships to the South China Sea? If you're terrified by the thought of Hilux riding hooligans wreaking havoc in Homs, just imagine an actual war between the world's superpowers, our largest trading partner and our closest ally in our corner of the world. And to put it in terms that will really terrify the right, just think of those beautiful ships full of life-giving, humanity-improving, job-creating, not-at-all-planet-destroying coal. If there was a war between America and China, those poor ships wouldn't be able to get through shipping lanes to Asia, and China wouldn't take our coal if we were allied with America anyway. Poor sad coal, stuck in Australia and not able to go out in the world and make everything better!

So it's time for Turnbull to stand up for Australia (stop sniggering), and say that we are not beholden to the past and those who would take us for granted, and in this time of changing international circumstances, it is time for Australia to look towards Asia as our neighbours and friends to establish even closer ties in the region.

And don't even think about getting a new kitten or any tattoos. Okay, maybe the kitten.

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