‘A year ago, I pronounced this paranoid ‘surplus’-seeking unwise and totally unattainable . I warned that if the Government did not recant this unattainable surplus-fetish, it would be economically damaging and politically disastrous for it when the chickens came home to roost. Well they are home’ commented Associate Professor Norman to B&E last night.

‘Instead of listening at the time, the Gillard Government pronounced such warnings as ‘academic’ and that the surplus for 2012/13 was being delivered ‘come hell or high water’. We now know the story: they dug in for months and in late December 2012 ate buckets of humble pie, admitting they couldn’t do it.  This was damaging to confidence in our leaders and was devastating politically. The welcome decade-view of fiscal numbers hardly undoes the damage: it raises new doubts and questions.’

Where the money comes from and where it goes from the 2013 Federal Budget (click to expand)

Specifically Associate Professor Norman delivered the following verdicts on aspects of the budget.

Economic Parameter forecasts- ‘I have fewer difficulties with these but they’re not the crucial problem anymore. Failing to to be humble about difference-variate forecasts, pronouncing delivery on what were only forecasts, failing to understand the mechanics of tax: these are unforgivable sins’.

Expenditure side – ‘If it wanted to do this responsibly, it should have lifted tax rates, especially GST.  A hoist of the GST rate from 10% to 15% as the Brits commonly do would have been the responsible way to traverse to surplus. Lifting income taxes, which includes the medical levy uplift, just provoke tax escaping.’

Tax side –‘Much of the technical documents are an apology for botching the revenue forecasts and some partial admissions. They are still not fully honest, and even though 3/7 top Judges agreed with a High-Court litigant (Michael McKinnon) that Treasury needed to disclose fiscal drag estimates, they still won’t come clean. A transparent Treasury would give the full taxpayer distribution functions and all technical estimates. They still haven’t. Nor is there a set a full risk-sensitive forecasting approach – sensitivity to parameter variations is only part of what is needed. The mining tax can easily be fixed: kill off the capital-start deduction. Carbon price should either be full to market at all times or drop it. Fix-pricing carbon is dumb.

Super changes – ‘Some of the changes are sensible and roll back the overly-generous Costello super-handout changes to the oldies announced in 2005.’

Business impact – ‘The entire impact of the budget is over-shadowed by the specter of a dying government struggling to explain and crawl out of its own fiscal hole. I don’t want to be political, but the only credible return to surplus will come with a change of government.  And there my fear is that they might do a UK Cameron Government and overdo it!’

Implications for Fiscal 2014/15 etc.  ‘There is now every temptation for Mr Hockey or whoever reads out the 2014 Budget, to slash and burn their way to an immediate surplus: no election in sight, and every chance to prove they can get to surplus quickly. I don’t like all I see here, but I’ve done well at predicting things I don’t like and warning my business friends about them.  Hold on to your hats’

Please note: this information evening does not cover the MBA suite of programs. It covers the following postgraduate degrees:

• Master of Management suite of programs
• Master of International Business
• Specialist Masters in Accounting, Finance, Economics and Actuarial Studies
• Research Higher Degrees

Date and time: Wednesday 22nd May, 6pm – 7.30pm

Location: Lecture Theatre 1, Ground Floor, Alan Gilbert Building, Cnr of Grattan Street and Barry Street, Carlton

Find out more and register now!

The disciplines of accounting and finance have been named as 7^th best in the world while economics and econometrics has risen ten places to 20^th in the 2013 QS World University Rankings.

Commenting the Dean of the Faculty, Professor Paul Kofman stated “this is an outstanding result for our disciplines of Accounting, Finance and Economics. A top QS World University ranking recognises the high quality of our academics, programs, and students by their academic and industry peers worldwide. It provides business and economics at Melbourne with a platform to continue to attract the best and brightest academics and students.”

Overall six subjects at the University of Melbourne were placed in the top ten with education being ranked as third in the world.

Melbourne led Australia in the rankings, coming first nationally in 15 different subjects, and ranked one or two in 23 of the 30 subject areas assessed.

University of Melbourne Provost Professor Margaret Sheil said the results highlighted the university’s international standing across several key strengths.

“The result for education, where we have both leading research and an outstanding teacher training program was particularly pleasing alongside the reaffirmation of the international standing of Melbourne Law School and the outstanding quality of the University’s staff in a range of other fields,” she said.

The QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) World University Rankings is an annual league table of the top 700 universities in the world. They have published the annual subject rankings since 2004.

For the 2013 Rankings by Subject, QS evaluated 2,858 universities and ranked 678 institutions. It analysed 68 million citations and verified the provision of 8,391 programs.

By Richard Gruner, University of Melbourne

A newsworthy event is happening right now. And another, and another — it never ends.

This is vital not just for feeding our 24-hour news cycle and hungry media corporations, but increasingly also for marketers working for all sorts of brands. That’s because every news story has the potential to attract the same people firms wish to reach and talk to, and is therefore an opportunity to be “newsjacked”.

Newsjacking. It means injecting a firm’s ideas or angles into breaking news to generate media coverage for your brand. A prominent example of this is when officials at the London Olympics mixed up the Korean flags, and optometrist Specsavers moved in with their slogan: “Should have gone with Specsavers”.

Bestselling marketing author David Scott explains that these stories do not even have to directly relate to your business. When Kate Winslet was staying with Sir Richard Branson at a private retreat, lightning set their home on fire, and Kate rescued Branson’s elderly mother from the blaze. That’s not only a story that will attract attention and interest, but the London Fire Brigade saw an opportunity here to run a story on their website, offering the actress a chance to train with their firefighters. I don’t think she ever took them up on the offer, but with little or no investment, the fire brigade had unprecedented media exposure and interest in their work. Newsjacking on fire.

Newsjacking should happen in near real-time to be executed well. It demands a fluid, creative team that can go from idea, to concept, to market in less than 48 hours. Of course, social media can accelerate this process. It can take weeks or even months for a print ad to get published, but to inject content on your Facebook fan page only takes a few minutes. And yes, as Simms says, if you do it right it’s an easy way to build consumer affinity, affection and saliency for your brand.

Energy drink brand Red Bull was a step ahead last year when they decided to be the news instead of merely “jacking” it. Red Bull’s space diving project saw skydiver Felix Baumgartner fly about 39 kilometres into the stratosphere over New Mexico and then parachute to Earth, breaking the sound barrier and several other world records.

A lot more is happening, though. Just like news stories break every minute of every day, marketers innovate relentlessly. Researchers at Lancaster University have recently invented software that locates shoppers’ faces and tracks eye movements captured on camera. This technology allows for video screens to change their content depending on what shoppers are looking at in a store or on a screen.

But instead of exploring further where marketing is headed and how innovative emerging marketing techniques work (and how they can easily backfire or, even more likely, have little or no effect at all), let us look at where marketing should be headed.

Yes, brands can be relevant, thrill, amuse, surprise and excite their stakeholders. This is part of a widely discussed shift toward a new logic of marketing, based on intangible resources (instead of a mere exchange of money for goods), relationships, and the co-creation of value. But is there enough “real” co-creation of value happening?

Probably not. Most firms still seem to think that their sole purpose is to make money — the more the better. This narrow view shaped the actions of most firms that focus on their balance sheets and maximising shareholder value. While this view can lead to innovative communication campaigns in an attempt to stand out of the crowd, it leaves little space “for companies to face the fact that they command enormous resources that influence the world for better or worse and that their strategies shape the lives of the employees and consumers on whom they depend”, says Rosabeth Kanter.

Perhaps managers should be more concerned about balancing public interest with financial returns, and a little less about whether or not their strategies capture consumers’ attention and whet their appetite for new products.

I am talking about firms getting out there and making the news, like Red Bull, only in a more meaningful way. Coffee importer Sustainable Harvest, for instance, emphasises transparency and allows consumers to trace their product across the entire supply chain. They are also handing out iPads to their coffee farmers to further improve the traceability and sustainability of their products. This is perhaps not as “sexy” a news story as Red Bull’s excursion into space, but more replicable, meaningful and, incidentally also profitable. (Sustainable Harvest grew more than five-fold over the last years.)

Companies will always have an agenda, but it should go beyond financial concerns. Purely financial concerns can drive firms such as Nestlé to advocate even the privatisation of water. Have a look at this interview if you struggle to believe it. Corporations that make a turnover of US$65 billion dollars and, at the same time, reckon that people have no right to water unless they pay up, is not what consumers are looking for.

Consumers crave firms that act in the public interest. Whether managers support these actions with the latest marketing fad or more traditional means may, at least in the long-term, not matter all that much. And newsjacking — though potentially somersaulting a brand into the collective conscious — is but one of the latest fads in marketing; a fad that likely fails to engender true consumer loyalty.

Richard Gruner does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published at The Conversation.
Read the original article.

Melbourne Business School (MBS) has become the University’s sole graduate school for business and economics. More than 30 graduate programs, including the flagship MBA, are now being marketed under the internationally recognised Melbourne Business School brand.

The collaboration strengthens Melbourne’s reputation as the home of the nation’s most extensive graduate business and economics programs portfolio.

University Vice-Chancellor Professor Glyn Davis, who was appointed to the MBS Limited Board last week, said the agreement was a return to MBS’s origins.

“Melbourne Business School was once the sole provider of graduate education in business and economics at the University, and now it is once more,” Professor Davis said.

“MBS has gone from a very small, influential and powerful school to a much larger school that now has not just a world-class MBA but a Master of Finance, Master of Management and much more.”

Under the alliance, the business community retains a majority ownership of MBS Ltd (55%), with 45% owned by the University.

Professor Paul Kofman will continue as Dean of the Faculty of Business and Economics (FBE). Professor Zeger Degraeve will continue as Dean of Melbourne Business School, and will also become Dean of the Faculty of Business and Economics.

In this Asian century it is crucial for Australia to have a global hub for business and economics education and leadership.

Professor Degraeve said the alliance would allow Australia to compete for a top 25 global business school ranking.

“Graduate business education today demands a global mindset and with the creation of one unified graduate school for business and economics at Melbourne our resources are aligned to face the globally competitive challenges Australia faces in this marketplace,” he said.

Professor Kofman said the deal unlocks the true potential in both organisations while ushering in an exciting future for business and economics education.

“An exciting future that offers true excellence at every level of a business and economics education from undergraduate and graduate to post-experience and executive education has been heralded through this collaboration,” Professor Kofman said.

“For someone thinking of graduate business and economics education in Australia there is now simply only one destination for excellence”

The University of Melbourne announced last year that all graduate programs in business and economics, including the MBA, will be offered through MBS, which in turn becomes the sole graduate school for business and economics at Melbourne.

For new students, MBS means access to a comprehensive, integrated suite of more than 30 management and specialist graduate programs in business and economics under the globally renowned MBS brand.

At the MBS Open Day academics, staff and current graduate students were on hand to explain the diverse offerings at MBS and throughout the morning information sessions were held on various disciplines.

Registrations are essential, please click here for more details and to register.

The study, What’s wrong with the Gonski Report: funding reform and student achievement, found the Gonski Report was “significantly flawed” due to its reliance on the relationship between student achievement and resources as well as assumptions about the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS), the centralisation of school systems, international test rankings and private school financing.

Researchers from the Melbourne Institute at the University of Melbourne and Ben Gurion University, Israel, compared the 2012 Gonski report with international research on education funding and structure.

Co-author of the research, Associate Professor Chris Ryan from the Melbourne Institute said while the Gonski Report declared that additional resources to schools would have a substantial impact on student achievement and improve their performance, additional resources provided to Australian schools in recent decades had not resulted in improved student performance.

“International academic research in economics and education suggests the effect of additional resources on standardized test scores is, at best, small,” he said.

Likewise, Associate Professor Ryan said the SRS used within the Gonski Report to determine the base funding level per student that all schools would receive was inherently flawed.

‘Public education In Australia accounts for only 60 per cent of students in primary and secondary schools, much less that in the United States and most European countries’ – Melbourne Institute Policy Briefs Series

“The approach to determine the SRS did not consider the impact of student background on achievement, and as such can’t guarantee the student achievement targets will be met,” he said.

Other outcomes from the research include:

-  International evidence disputes the notion that a more centralised education system will function more efficiently

-  Discussion over whether the standards and rankings favoured by the OECD are applicable to Australia

-  Debate on whether there can be an objective, professional basis for determining the appropriate level of public funding of private schools.

”The Gonski Report offers many valuable insights for school reform  but considering it is being used to chart Australia’s future course on education, it is imperative that fundamental weaknesses within its assertions about funding are illustrated,” said Associate Professor Ryan.