Talk:John Brumby

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[edit] elite

The only prerequiste for being a student at MGS is money and or contacts. I could accept the word 'exclusive' but the criterion again is money. The 8.30am tram down StKilda road would dispel anyones thought of 'elitism'Eric A. Warbuton 01:35, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

This is utter semantics, Eric. It is "elite" precisely because it is so expensive. Please quit wikistalking Adam. Ambi 02:00, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Excuse me- if any one has been stalking its Mr Carr-he edited me -not the other way around. And further to the question under discussion-its not semantics- what a corrupted meaning of the word 'elite' you insist upon. You only need a certain amount of money to buy entry to the school-its actually quite moderate by international standards- if mere consumption can be termed 'elite' than words are rapidly eroding in meaning and being taken over by ad-land. Ill stick by its full meaning (from the OED)

The choice part or flower (of society, or of any body or class of persons). So Im reverting. Remember consumption (through the so called price differential is not and cannot be described by the word 'elite'Eric A. Warbuton 02:15, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

This is a typically stupid piece of Warbutian nitpicking. One of things that defines and creates an elite is its access to expensive private schools, which inculcate elite values and create elite solidarity among their graduates. In Victoria, Melbourne Grammar, Scotch College and Geelong Grammar were deliberately founded as elite schools and continue to perform that role. Adam 03:02, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

As I said before a trip down StKilda road on the tram at 815am would disabuse any one of the notion of 'elite'. Clearly ANYONE has access to such schools. They may claim to be 'elite' but their students dont appear to be, and take away their uniform and you cant tell the difference fgrom anyone else. If inculcate elite values and create elite solidarity is your new definition of 'elite' then are members of the 'Omar Bin El-Khattab Mosque' 'elite'? What about the South Upwey girls soccer club? Its news to me? By your defintion anything can be described as 'elite' the word has lost almost any useful meaning and has become dumb cliche-much like the pointlsee use of the word 'modern'.Eric A. Warbuton 03:20, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm afraid I can't compete with arguments of this level of fatuosity. Adam 05:04, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I wonder if I should put the above quote from Eric on Wikipedia:Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense. Ambi 05:30, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Looking at the page history, you fellas (and lady) are looking likely to run afoul of 3RR if you keep it up. Actually, Eric's already violated it, but that was a day and a half ago, so not worth worrying about. Perhaps in future – if'n you don't mind me poking my nose in – you should just find another admin to protect the page until things can be sorted out?

(By the way, what's wrong with "exclusive" as a compromise term?) --fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 15:19, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

It's a minor point, but what I'm objecting to is making these silly edits for the sake of it; instead of trying to contribute legitimately, Eric has a history of running around making silly edits to annoy people and then acting like he'd just written the Magna Carta. Ambi 00:21, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Exclusive

Currently reads:

Brumby was born in Melbourne and educated at the exclusive Melbourne Grammar School and at Melbourne University

This seems reasonable to me. --Tony SidawayTalk 03:48, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Well its much better than 'elite' so Im content- but it begs the question (as I mentioned above) what does 'exclusive' really mean in this context? -MGS excludes people on the basis of price? Whats the point of mentioning that? Eric A. Warbuton 04:29, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I hate to be difficult, but "exclusive" and "elite" mean two different things. An exclusive school is one that only admits certain categories of students - Melbourne High is an exclusive school, because it is academically selective. Yeshiva College is an exclusive school, because you have to be Jewish to go there. Grammar and Scotch are elite schools - they were founded for the explicit purpose of training an elite. They are exclusive only in the sense that they charge high fees. The point of an elite school is not what you are when you enter, but what you are when you leave - a member of the elite. Attendence at an elite school confers elite status, which is why the aspirationals pay the high fees. How the Grammar brats behave on the tram has nothing to do with it. Adam 05:16, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes what you say is true. Up to a point. Such schools claim to be 'elite' or produce an 'elite' but, in reality, I assert, they dont. Its only a subjective belief of theirs. I use my, albeit limited, observations of the last 30 years. I can also invite you to be at Camberwell Junction at say 830am on a weekday morning -a sobering experience. Such schools are demonstrably 'exclusive' but not objectively 'elite' to use the Carrite model.(Please see the OED defs.)Eric A. Warbuton 05:32, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] some objectivity issues with this article

Currently reads:

In 1996 John Brumby, with the overwhelming support of the Melbourne Community, opposed the Kennett State Government's proposed relocation of the State Museum to Carlton Garden's site adjacent to the Royal Exhibition Building.

If with the overwhelming support of the Melbourne Community can't be referenced it should be removed.

Currently reads:

Steve Bracks, having won the state election called by Kennett in September 1999,appointed John Brumby as Minister for Finance, Assistant Treasurer and Minister for State and Regional Development, forming part of the successful leadership team of senior ministers with Bracks, Deputy Premier John Thwaites and Attorney-General Rob Hulls.

successful is either a subjective judgement here, or redundant since at this point it could only explicitly refer to success at the election.

Currently reads:

Since 2000 John Brumby has presided over a period of increasing growth and prosperity in Victoria, and his economic management was given some of the credit, along with the personal popularity of Bracks, for Labor's landslide re-election in 2002.
One of John Brumby's most successful policies was to promise that a Labor Government would maintain a surplus budget.
John Brumby has been accredit with the success of Labor's term in office for providing sound and responsible management .

Each of these three sentences make claims about the success of economic policies, either economically or electorally. Given the contentious nature of political claims about economic management, these should be referenced to demonstrate their objectivity, or at least qualified by whose opinion it is, or removed.

I'm seconding the "objectivity" issue here - sounds very much like a motivating political speech about his succession as Premier which will be announced at any time now. --T3Smile 14:09, 27 July 2007 (UTC) T3Smile (talk • contribs • logs) and Rdpaperclip (talk • contribs • logs) - Blocked as sockpuppets. See SSP Achidiac -- Jreferee t/c 15:56, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
And me - a number of sentences that sound party-speakish, rather than biographical. I suspect this article should be marked for NPOV? Natebailey 04:17, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Issues were easily corrected. Please contribute to Wikipedia. If you feel that an article needs to be changed to be meet NPOV standards, please do. - Cyborg Ninja 07:13, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Portrait

Seeing as how he is likely to be the next Premier of Victoria, this article is going to be in need of a good, politically neutral portrait of Mr Brumby. This should be put on the to do list of this article. Doktor Waterhouse 05:15, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

An image of Brumby is going to be hard to get unless someone is willing to go track him down with a camera. If anyone is free tomorrow, this could be a really good chance - with his succession to the premiership, there's probably going to be a few public appearances. As for the article, I'm thinking of giving it a very substantial reworking tonight. Rebecca 07:41, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
I think there might be some copyright issues involved with such a tactic. I believe that the approach used by other articles of this nature have simply written to the politicians office and requested a photograph be uploaded and be authorized for usage.Doktor Waterhouse 12:56, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
How can there be copyright issues with someone taking a photo of the guy and uploading it under creative commons license? WikiTownsvillian 13:07, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
Privacy issues, copyright over the use of a persons image? I'm just throwing these out there.Doktor Waterhouse 14:25, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
Nope. He's a public figure, and the copyright in such cases belongs with the photographer. This is usually the best way of getting images of politicians - trying to get a free image out of a politician's office is generally not that easy. Rebecca 02:00, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
I would be inclined to get the persons/office permission to use a photo. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a newspaper. I'm sure the Premiers Office would be more than happy to supply you with a nice professional pic. It keeps everybody happy and importantly, keeps the quality of presentation of the article, professional. I saw the pic they used for Bill Gates and it looks terribly tacky, just an example. T --T3Smile 04:10, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
The point is that, per Wikipedia's policy on images, we cannot ask them for their permission to use an image on Wikipedia. We must ask them to either release that image under a free license or release into the public domain. This is very difficult to do (in fact, I'm not sure of once where it's been successfully done on an Australian politician article), which is why we generally have to suffice with images taken by Wikipedians directly. Rebecca 06:30, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This article is poorly referenced

It's surprising how few references there are for the John Brumby article. Considering he's been in the public spotlight for many years. Really, all content added to this article should be clearly referenced. Thanks, Lester 22:22, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I see that one of the only referenced sections, that on the genetically modified crops has been deleted. diff here. Hmmm.--Lester 00:47, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What John Brumby Will Be Remembered For or Achievements and Failures

Some of the biggest achievements of John Brumby and his predecessor Steve Bracks would have to be a huge waste of public funds. Some of the "success" stories would have to be the woeful state of Victoria's traffic network. Public Transport network has suffered delays and unbelievably high expenses just to implement the new ticketing system, so called Myki.[1] Some of the other achievements of John Brumby and former Premier Bracks would have to be the fact that around 10% of total number of Victorian drivers have lost their licences due to huge pressure from the Victorian government to issue speeding fines for even the minor speed limit transgressions. This means that Victoria Police and hundreds of hidden revenue raising cameras issue speeding tickets for speeding below the +10% ADR defined speedometer accuracy limits. This greedy money grab by the Brumby state government ensures that the Victorian State Government expects the speeding ticket revenue to amount to a massive AUD$1500 million over the next 2 years. [2] [3] ] John Brumby and his Ministers have also implemented a so called tough new so called "anti-hoon" laws.[4] This is a politically driven decision to appease hundreds of worried citizens that have noticed that Brumby and the Victorian state governemnt has not done a thing to improve the roads around the state.


'Why should a biography only reflect the rosy side of John Brumby's actions. If you read a biography of Hitler I'm pretty sure you would not just see him portraid as a funny, beer drinking german that loved walking his dogs through the bavarian countryside. This biography is a joke since some actions that John Brumby has authorised impact millions of people, and they need to be stated. Some more recent ones would have to be dredging, 2AM lockouts, awful state of the state's traffic network caused by the Brumby and Bracks inaction for almost 10 years. Should I continue, talking about water desal that will cost all Victorians billions of dollars, and that will be built by a foreign company, and run by foreign company. These things need to be clearly stated in the bio or otherwise this is just a crap of politically convenient truths, and the rest is all swept under the carpet.' —Preceding unsigned comment added by Blackspurboys (talk • contribs)

It's written like a point of view which goes against the WP:NPOV policy and also it's a bio so you must follow WP:BIO. Bidgee (talk) 08:26, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Some objective criticism that is verifiable and referenced by reliable sources would be a good thing. The reason that Blackspurboys' edits have been reverted is that they use unencyclopedic, inflammatory, emotional language that violates Wikipedia's policy on neutral point of view. There may also be some issues with undue weight, but really, one needs to overcome the neutrality hurdle before we can even have a sensible conversation about whether these specific issues warrant coverage in this particular article. Debate 木 12:17, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Per the above. Also, this is a biography on Brumby, not the Victorian Labor Party. Timeshift (talk) 22:21, 3 June 2008 (UTC)