Brad orgill biography

Cherie Marriott

August 04, 2005

After 10 years in Asia, Brad Orgill is returning to his Sydney home to become chief executive officer of UBS Investment Bank in Australasia, as well as country head of Australia. He relinquishes his role as head of equities for the region.

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The insidious influence of Catholic schools was a matter of no small concern to the colonial establishment in the late 19th century, not least because of their devilish power to corrupt the youth.

“Large numbers of children are perverted to Popery before their parents are aware of the true character of the teaching,” The Protestant Weekly reported in 1886, arguing that Catholic schools should be barred from government funding. Romanist education was “a false mean deceit” propagating “a religion degrading to the intellect and the heart as its design was simply to extract money”.

Such narrow sectarian prejudice would be deemed inappropriate in the 21st century by the guardians of diversity and inclusion, whose job is to make everybody feel comfortable.

Today, their intolerance extends to all forms of Christian education and, indeed, to any private school that undermines the monopoly of the state system. The Productivity Commission fired a particularly nasty salvo against religious schools, out of character for an organisation that once anchored its findings in data rather than the fashionable preconceptions of the intelligentsia.

In November, the Commission published a draft report recommending that donations to Christian school building funds should no longer be tax-deductible. The draft argued that the Deductible Gift Recipient status granted by the Australian Taxation Office to a wide range of registered charities was inappropriate since religious education had limited claim to a broader public purpose.

The PC argues that DGR donations require co-investment from taxpayers since a $100 donation from someone in the top income bracket saved them $35 in tax. This, the PC argues, is unfair since the priorities for public investment in schools should be decided by the government, not God-bothering tax dodgers.

They were not the exact words the PC used, but how else should we read a passage like this? “The Commission does not se

Prime Minister of Australia (2007–2010; 2013)

For the rugby league player, see Kevin Rudd (rugby league).

Kevin Michael Rudd (born 21 September 1957) is an Australian diplomat and former politician who served as the 26th prime minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010 and June to September 2013. He held office as the leader of the Labor Party and was the member of parliament (MP) for the Queensland division of Griffith from 1998 to 2013. Since 2023, Rudd has been the 23rd ambassador of Australia to the United States.

Born in Nambour, Queensland, Rudd graduated from the Australian National University with honours in Chinese studies, and is fluent in Mandarin. Before politics, he worked as a diplomat and public servant for the Queensland state government of Wayne Goss. Rudd was elected to the Australian House of Representatives at the 1998 federal election, as (MP) for Griffith. Promoted to the shadow cabinet in 2001 as Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, he assumed leadership of the Labor Party in December 2006 by defeating Kim Beazley in a leadership spill, becoming leader of the opposition. Rudd led Labor to a landslide victory at the 2007 election; his government's earliest acts included ratifying the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and delivering the first national apology to Australia's Indigenous peoples for the Stolen Generations. His government responded to the 2007–2008 financial crisis, implementing economic stimulus packages that resulted in Australia becoming one of the only developed countries to avoid the Great Recession. Rudd's government also oversaw the establishment of the National Broadband Network (NBN), the launch of the Digital Education Revolution and Building the Education Revolution programs, dismantling WorkChoices, and withdrew Australian troops from the Iraq War.

By 2010, Rudd's leadership had faltered due to a loss of support among the Labor caucus and failure to pass key legislation like the Carbon Po