Despite the extraordinarily generous largesse of the Whorestralian taxpayer subsidising her mature age Mandarin language lessons to the estimated tune of $70,000 (that’s RMB430,000), it appears our investment in Amandarin Vanstone has not borne fruit. The $70,000 could include
… a $3,600 airfare to China for the Senator’s teacher.
New Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews is reported to be deeply concerned by the spending and has demanded an audit into the spending.
Mandarin lessons are cheaper in Shanghai
…where university courses cost around RMB8,000 to RMB12,000 per semester, or hourly lesson rates cost anywhere between RMB40 to RMB200. Even removed from a normal Chinese-speaking environment, you would think that spending that large amount of money allow you to obtain a reasonable degree of knowledge for the language, wouldn’t you? Not so.
Amanda’s viva exposition of her newly acquired skills ‘failed to impress a seasoned Mandarin-speaking businessman when delivering a speech in Mandarin in Canberra last year, with the man describing it as “excruciating”‘.
Kevvie Rudd speaks Mandarin fluently – was Amandarin jealously keen to catch up?
Or did she want to taunt immigrants or detainees in Australia’s immigration detention centres in their own language?
…
Further reading reveals that recently the overspending Senator may have been angling for a plum job representing Australia in China.
Perhaps we should direct our hard earned tax dollars into intelligence and skills aptitude testing for pollies before allowing them to pursue their wilful follies at our expense.
Who wouldn’t like to have been a cashed up Chinese investor this year, rolling in US dollars, eager to drop them into cheap physical resources as the United Stupids economy sags under the weight of precarious hedge and subprime mortage funds and a tenuous bond market? 