If the Police Force offered to cover part of a student’s HECS fees in return for X number of years service, I reckon some uni graduates could be enticed.

Like far too many posts on LP you are also too fond of the passive voice. Acceptable to whom?

On point of fact, “is acceptable to xyz” is also using the passive voice. The voice is determined by the “is acceptable” part. Tacking an agent on the end won’t change it.

Almost universally, style manuals suggest using the passive when the active would create the wrong emphasis. In this case, the agent is open-ended – it’s whoever contributes to a deliberation on a blog. It would be quite absurd to emphasise such an agent – eg. “Larvatus Prodeo bloggers accept how much inequality?” Clearly this is pointlessly stating information that is obvious.

I know this and I don’t even have the amazing linguistic higher consciousness that only the multilingual posses.

If you are going to be a narky grammar snot, best you be right.

Australia has plenty of absolute poverty if you care to look for it. Here is an example on malnutrition from a medical paper abstract:

“Malnutrition is very common among Indigenous children living in rural and remote communities. Hospitalisation in rural hospitals is often used to break the cycle of malnutrition and infection, but this intervention has never been evaluated.

Hospitalisation was effective in re-establishing growth and defining organic contributors to malnutrition. This, however, occurred at the expense of the high readmission rate and nosocomial infection. The present study suggests that alternative models to nutritional rehabilitation in addition to a broad psychosocial and public health approach to prevention and management of malnutrition is required.”http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1440-1854.2004.00602.x?cookieSet=1&journalCode=ajr

Since the Commonwealth closed down their dental program, we also have plenty of poor people, including the working poor, with a mouthful of swollen gums and rotten teeth. Thanks Mr Howard.

Absolute poverty for an individual is terrible. Much worse than relative poverty.

I’d just like to argue that even this story actually illustrates the the relativity of poverty, particularly over time. 65 years ago, the richest person on Earth would have died in the same circumstance, as antibiotics didn’t exist. Now most people think that everybody should have access to such basic medical care.

No it doesn’t. What it illustrates is the absurdity of the concept of relative poverty. By your reasoning Louis XIV, the Sun King, notwithstanding the gorgeous surroundings of Versailles, lived in poverty because he didn’t have access to antibiotics.