Obviously the education statistics are pretty damning

I live almost next door to Naenae College. I see and hear it every day.

Time to starve these traitors out.

Hopefully Grant was also appalled by Erin Leigh’s treatment by Labour. Another public servant crucified.

Well apparently, Trevor Mallard from the Liarbore party which Grant apparently vigorously supports has no problem whatsoever with destroying civil servants and then never ever apologising.

I gave Trevor the perfect opportunity.

Sadly, he declined – see the remainder of that thread.

Go Grant. Honourable comrades? You decide.

You are a brave man to say that in public given the mess Labour have left the country in.

It was half an hour, during lunch time, so it was on their own time. Good try at silencing dissent though.

Well good on ‘em then, and I wholeheartedly support their right to do it. I also wholeheartedly support my right as a taxpayer to expect my employees to pursue their private interests on their own time. That’s not silencing dissent (I keep a set of electrodes and a water board for when I want to indulge in that) it’s accountability.

Silencing dissent is… let’s see if I can think of a hypothetical example… more like, say, belting someone in the face with your megaphone.

Why not talk about ten good things that Key and the Govt have done this week? And ways they could be improved. Use your readership and the influence it amounts to to do something positive for the country. Instead of just being a nasty partizan little critic.

Ad-hominem slagging off of the left opposition just makes it seem like you have nothing much good to say about what your own side are doing.

[DPF: Oh God become an unabashed cheerleader for the Government - would rather not. I intend to carry on praising stuff I do like, and criticising stuff (from all sides) I don't like]

If a Public Servant attends a rally, they do it in their own time right? It is unpaid leave because they are not working right?
I do hope they all notify the pay clerk of this time off work. Sure they can go and demonstrate all they like, but not while the Taxpayer payes the wages. They should be working if paid to do so.
”

It was half an hour, during lunch time, so it was on their own time. Good try at silencing dissent though.

The point of this discussion however, was whether it was unusual to DoL to issue blanket advice dissauding officials from attending a minor political event. It is and I think it’s worth asking them why?

Given that you’ve taken the time to list all the National MP’s who have had some sort of public service background (including teaching), how about you balance the ledger with a list of Labour, Green and Progressive MP’s who meet the same criteria. After all, you wouldn’t want people to think thatyou were taking a pro-Labour stance would you?

I can give you three to start with – Grant Robertson, Chris Hipkins and Darren Hughes …

That said, perhaps Labour could have responded differently on Groser, Trevor’s conceded the Setchell matter wasn’t well handled. My point however, remains that the NZ public sector is very professional, that the DoL’s actions are unusual and require some explanation.

Your point is that the public sector are the Labour-borg; it’s kind of a simplistic argument bereft of insight and, I’m guessing, experience.

note the difference?

nah didnt think you would.

He accused Groser of betraying his country

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10126966

even idiot saw this as hypocrisy at the time:

http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2005/05/betrayal.html

Remember this? The headline reads “Government wants diplomat out of job” – then it reads:

The Government will tell the World Trade Organisation it has no confidence in former trade ambassador Tim Groser and does not want him to keep his job as chairman of the agriculture negotiations committee after he quit his diplomat’s post to seek election as a National Party MP.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10127148

Wasnt it Jim Sutton who said that the New Zealand government had lost confidence in him and wanted him withdrawn from Geneva?

Was that the Tim Groser Chairing the agriculture committee and doing a fine job, but who the labour government deliberately sought to undermine their own representative simply out of partisan spite.

Was this the Tim Groser who kept the job because other countries interceded on his behalf and got the labour government to shut up because the negotiations kinda mattered to us all?

Yeah good call Paul, excellent example. Proves my point.

The idea that public servants who are not working on the particular issue are not allowed to go to a demonstration is repugnant. I remind people of the thousands who have demonstrated against Labour government changes in the past.

[DPF: Thanks for that statement re Madeleine]