Kiwiblog

Maybe it is clearer why the unions are so against implementing the national standards in literacy and numeracy. I recommend people read the ERO report out today. Some extracts:

In contrast, the remaining 30 percent of teachers had little or no sense of how critical it was for children to develop confidence and independence in early reading and writing. These teachers had minimal understanding of effective reading and writing teaching, set inappropriately low expectations and did not seek opportunities to extend their own confidence in using a wider range of teaching practices. In these classrooms learning opportunities to motivate, engage or extend children were limited.

30% is a minority, but it is a significant minority of teachers.

Although many classroom teachers used assessment information well, school leaders were less clear about how they should use data to set and monitor appropriate reading and writing achievement expectations for children in Years 1 and 2. It is of concern that only about a quarter of school leaders set expectations that strongly promoted high levels of reading and writing achievement for children in their first two years. Furthermore, in nearly two-thirds of schools, leaders used limited or poor processes to monitor the progress and achievement of these young children.

And now this is a majority, not a minority.

The NZ education system performs well on average. But the 20% it does not serve well, are amongst the worst in the OECD.

Go beat that,

Today’s editorial:

If Steven Joyce does nothing else as transport minister, he has ensured himself the grateful thanks of Wellingtonians.

I have to say that the response on the street has been overwhelmingly positive. I think most people had given up on it ever actually getting funding.

Yesterday’s green lighting of Transmission Gully as part of a $2.1 billion to $2.4b upgrade of the main road north is a godsend for the Wellington region. All going to plan, the capital will, in 10 years, be linked to all points north by a four-lane expressway stretching from Wellington Airport to Levin. Vehicles will be able to move in and out of the capital with a minimum of fuss and bother. The benefits will be enjoyed not just by motorists but by businesses that will be able to get their goods to market faster.

And having fewer cars stuck in traffic jams will mean less emissions!

The last government undertook to contribute several hundred million dollars towards the cost of upgrading the road north, but never came up with enough money to get the project under way. The difference between it and its successor is that this Government has decided to invest nearly $11 billion in new state highway infrastructure in the next 10 years to reduce congestion and road deaths and improve productivity. As Mr Joyce noted yesterday: “There is nothing like putting a funding pipeline on the table and saying to people `knock yourselves out’.” There is also, it appears, nothing like a minister who earned his spurs in the business world rather than making paperclip chains on Parliament’s back benches. Mr Joyce has injected a sense of urgency into his portfolio.

The last Govt did start moving in the right direction, but as the Dom Post says, Steven has brought his business experience to the portfolio, and has made some relatively quick decisions on the important priorities.

MEMORANDUM

TO: Parliamentary Staff (especially Labour)

FROM: Press Gallery Executive

SUBJECT: Press Gallery Party tonight

DATE: 16 December 2009

To avoid any of the problems we had last year, parliamentary staff are alerted to the following:

1. Please do not steal any wine until after the party has finished
2. If you do steal any wine, please take the cheap stuff that the MPs like, and leave the finer vintages behind for the gallery
3. Note that we have micro-chipped all the beer
4. Taking a bottle of wine as you leave, to drink as you stumble your way home, is fine – setting up a trafficking operation to move three dozen bottles to your car is not.
5. We are placing gallery life member Richard Long on security for the wine. Think of the analogy about getting between a mother bear and her cubs and proceed at your own risk!
6. Simon Power has agreed to a law change removing legal aid eligibility for anyone caught pinching the wine

We hope you enjoy yourselves tonight.

Jane, Vernon & Ian.

The moment there is a small upturn in the economy, Labour is already pushing for a splurge o Government spending. This is reckless, and fiscal restraint is needed for not just a year or two, but probably a decade. Brian Fallow explains:

The net effect of a reduced tax take and much higher public spending will have given a boost roughly equivalent to 6 per cent of gross domestic product over the two years to June next year.

That was entirely appropriate.

But the recession’s legacy of a shrunken tax base, a string of deficits and mounting debt servicing costs will cast a dark and cold shadow over next year’s Budget. …

It will be 2016, if we are lucky, before surpluses return, and every year in the red adds to the public debt burden.

It is a recipe for interest costs to eat up more and more of the future tax dollar, well before the echo of the baby boom sends health and superannuation costs through the roof. It is not sustainable.

Spending needs to be restrained, and to shrink as a proportion of the economy.

Fran O’Sullivan writes:

It doesn’t want to “rip the guts” out of the Government’s expenditure line. But if the Government holds new Budget spending to a constant $1.1 billion increase each year, over time this will have the effect of pulling Government spending back down towards 30 per cent of GDP and, in Key’s words, “force change through the system”.

This is around half the new spending that Labour had, and keeping spending increases to this level for more than a couple of years will be pretty bloody difficult. But we do need to get Government spending down to under 30% of GDP.

And Colin Espiner reports:

The Government remained committed to a new spending limit of $1.1b and was investigating a total spending cap, English said.

Total Crown spending is expected to reach $65b this year and rise by about $3b each year.

“Demand-driven” expenditure such as health and education, benefits, superannuation and KiwiSaver payments are not currently included in the Government’s sinking lid on public spending.

Under a total cap, any increases in expenditure would have to be offset by cuts in other areas or approved by the Cabinet. English said he was looking at “better and more coherent methods of knowing where spending is occurring and what the alternatives are”.

The Netherlands and Sweden had spending caps, he said. “We’ll be talking more about that in Budget 2010.”

I think the Fiscal Responsibility Act should be amended so that the Government has to set a target (like it does for CPI for the Reserve Bank) for spending as a percentage of GDP and for what level of surplus is desired. This would require political parties to be more transparent about what they propose. If Labour wants to spend an extra $6 billion a year, then they’ll have to be open about it, and let people see the consequences.

NZPA report:

An Invercargill woman flashing her breasts at motorists distracted one driver so much he ran her over.

Cherelle May Dudfield, 18, admitted disorderly behaviour when she appeared in Invercargill District Court yesterday, the Southland Times reported.

Dudfield was egged on by her friends to flash her breasts at passing motorists while in the middle of the road on September 27, but the fun went awry when one of the vehicles crashed into her. She rolled over the bonnet, cracking the windscreen but did not suffer any injuries.

Not quite eligible for a Darwin Award, but maybe an honourable mention.

Not that I am entirely against the right of women of flash. But I would suggest that they do it from the side of the road, not the middle!

The Herald reports:

Manukau Mayor Len Brown wants the proposed Super City mayoral campaign spending limit of $580,000 reduced – only weeks after saying he would spend $1 million trying to win the job.

And Brown has already spent lots of money, launching billboards some months ago.

The Government has a notice of motion on the order paper:

3. Hon GERRY BROWNLEE to move, That, pursuant to section 25(1) of the Parliamentary Service Act 2000, this House add the following premises to the parliamentary precincts:

All that part of the mezzanine level of the buildings situated at 1 and 3 The Terrace, Wellington as comprised within Certificates of Title WN41C/804 and WN41C/805, having a net lettable area of 477.2 square metres as more particularly shown on the plan attached to the lease between AMP NZ Office 1 The Terrace Limited and the Parliamentary Corporation, dated 12 August 2009.

Now all we need is an amendment that says:

And all that part of the building situated at 34 Molesworth Street, legally described as Lot 2 DP 318644, having a net area of 493 square metres.

Then MPs can go to the Backbencher without it being regarded as having left the parliamentary precinct (which affects voting in the House).

UPDATE: Sadly the motion has been passed without my Backbencher update, but I can report one amusing exchange passed onto me:

As Gerry was reading it out, Darren Hughes was listening diligently. Gerry reached “having a net lettable area of 477.2 square metres ” and Darren suddenly chirped up with: ”’Aaaah – the member’s pantry.”

Heh.

Don’t really need a drum roll, as people could see the results in the sidebar up until closing, but here goes.

The 2009 Kiwiblog MP of the Year is Lockwood Smith. Lockwood was always a hot favourite with rave reviews from the gallery and others for his efforts to make question time more relevant, and opening up MPs expenses to public scrutiny. Lockwood won 49% of the vote.  Police and Corrections Minister was 2nd on 22%.

The 2009 Kiwiblog National MP of the Year is Steven Joyce. An impressive performance for a first term MP. His swift decision making on much needed national roads of significance has made him the motorists fan, as well as his steady decision making on the fibre to the home project. Steven got 39% of the vote, with Judith Collins in 2nd place on 28%.

Kiwiblog readers voted John Key the 2009 Kiwiblog Labour MP of the Year. Some readers will have voted him the best Labour MP tongue in cheek, while others will be sending a message that they want more right and less centre. The PM got 40% of the vote, with new MP David Shearer in 2dn place on 14%. Were readers giving Shearer esteem for his massive win in the by-election, or because they like his defence privatisation essays?

The 2009 Kiwiblog Minor Party MP of the Year is Tariana Turia. The Maori Party co-leader got 39% of the vote, with John Boscawen on 29%. Turia in the mid 1990s was one of the most polarising figures in NZ politics. It shows how successful her efforts have been, that in 2009 she can win a poll amongst the generally conservative readership to be the Minor Party MP of the Year.

The 2009 Kiwiblog Press Gallery Journalist of the Year is John Armstrong. John won 45%, narrowly pipping out Jane Clifton on 39%.  Note this is the public poll of Kiwiblog readers. A separate poll of MPs and Press Secretaries on the press gallery will be published on Thursday or Friday. John is probably the most cited journalist online – not because people always agree with him, but because he provides analysis (not just reporting) almost every day.

Finally we have the 2009 Kiwiblog Public Servant of the Year and it is a tribute to Dame Margaret Bazley who got 48% of the vote, with Don Brash in second place at 38%. Lawyers have never been the most popular species, and the average pundit enjoyed her expose of the legal aid problems.

Note that despite me telling people not to do it, one Xtra user tried voting around 80 times in most categories. These show up in the logs like a flashing light, and those votes were deleted.

The Ministry of Justice has just released to me (thanks to the officials) under the OIA the background papers on electoral finance proposals to date. Still working my way through them, but one stands out as interesting.

It is a paper from the Parliamentary Service dated 2 September 2009 on aligning the definitions of what is election advertising for both parliamentary and Electoral Act purposes.

It reveals that the Parliamentary Service proposes that the standard definition of explicit electioneering (for purpose of being able to use parliamentary funding) will continue to be narrowly defined (the status quo is no explicit solicitation of votes, money or members) but that during the regulated period this will change to a broader persuasive definition.

This is a very good move, as it would not allow pledge cards and the like to be funded during the regulated period. In fact it would prevent parliamentary funding (during the regulated period) any publications that might be seen to persuade someone to support a party.

This is in the fact the position I have long advocated. It would be too restrictive to have the broader definition through the entire three year electoral cycle (it would be unworkable and probably ban MPs newsletters) but once you get close to an election, then any material which is persuasive would not be allowed.

Now this is only the proposal of the Parliamentary Service, and has yet to be adopted by the Parliamentary Service Commission itself. Hopefully they will do so.

If the regulated period is set to start 1 August in election year, it would mean the status quo applies up until 1 August 2011, but after 1 August 2011 the Parliamentary Service could refuse to approve funding for any material that is seen to be persuading people to support a party. This will limit a party’s ability to use taxpayer money to find their election campaigns.

Finally after 60 years of dithering, we have a final decision to proceed with Transmission Gully. Steven Joyce says:

Once complete, the upgraded route from Wellington Airport to Levin is expected to deliver travel time savings of between 23 and 33 minutes during peak times and between 17 and 23 minutes during the day.

Following the 2008 election the Minister said he was not prepared to support funding for the proposal until he had seen a thorough assessment of Transmission Gully alongside the alternative Coastal Route.

Mr Joyce says Transmission Gully has been debated for decades but this is the first time a decision has come with the plan and the funding track to see it through.

If only this decision could have been made a couple of decades ago, when it would have been much cheaper. But better late than never and most Wellingtonians will be very pleased that Steven Joyce and the NZTA has made this decision.

Joyce also announced that his is part of a four lane expressway planned from Wellington Airport to Levin. Yay.  Thi will include duplication of the Mt Vic and Terrace tunnels.

Finally, the route through Kapiti has also been announced, and it is basically along the existing Western Link designation – but four lanes instead of two. The current SH1 will become a local road.

There is finally a long-term co-ordinated plan for greater Wellington region. Again, this will be very popular with everyone but Sue Kedgley.

Three editorials on this topic today – all agreeing. First the NZ Herald:

Mrs Tolley is surely right to suggest the unions’ arguments are now purely philosophical. This has underpinned their resistance from the start. It has endured despite the Government concessions and despite the public support for national standards. It is the only reasonable explanation for the dragging of feet and the increasingly radical demeanour.

The Schools Trustees Association has made clear its distaste for the letter from the unions trying to influence boards. It is, it says, irresponsible and unprofessional to incite boards to act as principals’ mouthpieces. Any that succumbed would have forgotten their duty to parents.

Similarly, teachers have a responsibility to heed the policy of a democratically elected government. That is a lesson they, and their unions, seem to have yet to learn.

The Herald also reminds us that the date for reporting to Government on performance has been delayed until 2012. There has been loads of compromise already.

The Dom Post says:

A government is entitled – nay, is obliged – to enact policy on which it went to the country and which voters tacitly endorsed when they chose it to take over the Treasury benches.

Yet school teachers and principals seem hellbent on undermining what Education Minister Anne Tolley, strongly backed by Prime Minister John Key and Finance Minister Bill English, told New Zealanders last year the Government wanted to enact – national standards at primary school. For months, the primary teachers’ union, the NZEI, and the Principals Federation have joined forces to try to derail Mrs Tolley’s plans. She refuses to budge.

Now the NZEI is preparing members to strike over the issue, though they can’t do so without penalty until their employment contracts expire in July. Such action would be outrageous. …

Agree with the Government’s education policy or not – and this newspaper happens to believe that parents should be able to get plain-English reports about their children’s progress, and that the wider community, which funds state schools, should be able to tell which among them are best equipping young citizens for life – Mrs Tolley must be allowed to enact the policy on which National campaigned.

Teachers obviously need reminding that it is a government’s prerogative – not a trade union’s – to determine education policy. Mrs Tolley – admirably – wants to stop one in five children who leave school poorly equipped for tomorrow. Teachers are behaving like the worst of their pupils who can’t get their own way. They should grow up.

As I have said, the NZEI could become the equivalent of Mrs Thatcher’s miners union. They will not have a lot of support for their actions.

Finally the ODT:

It is untenable that the democratically-elected Government of the country be held to ransom by elements in the education system intent of sabotaging a well-flagged national standards policy.

As Education Minister Anne Tolley has repeatedly pointed out – indeed it has become something of a mantra – the National Party campaigned conspicuously on addressing the distressing and unacceptably long “tail” of pupils failing to achieve even basic literacy and numeracy standards in our primary schools, and received the mandate to do something about it in the last election.

I said back in January 2009 when the decision was made, that I think allowing a Maori flag to fly on the Auckland Harbour Bridge on Waitangi Day was more than fine with me, noting that at various times all sorts of flags have flown there – even the EU flag I think.

On the day to commemorate an agreement between the Crown (now the Govt of NZ) and Maori, I think it is entirely appropriate to have a Maori flag fly one day a year.

I also think over time it will be seen as totally uncontroversial, and in fact will remove some of the divisiveness associated with the Tino Rangatiratanga flag.

But in the short term, I have no doubt there will be a backlash. Interestingly there was none when the decision in principle was  made in January, but things have changed, and listening to talkback last night was a painful experience. A lot of the anger is at the PM personally. Mind you I don’t listen to talkback much, so this might be the normal state of affairs

I now have a copy of the full TV3 poll results, and have blogged them at curiablog.

This Blunt cartoon is in line with most of the media analysis.

However while the poll certainly shows movements of some significance, I think most of the commentary has been somewhat over-excited – especially tying it to the nationhood speech. The poll is more about a drop in support for National and John Key (and over two months) than a payoff from the nationhood speech for Phil Goff. A few things to look at:

1. The 24.4% gap between National and Labour is greater than the November One News poll and the mid and late November Morgan polls. TV3′s last poll was in mid October so the comparison is over a two month period.
2. The previous gap of 60% to 27% was unlikely to remain – you can only go down from there.
3. Goff as Preferred PM at 8.0% is still below the 9.1% he got in April 2009
4. Goff’s net approval rating has actually dropped from -3.7% to -8.4%
5. Of the eight leadership characteristics they ask about, Goff dropped on three, stayed the same on two and increased on three

Now this doesn’t mean it was good news for National. The poll is not so much about Labour or Goff going up – it was about National and Key dropping over the last two months (not last two weeks). Changes for Key are:

1. Down 5.8% as Preferred PM
2. Down 9.4% those saying Key doing a good job (but still high at 73%)

This reflects I think the unpopularity (on both the left and right) of elements of the ETS, and coverage of other unpopular issues (perks, Hone Harawira saga).

So again while the poll does show some significant movement, most of the media are analysing it wrongly in showing a “pay off” for Phil Goff for his nationhood speech. The poll is quite consistent with the mid to late November polls in other media, and the two month gap makes it unsafe to tie to one more recent event.

This graph puts the polls in context. This TV3 poll was in fact better than the three previous polls in November, so the average gas has increased.

Rural Women New Zealand have alerted me to the strange cast of the Road Safety Trust – an organisation funded by a crown monopoly that declined every grant application it received this year.

This quango is funded out of the sale of personalised plates. According to the 2007/08 annual report it made a $2.2 million  surplus that year. They budgeted $2.33 million of grants and paid out just $150,000. And this year they have approved none it seems.

Radio NZ reports:

The independent trust is funded by a portion of profits from the sale of personalised plates and one of its aims is to hand out money for community safety initiatives.

The trust has been spending money on its own national campaign to reduce driver distraction and has rejected 14 applications from community groups for the year to June because they did not meet its criteria.

Among those rejected were the organisations Rural Women and Safekids.

Rural Women asked for money to create signs to remind drivers of the speed limit when passing school buses.

So we have this quango deciding to fund its own campaigns (which seem to mirror existing NZTA campaigns) and declining every community group’s application as not being innovative enough.

The campaign to remind drivers to slow down passing school buses seems very laudable. According to Rural Women NZ a pilot on SH58 has seen an average speed drop from 90 – 100 km/hr to 20 – 40 km/hr.

The Minister has said he will look into the trust. I think that would be an excellent idea. They are privileged to receive money from a state monopoly – personalised plates. And the purpose of the funding is not to empire build with massive reserves, or running solely their own advertising campaigns. If your criteria are so restrictive that not a single group can manage to qualify, that suggests there is a problem.

UPDATE: A reader has located where some of the money goes. The Road Safety Trust is an “Official Partner of both the Air New Zealand Cup Referees and Heartland Championship Referees for the 2009 season”.

That’s much better than getting cars to slow down for school buses!

UPDATE2:

Now I understand what they mean by restricting funding to innovative campaigns. Because no one has ever thought that you can reduce the road toll by sticking a meaningless slogan on a rugby referee’s shirt, they decided to innovate and try that to see what happens.

While billboards telling people to slow down for school buses doesn’t meet that all important innovation criteria.

The Associated Press has had five staff go through all 1,073 stolen e-mails. Their conclusion is:

Emails stolen from climate scientists show they stonewalled sceptics and discussed hiding data – but the messages don’t support claims that the science of global warming was faked, according to an exhaustive review by Associated Press.

I don’t think there was a global conspiracy on climate change, any more than I think there was a conspiracy around the 9/11 attacks.

However enough was revealed in the e-mails, to ring some warning bells that some leading scientists have acted improperly. Some extracts from the lengthy article:

The scientists were so convinced by their own science and so driven by a cause “that unless you’re with them, you’re against them”, said Mark Frankel, director of scientific freedom, responsibility and law at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He also reviewed the communications.

Frankel saw “no evidence of falsification or fabrication of data, although concerns could be raised about some instances of very ‘generous interpretations’.”

My worry is that there is now a mindset where only data that fits the thesis is considered.

One of the most disturbing elements suggests an effort to avoid sharing scientific data with critics sceptical of global warming. It is not clear if any data were destroyed; two United States researchers denied it. The emails show that several mainstream scientists repeatedly suggested keeping their research materials away from opponents who sought it under American and British public records law. It raises a science ethics question because free access to data is important so others can repeat experiments as part of the scientific method. The University of East Anglia is investigating the blocking of information requests.

The issue is not just whether data was destroyed, but also whether one can have any confidence in those scientists who proposed it.

When Climate Research published a sceptical study, Mann discussed retribution this way: “Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal.”

That brings in a new meaning of peer-reviewed.

Guido Fawkes blogs on the Irish budget:

• Welfare benefits reduced to 2006 levels, social welfare bill cut by equivalent to 1.5% of public expenditure
• Dole allowance to be reduced to €150 a week
• Social welfare to be cut 4.1%
• Politicians’ pay will be reduced in line with public sector grades
• Public sector pay cut of 5% on first €30,000 salary, 7.5% on the folllowing €40,000 of salary and 10% on next €55,000
• Taoiseach (PM) to have pay cut by further 20% on top of previous 10%
• Permanent pay reduction of 12% for those on over €200,000 in the public sector
• Savings of over €1bn on public sector pay bill

The SST has done an extensive profile of Speaker Lockwood Smith. The beginning:

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS in the snake pit, and somehow Locky remains an innocent. The MP kept smiling his spooky smile through decades of derision and scorn. He began his public life as a fuddy-duddy – should school kids be reading the nasty sex scene on page 96 of The Color Purple? – and threatened to end it as a dork. Smith was appalled at the uproar which greeted his remarks during the election campaign about the small hands of Asian vine-pruners. Gosh, he didn’t mean to upset anyone.

National leader John Key made him say sorry, pencilled him out of cabinet, and in due course sent him to the Speaker’s chair. This is a place where parties put senior MPs they don’t know what to do with. The politician, says a parliamentary insider, was “dead and buried”. But Alexander Lockwood Smith, PhD, 61-year-old owner of a fine baritone voice and the best set of abs in parliament, refused to lie quiet in his grave.

Instead he launched a couple of revolutions and turned himself from laughing stock into an odd sort of political leader. He put an end to aeons of skullduggery and secrecy by publishing MPs’ expenses. He turned Question Time in parliament from a tableau of official evasion into a real test of the government’s mettle. He became that rarest of political animals, the celebrity Speaker. The pundits praised the new hero of accountability and openness.

The whole article is a good read.

Public Policy Polling blogs:

Perhaps the greatest measure of Obama’s declining support is that just 50% of voters now say they prefer having him as President to George W. Bush, with 44% saying they’d rather have his predecessor.

That is a startling figure, considering how unpopular Bush was on both the left and the right.

The Dom Post reports:

A developer’s plan to build a casino in Wellington appears doomed after Internal Affairs Minister Nathan Guy ruled out a law change required for it to proceed.

Backers of the proposed billion-dollar project in Shelly Bay – which also includes a luxury apartment block and a gondola at the prime harbourside site – need the previous government’s moratorium on new casinos lifted if the centrepiece of the development is to go ahead.

But Mr Guy, who has responsibility for gambling, said changing the law was not in the pipeline and, even if it was, doing so would be a lengthy process.

“Any change to the law would be a decision for the Cabinet and caucus and would require extensive discussion with the wider community,” he said.

“At this stage, the Government has no plans to change the law.”

That’s a real shame. It is bizarre that the Government thinks Wellingtonians can not be trusted to have a casino.

I don’t think there should be any limit on the number of casinos. There should be rules around how they operate, but I don’t see it as the role of the state to determine which cities or towns are allowed one, and which are not.

The end of last week turned out to be one that, as someone on my Facebook page commented, Sir Geoffrey Palmer would disapprove of.

Wednesday night started at 9 pm and ended at 3 am. The Nat’s caucus party on Thursday started at 5 pm and again the night ended around 3 am and on Friday a boozy lunch started at 1 pm and I finished drinking around 9 pm.

I guess this makes me an official heavy drinker – like Karl du Fresne. And soon we will hear what proposals are going to Government to try and “fix” us.

Anyway back to the Caucus Party – it was a very fun night. The location of Premier House made it a very well behaved night also, so not a lot of extra pages for the book. It was my first time inside Premier House in literally a decade. I did enjoy asking a staffer if they had a tapu lifting ceremony performed there earlier in the year

Everyone was in a pretty good mood, and the election seemed a long time ago. The food was superb, but there was a slight under-estimation of the number of people who would still be there at 11 pm, when the food stopped. So someone did a whip around for pizzas, and I got to make the call to Dominos to deliver a dozen pizzas to Premier House.

What I found disturbing was when I went down to the front gate to tell the Police about the order, and the officer there greets me with “Oh you’re the guy who ordered the pizzas”. As I had ordered them just a few minutes ago from my cellphone, this reinforced my paranoia that I am being monitored

At some stage after midnight, a few of us went down to Courtney Place. By coincidence ran into several Labour MPs at Hummingbird, and enjoyed some drinks and conversation with them. I tried hassling one progressive Labour MP about the Easter trading vote, asking him if he didn’t feel dirty that they only won, because God squaders voted with them. The response was when you win, you only feel bloody glad that you have won. Damn it- he is right.

Eventually the Nats threatened violence against me if I remained with the Labour MPs, instead of the National ones so drifted across, and finished up around 3 am. It goes without saying I am firmly against the proposal to have bars close at 1 am!

Friday lunch was at the new Cafe Ortega on Majoribanks Street. The food was simply superb. Oysters as a starter, followed by a superb squid and chorizo sausage mixture. And my boneless chicken breast on pappardelle pasta was the envy of many. Highly recommended.

Busted Blonde blogs the lunch in more detail.

The Herald reports:

Education Minister Anne Tolley says she will sack the boards of primary schools which allow teachers to boycott national standards, saying they would be refusing to obey the law.

Tensions over the new standards in literacy and numeracy are increasing.

Teachers’ and principals’ unions are lobbying school boards to support them in their call for a trial period before the standards are introduced nationwide.

The unions have also threatened boycotts and industrial action, and last week wrote to principals urging them to ask school boards to voice the same concerns.

Mrs Tolley has ruled out a trial, and said that in “extreme” cases of a boycott she would dissolve the board involved – because the trustees would be refusing to obey the law – and replace it with a commissioner.

“If despite having that pointed out to them, they absolutely refused, I do have the power to dissolve the board and put in a commissioner,” she said.

“In the end, I would have to do that. I don’t think it would come to that, but if it went to the nth degree I would do it.

You just cannot have schools disobeying the law.”

Absolutely. If people do not like the national standards, they should vote for a Labour Government that will scrap them. But National won the 2008 election with a explicit commitment to introduce the standards, and voters not unions should get to decide the law.

Mrs Tolley said the Ministry of Education would give as much support as possible to boards stuck in a standoff with teachers.

But she would not be backing down on her decision to introduce standards nationwide from next year.

The minister said she had already made many changes in response to concerns from the unions but each time, they had returned with more and she believed their arguments were now purely philosophical.

“That’s why I’m putting my foot down … If there are changes needed, we will make them.

“I’m not saying this is it from day one. But we have to get started because this is about kids failing in the system. I’ll do whatever it takes to make this work.”

As Anne has said, there has been masses of consultation and even compromise. But some no doubt seek delay just for the sake of delay.