Kiwiblog

The VSM issue has got some students angry. They’re not angry about VSM. They support VSM. They’re angry that their names and e-mail addresses have been forged to send letters to MPs asking them to vote against VSM.

How?

Meet the Orwellian titled “Save our Services” site. I suspect it really should be “Save our Salaries”.

The first thing to note about the site is that it is anonymous. Nowhere on the site (that I could locate) was a page telling us who set it up. You are asked to join a mailing list and don’t even know a mailing list of whom.

The registrant for the domain is a Caleb Tutty. He is a Labour Party activist who used to work for Judith Tizard and is on the national executive of Young Labour.

I have no idea if Caleb has been paid to do this site for NZUSA, if he is doing it for the Labour Party or it is his own initiative. That is because nowhere on the site (unless I missed it) is there any “About Us” statement.

Anyway on the SOS site, you can use it to send a message to all 58 National MPs, and some other MPs I think.

Most sites of this nature will send a confirmation e-mail to the supplied e-mail address, and you have to click on a link to confirm the message and have it sent out under your name. This stops people forging an e-mail address they do not control.

But this site does not verify e-mail addresses. You can stick any name and e-mail address in there, and it will send a message on without verification.

Some MPs have an auto-reply go to those who e-mail them. So various unsuspecting students have received an auto-reply thanking them for their e-mail – and they have said “But I never sent an e-mail”.

This is a basic security failure and it means that MPs who receive these e-mails have no way of knowing if they really are from genuine students against VSM, or if some flunkie is just loading random names and e-mail addresses into the website.

How pissed off would you be as a student. Bad enough student associations are taking $150 off you against your will. Even worse that they spend it fighting against a law change that will give you freedom of association. And just to rub it in, your name and e-mail address get forged and used on a website to try and stop you getting a choice about whether to join or not.

The VSM bill should pass its second reading tonight. After that just two more steps towards freedom for 200,000+ students.

The Dom Post editorial pulls no punches:

Editorial: Get back to work, greedy teachers

That headline is so good, it belongs on a blog

Secondary teachers’ union head Kate Gainsford wants today’s strike to be seen as being all about a Government that does not value teachers or education, and that is mucking her members about.

There is a good reason she is doing that.

Clothing its extravagant wage demands in the beguiling rhetoric of selfless dedication to the cause of education is the PPTA’s only chance of making them acceptable to the public.

If the union were to get real it means it would lose the argument.

To win, it would have to demonstrate why, in straitened economic times when the Government is borrowing to cover costs, its members should get a 4 per cent pay rise after receiving 4 per cent in each of the previous three years.

It would need to convince the public why its members should be treated differently from nurses and police – and the bulk of the rest of the New Zealand workforce, which has had minimal or no pay rises.

The difficulty for the PPTA is that most NZers understand that in the aftermath of the recession, almost no-one is getting big pay increases – and also that we are borrowing $240 million a week just to help pay for their current salaries.

It would mean telling them that there is something deeply wrong with a system where, according to Education Ministry figures, the average pay, with allowances, for a secondary teacher – not including principals – is $71,110, and where, of the 12,300 fulltime secondary teachers on the teacher salary payroll, 65 per cent earn between $60,000 and $80,000, and another 19 per cent earn more than $80,000, including 150 who earn more than $100,000.

Goodness, 65% of secondary teachers are officially rich pricks (defined as someone earning more than $60,000 – the level the rich prick envy tax used to come in at).

However, even there the union is on shaky ground. Its stance would have more credibility were it to acknowledge that fixing what is wrong with the education system involves more than just fattening the wallets of all teachers in the system, increasing employer KiwiSaver contributions, providing flu injections and laptops, and delivering slightly smaller class sizes.

It means recognising that the quality of the teacher has more impact on student performance than class sizes, the background of the pupil or the school where the teaching takes place.

If the union was genuine, it would call off the strikes and work with the Government to devise a pay system that provides pay rises for the best, rather than seeking rewards for all, regardless of merit.

What an excellent editorial.

I think the top 15% or so of teachers – around 2,000 of them, should be on $100,000. Bot the bottom 15% should be on under $50,000 so they have an incentive to pursue other careers.

The Herald reported:

Men are more likely to rate technology as a necessity of life than women, a recent survey suggests.

I read this, and my first thought was no that is not right. Sure e-mail and web is important, but I’d rather go without them than without women.

But then I realised that what they meant should be expressed as:

Men are more likely than women to rate technology as a necessity of life, a recent survey suggests.

The importance of order in a sentence!

Elizabeth Binning at the Herald reports:

Angry students say they will be left with a “lifetime of debt” following Auckland University’s decision to raise its fees by 6.3 per cent next year.

A lifetime? Really?

The increase, which was approved at a meeting this week, means some domestic students will have to pay up to $1600 extra in fees, in addition to $660 in student services fees and building levies.

If fees have gone up 6.3% then how can cflunkan some students be paying $1,600 more unless their annual fees were already $25,000 a year?

Most degrees are priced at just under $5,000 a year. So a 6% increase is an extra $300 a year. For a three year degree, that is an extra $900 of debt.

The median income for a graduate is $1,055 a week, so they will be paying off the loan at around $105 a week.

So in fact this “lifetime of debt” means an extra two months paying off the student loan!

And in case the student association flunkies try and claim they mean the total level of debt, not just the additional debt, I quote from the student loans annual report:

The median repayment time for those who left study in 2006 and remained in New Zealand was three years 11 months

Maybe they mean a lifetime of debt if humans were rats and only had a life expectancy of four years!

Susie Nordqvist in the Herald reports:

New Zealand has one of the lowest goods and services tax rates in the OECD, despite households being charged at a higher rate than before.

Tax accountants KPMG said even at 15 per cent New Zealand has the fourth lowest GST rate in the OECD and contrary to global rates, corporate tax rates were trending down. …

KPMG New Zealand’s GST partner Peter Scott said unlike any other country in the world, the recent increase in GST was matched by personal tax rate reductions.

But didn’t Labour say the reason they want to exempt fruit and veges was because our GST is one of the highest in the world? That wasn’t a populist porkie was it?

Claire Trevett at the Herald reports:

Asked about the issue on his way into Parliament yesterday, Mr Harawira refused to answer any questions asked in English and spoke only in te reo before walking away.

He earlier told Radio Waatea that if the Government agreed to Act’s request then the Maori Party should walk away from the coalition.

“I don’t see why we should sit back and let a little fat redneck like Rodney Hide put in an amendment at the last minute.”

Two ironies here.

The first is that Rodney is fitter than Hone I would say, and would probably kick his arse in a swimming race.

The second is that I am pretty sure that Rodney doesn’t care what the skin colour is of any girls who want to date his son. So Hone calling someone else a redneck is ironic.

But as Michael Laws had to apologise for calling the GG fat, will Hone be made to apologise for his comments?

If the Maori Party does pull support, it could mean the current 2004 act would stay in place. Mr Key has previously said he would not make any changes if there was not a reasonable level of consensus and the Labour Party has not yet decided whether to support it further.

Would be rather embarrassing for the Maori Party if the status quo ends up remaining.

Mr Harawira has urged Maori to make submissions opposing the bill, saying it stops short of ownership for Maori and the threshold for customary title is too high, meaning most hapu would get nothing.

Most hapu will not get customary title indeed – because that is what the Court of Appeal found. The test was for uninterrupted exclusive use. The Court of Appeal never said the foreshore belongs to all Maori.

Labour has no realistic chance of forming a Government after 2011 election, unless it is with Maori Party support. The chances of Labour and Greens alone having more seats than National, Maori, United and ACT is remote. However with the Maori Party they have a fighting chance.

So what do they do. The Herald reports:

Labour MP Shane Jones will try to topple Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples in next year’s election by challenging for his Tamaki Makaurau seat.

Mr Jones has confirmed to the Herald he will seek the nomination to stand for Labour in the Maori electorate, which has been Dr Sharples’ stronghold since the Maori Party entered Parliament in 2005.

His challenge will end an apparent tacit agreement by Labour not to stand strong candidates against the two Maori Party co-leaders, who rely on their electorate seats rather than the party vote to be in Parliament.

It will at the least cause Dr Sharples some discomfort in the seat where half the voters gave their party vote to Labour last election.

Mr Jones has taken a no-holds-barred approach to the Maori Party, and especially its leaders, since it became a support partner for National.

Although the Maori Party has consistently expressed willingness to work with either of the major parties in government, Mr Jones said it had become “listless and torpid” with National. He believed it was time for a “more aspirational voice in Maori politics”.

A total strategic blunder that dooms Phil Goff.

In the medium to long term the Maori Party will be mainly in coalition with the Labour Party. But instead of treating them as potential allies, they keep treating them like shit – as they also did to the Greens for many years. This means that their chances of going with Labour in 2011, if they hold balance of power, is significantly diminished.

Got one wrong. But only took 27 seconds. Quiz here.

Sent out yesterday the polling newsletter for September 2010. It includes both Roy Morgan polls and the TVNZ poll. Doesn’t include the TV3 poll as that was taken mainly in October.

The newsletter is only distributed by e-mail – people can subscribe at this page. The summary for this month is:

September saw three political polls – an One News, and two from Roy Morgan.

The average of the public polls has National 17% ahead of Labour and able to govern alone.

Australia has mixed polls for the Government.

In the United States Barack Obama has a net approval rating of -5%, and the latest projections are for the Republicans to win 48 seats in the House (gaining control), go from 41 to 48 seats in the Senate and hold 28 of the 50 Governorships.

In the UK the Conservatives are on 42%, Labour 38% and Lib Dems 12%. The Lib Dems continue to lose support.

In Canada the Conservatives have a 5% lead.

We also carry details of poll in New Zealand on firearms, land sales to foreigners, the ACT leadership, 90 day probation periods, climate change and the normal business and consumer confidence polls.

As Labour retreats to 1970s protectionism, Gareth Morgan points out the consequences:

If foreigners can’t use New Zealand dollars to buy New Zealand assets why would they be willing to hold New Zealand dollars? …

Foreigners who sell us the imports we covet don’t really want to be paid in our quaint currency. So a pass-the- parcel process occurs until some foreigner is found who will either extend us credit (by holding our Reserve Bank’s IOUs) or buys one of our assets, thus giving us the foreign currency to buy those imports we crave.

So what happens when you try and stop foreign investment?

Ban foreigners from buying our assets, though, and there certainly will be a sharp shock to the system.

If foreigners can’t use New Zealand dollars to buy New Zealand assets why would they be willing to hold New Zealand dollars?

Those dollars would become like debentures in just another New Zealand finance company, in quick time worth much less than their face value – in effect the kiwi would cease to have any asset backing. It would fall and that would deter further lending from overseas. …

A prohibition of land and business sales to foreigners would be one solution – it would drive down the currency and scare off foreign lenders and investors. Argentina is currently banning greater exports of its beef despite huge international prices, simply because they want to eat it themselves and at cheap prices.

I can’t imagine how that might do anything but damage the supply of Argentine beef but it shows these sorts of whacky interventions are not unheard of. Ban land sales to foreigners but expect lower incomes as a result.

Lower incomes and even lower purchasing power as a falling dollar will push up the prices of many goods.

I have a financial interest in a dairy farm and processing factory in Brazil. For that economy such foreign investment brings growth and jobs – and milk it would otherwise have to import.

It sees also a technology transfer from New Zealand to another country – the real worth after all in our dairy industry lies in the decades of intellectual capital, productivity and technology that we have been silly enough to roll up into our per hectare land price. The benefit to New Zealand from that activity is significant as well – an inflow of profits we wouldn’t otherwise have.

If instead I’d invested in dairying in New Zealand I would simply have pushed land prices up and, I’m reasonably sure, have made less money. So it’s being argued by the xenophobes that a win-win for New Zealand and Brazil is worse than if I’d spent my money developing a farm up the slopes of the Southern Alps.

Get real. Foreign investment is how countries develop.

Remember that every transaction needs a willing seller and a willing buyer. If you ban sellers from being able to sell to the highest bidder, you are reducing the value of farms to their current farmers. The PM has also pointed out that this may push the value of the farm below the equity in it – ie banks will be more likely to bankrupt struggling farmers under Labour’s policy.

Andrea Vance in the Dom Post reports:

National MP Tau Henare is refusing to apologise for calling a teenage select committee submitter “a liar”.

James Sleep, 18, convener of the the Council of Trade Unions youth sector, gave evidence to the transport and industrial relations committee on the Employment Relations Amendment Bill last month.

He said the list MP used “bullyboy tactics” by interrupting his submission and accusing him of lying about his evidence in “a bit of a tirade”.

“I was telling the story about how a worker had been sacked under the 90-day trial … We have several cases … and in my written submission I had talked about another story and he just went off his head really.

“He interrupted and said: ‘You are just a liar, you are bullshitting.’ I went on and he stopped [me] again: ‘You’re just lying, you are misleading us.”‘

I guess clashing with Tau at a select committee is safer than jumping in front of John Hayes’ car!

Mr Sleep said he expected Mr Henare to say sorry. “The letter did not contain an apology to the thousands of young union members I was representing, nor have we – the CTU youth sector – received a personal apology direct from Tau Henare.”

I wonder how many younger union members are aware that James represents them!

Mr Henare said he would not apologise. “Why would I apologise for a little turkey who got found out lying? He was reading out a submission and I was following it and in two parts … it was a completely different story.

“He’ll get over it and if he doesn’t, well, then, too bad … He’ll learn from his experience.”

He added: “Conway and his henchmen weren’t even there, so how could they complain?”

Labour MP Carol Beaumont, who sits on the committee, said she was concerned about how Mr Sleep was treated.

“Leaping into accusing somebody of lying and in quite an aggressive manner, I don’t think is appropriate.”

Mr Henare responded: “Quite frankly, who cares what Carol Beaumont says.”

Oh Tau. Always the diplomat.

Anyway I have a way to resolve this. Presumably there is a recording of the “story” James told to the select committee. Labour should release the recording and James should arrange for the subject of the story to come forward and confirm it is a true story. That way he will prove that he was telling the truth. It will also allow the employer to give their side of the story.

Kate Newton in the Dom Post reports:

Serious changes to the maternity system are needed to protect babies during birth, Parliament has been told.

Compulsory supervision of first-year midwives and a national data unit collecting information on all births are among recommendations from the health select committee, which presented a report yesterday.

The report was in response to a petition presented last year by The Good Fight – a group of women whose babies died or were left disabled because of problems during birth.

The group called for “immediate and wide-ranging change” in the maternity system.

In an unusually detailed response to a petition, the report urges changes, saying “serious work needs to be done to improve some aspects of the New Zealand maternity services”.

The changes initially introduced by Helen Clark in the 1980s which led to GPs abandoning maternity care have been arguably the biggest disaster in the health system. It is a classic case of unforeseen consequences.

One can not turn the clock back, and get GPs back into maternity care – they have basically departed for good. But the steps proposed should go some way to making things safer.

The report’s recommended changes include making it a requirement, rather than an expectation, that all new midwives complete the College of Midwives’ first year in practice programme.

The committee said it had heard anecdotal evidence that births in which the baby died or was hurt often involved newly qualified midwives “working without sufficient experience or support”.

The committee chairman, National MP Paul Hutchison, said yesterday: “We’ve made a pretty clear and strong suggestion there that midwives, for at least a year after graduation, should be subject to … mentoring and very close supervision.”

The report also urges the Government to set up an independent national unit to collect information on all births. Currently, information is collected consistently only when a baby is stillborn or dies during or shortly after birth.

The Good Fight spokeswoman Jenn Hooper, whose daughter Charley was left severely disabled when her resuscitation at birth was bungled, said a database would be able to capture information about birth-related disabilities and “near-misses”, which were now left out of reporting.

Both recommendations seem very sensible to me.

Wayne Thompson in the Herald reports:

The country’s most elected local government politician, Warren Flaunty, has struck a problem – how to be in two places at once.

Mr Flaunty was elected to three Auckland Council local boards, as well as being re-elected to the Waitemata District Health Board and the Waitakere Licensing Trust.

My view is that this should not be possible. I believe one should be able to stand for one local body only.

While I do recall the Herald did highlight the multiple candidacies before the election, many voters would be unaware that Mr Flaunty was standing for three different community boards. If they had known this, I suspect he may have been elected to none of them. Maybe there should be a requirement for this information to be disclosed in the booklet with the voting papers.

Last week board members received notice of the time and place for their swearing-in ceremonies.

Two of Mr Flaunty’s boards – Rodney and Upper Harbour – will hold them at 6pm on Wednesday, November 3.

Rodney’s will be in the rural Coatesville Settlers Hall and Upper Harbour’s in the stadium at Albany.

Mr Flaunty said the clash was “not a big issue”.

The boards should schedule their regular meetings to be on the same days and time. That way the quintriple dipper will have to choose.

This will upset the cultists. The SFO has announced:

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) today announced that it had launched an investigation into South Canterbury Finance (SCF).

Chief Executive, Adam Feeley, said that as a result of inquiries made by its newly established Fraud Detection Unit, the SFO had grounds to suspect that a number of related party transactions involving SCF may have involved false statements or other fraudulent conduct.

“Given the scale of the SCF collapse, it would be neither feasible nor productive for SFO to carry out an investigation into all aspects of the failure. Instead we will focus on specific transactions which we consider may have been a fraud on the investors in SCF and/or the Crown as the guarantor of investor funds.”

Mr Feeley said that despite the volume of cases which SFO had taken up in recent months, the matter was one which would have a high priority and would be progressed as quickly as possible.

Also of interest:

Mr Feeley added that the SCF investigation was an entirely separate matter from the SFO’s investigation into the affairs of Aorangi Securities Limited.

“While there are some persons who are common to both cases, the SCF transactions we are currently investigating have no material connection with the affairs of Aorangi Securities.

Mr Feeley added that, subject to receiving any new information from the statutory managers, the SFO was in the closing stages of its investigation into Aorangi Securities.

Until their investigations are complete, it is hard to comment in great detail. But

The NZ Herald editorial:

Now, it says it would turn down big land sales to overseas buyers except in exceptional circumstances. That means Mr Goff, who was involved in many free trade deals, is overseeing a policy that would, for example, have big implications for the reciprocal provisions of the Closer Economic Relations agreement with Australia.

Labour’s policy is at a minimum against the spirit of CER, and is likely to kill off all the current work underway about further removing barriers between the two economies. It may well result in counter measures from Australia. If NZ bans Aussies from being able to buy land in NZ, then Australia may decide to end having an open labour market with New Zealand.

Unfortunately, this particular change, like the plan to axe GST on fresh fruit and vegetables, can be explained only in terms of populist appeal.

Populist and xenophobic.  They have stolen Winston’s policies. Next I suspect they will start to rail against immigrants.

Despite its claims, its policy would be governed by the prevailing fancy, not what is best for the country in terms of economic benefit. A subject as vital as foreign investment is in danger of losing a foundation of sound and consistent principle.

That is too harsh. The sound and consistent policy is the desire for election. Not that Labour is alone there – National is also in danger of being seen to weaken a principle based policy for a populist policy in this area.

Bernard Orsman at the Herald reports:

Super City mayor-elect Len Brown will face angry protesters today at an invitation-only opening of a park honouring Leigh Auton, his outgoing chief executive at the Manukau City Council.

The naming of Leigh Auton Reserve on a historic coastal farming block between Beachlands and Maraetai has upset some locals, a local community website and local community board member Lance Gedge, who is boycotting the event.

Bevan Craig, one of six locals who spent $20,000 of his own money going to court to secure the reserve, said “Mr Auton and his henchmen” had walked all over the community for years.

“It is an insult to the many that fought hard against the council and developer to secure that reserve to find it now being named after the person they had to fight” said Mr Craig.

If Mr Craig is correct in his assertion that the Council was a hindrance, not a help, in securing the reserve then it does seem very insensitive to name it after the Council CEO.

Last night, a council spokeswoman said Mr Brown and Deputy Mayor Gary Troup initiated the naming of the park in recognition of Mr Auton’s 32 years’ contribution to the city.

She said residents of Clevedon and Maraetai were not consulted about the name because it was not required in the parks naming process.

Consultation with the public not legally required, so we won’t do it.

Asked why the local community was not consulted on the name of the park, a spokesman for Mr Brown said last night: “The community board is the community.”

I can think of a lot of people who would disagree with that.

Creative NZ have sent me this PR:

Creative New Zealand today has clarified the amount of funding provided to the Letting Space exhibition The Beneficiary’s Office by Tao Well.

Creative New Zealand invested $44,790 in the Wellington Independent Arts TrustLetting Space project; a public art programme of six exhibitions.  Tao Well’s exhibition is the third in the series. The curators leading the project are Sophie Jerram and Mark Amery. towards curating and commissioning public art works as part of the

Creative New Zealand understands that Tao Well received an artist’s fee of $2000 and a further total $1500 for expenses for his project.

The artists working in this series of projects are looking to generate discussion in the community around social issues and art.

All applicants to Creative New Zealand are assessed on the basis of artistic quality and contribution to our strategic outcomes. Projects are assessed on the basis of the idea, the process, the track record of the people involved, the budget, plus, where applicable, innovation, community arts participation, and diversity (cultural diversity, Matauranga Maori, or Kaupapa Pasifika).

Creative New Zealand’s role as the national arts development agency is to provide financial support to artists, arts practitioners and arts organisations to assist them to research, create, publicly present and distribute the arts in their various forms.

We distribute around $11 million each year in Contestable Funding to support projects that develop New Zealand arts, artists and arts practitioners.

Letting Space is a public art programme in Wellington New Zealand that seeks to transform the relationship between artists, property developers and their city. It commissions temporary art works from leading New Zealand contemporary artists for commercial CBD spaces.

The first works in the Letting Space series were “pop-up” installations by Dugal McKinnon (18 April – 9 May, 141 Willis Street) and Kim Paton (21 May – 6 June, 38 Ghuznee Street). The next project Taking Stock by Eve Armstrong will be in November 2010. They will be followed by projects by Colin Hodson and Bronwyn Holloway-Smith in 2011.

This just makes me even more determined to lobby for a budget reduction for them. There is nothing innovative about a guy advocating that people should stop working and bludge off those of us who keep working. Far from being innovative, this is a well established attitude amongst some.

I have an idea for ACT on Campus. They should apply for a grant to set up some human artwork in an office, with the artwork being them advocating that the top tax rate should be 25% so people don’t need to work so long to make ends meet.

How could that not qualify for the largesse from Creative NZ?

The Listener’s editorial:

Hands up those who agree with this proposal. Not only should there be national standards in schools, but the government should pay schools bonuses of up to $100,000 if they demonstrate improvements in the literacy and numeracy achievement standards of their pupils.

It’s no surprise, perhaps, that teacher unions have denounced the plans and immediately threatened to boycott the tests, talking of their concerns about “damaging league tables”.

What is a surprise is that all this is happening in Australia.

How is it, one might ask, that in New Zealand the introduction of national standards in primary schools has been denounced by teacher unions as nothing more than right-wing ideology while across the Tasman, the minister driving this “education revolution” is none other than the Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard? In her bid to improve school standards, Gillard has already muscled aside one of Australia’s most powerful left-wing outfits – the Australian Education Union – to ensure all school results are published on the My School website. This with the express purpose of identifying poorly performing schools.

Indeed. National Standards are just common sense. They require no change to current testing or assessment. They just require one additional step – to moderate the school data onto a national standard and add on one extra page to the school report with the national standard data also.

Frankly they are no big thing, and the opposition from entrenched interests is actually about league tables, not national standards.

Talking of her passion and commitment to ensuring every child has access to good schooling regardless of their background, Gillard spoke at the launch of the website earlier this year of the danger of schools quietly underperforming. “No one ever knows and no one ever does anything about it,” she said. “But children only get one chance at school.”

In New Zealand, where many principals are now promising to step up their campaign against national standards, it was Pita Sharples who this week talked of under-performing schools. A lot of schools, said Sharples, fail to monitor the achievements of Maori students, fail to use the professional support offered to them to help raise standards and fail to involve Maori families in the education of Maori students.

Absolutely. Despite what is said, we do not know well enough which students are failing and which schools are failing.

Contrast his statements with that of primary teachers union spokesperson, NZEI president Frances Nelson, who recently claimed that the Education Minister Anne Tolley had distorted data to “manufacture a crisis in education”. There is indeed a crisis but it is not of Tolley’s creation. The facts speak for themselves: 15,000 New Zealand students end up leaving school without NCEA level two and 7900 without level one.

Although our top performers are among the best in the OECD, it is the long tail of underachievement that causes alarm.

This is what the NZEI says is not a problem. 15,000 students every year leaving school without even NCEA Level 2.

This is not an imaginary crisis. In this country, almost 50% of Maori students and 35% of Pasifika students leave school without level two NCEA. In all, 29% of the students who will be leaving school at the end of next month will leave without this qualification. It is the minimum qualification that any young New Zealander needs to succeed in further study or skilled employment.

And this is the status quo the education unions defend.

Rachel Glucina lists the possibilities:

Riddle me this, amigos: If Oliver Driver killed his own television breakfast show why would TVNZ bosses hire him for theirs?

Replacing the right leaning politically incorrect Paul Henry with left leaning Oliver Driver would be a sure fire way to piss off viewers. Driver was okay on TV3 as he fitted that channel’s liberal brand. But the brand for TVNZ Breakfast is way different.

The new Pippa

Bernadine Oliver-Kerby
Heather Du Plessis-Allan
Joanna Hunkin
Kate Hawkesby
Rachel Smalley
Stacy Daniels
Renee Wright
April Ieremia
Charlotte Ryan
Shavaughn Ruakere
Kate Rodger

If Paul Henry was still hosting Breakfast, then I think Heather DPA would be a great match for him. She wouldn’t take any of his shit, but wouldn’t be offended by what he says. Even without Paul, I think she’d be good in the role.

I liked Kate Hawkesby when she did it with Mike Hosking. Also Bernadine Oliver-Kirby displays a good sense of humour.

The new Paul

Paul Holmes
Jeremy Corbett
Dominic Harvey
Duncan Garner
Jack Tame
Mikey Havoc
Greg Boyed
John Tamihere
Jeremy Wells
Jay Reeve
Rod Cheeseman

If Paul Holmes can handle the early starts, I think he’s be an obvious choice. Paul’s style would be a very good fit for Breakfast, and he is well versed at being entertaining and amusing.

Jeremy Wells would be hilarious but I imagine he would get sacked for saying something outraegous soon or later.

The day after Phil Goff announces he is campaigning on the cost of living, Stats NZ announces the lowest annual inflation rate since March 2004.

Bill English has done this handy table comparing the last two years, to the previous two years. National needs to do more stuff like this:

Price and wage changes over comparable periods

Incredible that food prices went up 15% over the last two years of Labour’s term. Now this is not their fault, but it shows how meaningless their no GST policy on fruit and veges is – the price movements from season to season are far greater than the GST. For example vegetables went up 21% in Labour’s last two years and have dropped 6% since Sep 2008.

And most damning, a NZer on the average wage had a 1% drop in their real after tax wages from Dec 2006 to Sep 2008, while under the most recent seven quarters that worker would be 9% better off. And that is before the 1 October tax changes which will make then even better than 9%.

The NZ Herald editorial:

The Act Party has suffered more than its share of self-inflicted wounds lately but it deserves credit for a valuable legislative intervention last week. At Act’s behest, the Government has agreed to write a clause into the foreshore and seabed bill now before Parliament that will expressly make it unlawful to charge for access to a beach.

The Government was previously content with Attorney- General Chris Finlayson’s view that charging would be illegal because the bill would not give iwi any power to do so. Act pressed for a specific prohibition that would leave no room for uncertainty among members of the public and members of tribes awarded customary title.

And having the requirement explicit rather than implicit is a good thing.

The Herald reports:

But Professor Hattie spelled out some of the problem areas.

Tomorrow’s Schools had many benefits but had created 2700 “islands” of individual schools not co-operating or sharing answers to problems.

He said that while a lot of attention was given to the “tail” of under-achievers, not enough attention was being given to children on the other side of the scale who were not achieving their potential.

This reflects what I have heard. NZ on average does well, but those at the top and the tail are both falling short of where they should be.

He believed the decile system of rating schools should be abolished – though the equity funding that went with it should not.

The decile system did not help anyone except real estate agents selling houses in decile 10 areas.

That’s a fascinating comment. I’d be keen to understand more what he proposes.

He said the Ministry of Education did not listen to teachers because they had no organisation dedicated to professional standards as that surgeons, doctors and other professionals had.

This is an incredibly perceptive comment. The NZEI, NZPF and PPTA are primarily industrial unions. Nothing wrong with that per se, but it means their primary concerns are doing what is best for teachers, not what is best for the education system. So they are never taken seriously.

Compare this to the health system, where in the public health system you have specialist unions to represent doctors on industrial issues, and different bodies such as the NZMA and the specialist Colleges on wider health issues.