The Ministry of Health reports:
Following the leak of confidential Ministry information to an external third party last month, the Ministry of Health began an investigation to determine how this occurred.
We can now confirm that the individual responsible has been identified and no longer works at the Ministry.
It is good to see some action, but why has the individual not been identified, or at least their seniority? Was this a 21 year old intern or a senior manager?
The 2023 child poverty statistics are out, and they show slightly more children living in material hardship than in 2017. So six years of Ardern, Hipkins and Robertson saw no actual progress, while four years of Key, English and Joyce saw 60,000 fewer kids living in material hardship.
This is all data from Stats NZ.
No Government achieved less than the last one.
NewstalkZB reports:
New Zealand’s Auditor-General has spoken out against Government agencies, claiming their reporting produces ‘a lot of rubbish’.
John Ryan told the Finance Select Committee that agencies like to tick off ‘project milestones’, but their actual accomplishments are ‘questionable’.
He says the general public doesn’t get to see or experience the outcomes of these reported milestones.
“The public really wants to know what outcomes they’re getting from these projects, not whether they’re managing it on a day-to-day basis. That’s much more than management activity.”
Government needs to be about outcomes, not outputs or even worse inputs.
We did have a Government heading that way under Key and English. They had outcome based targets for Better Public Services. But the Ardern Government got rid of these, and instead focused on how much money they could spend, instead of what that money achieved.
That is the headline I wholeheartedly believe in a piece I had published on ZB+ yesterday. While it is behind their subscriber service I can be brief here:
Given Erica Stanford’s performance in opposition as spokesperson for Education was stunned and dismayed by this answer she gave recently in the House to former Minister Jan Tinetti.
“As schools start back for 2024, there will be a relentless focus on lifting student achievement. This Government’s ambitious target of getting 80 per cent of our tamariki to curriculum by the time they finish intermediate by 2030 is our North Star.”
What the minister has clearly stated is that she and the new National government only believe they are capable of improving education in New Zealand over six years to still have one in five Year 8 students failing at basic literacy and numeracy. That is despite each New Zealand child receiving 9600 hours of funded education in eight years of schooling. Her answer is dripping with pessimism and lack of ambition.
If we are truly aiming at a “world class” teaching profession and education system, why do we have a self-imposed limit that we can only get 80 per cent of students even to a moderate level of ability and achievement?
The Minister likes to use the term “Science of Learning”. From her answer in the House she has a lot more to do to understand the true implications of the potential of every human from this field of work. Through looking at the work of people like Carol Dweck, David Eagleman and many more. The following statement should be the government’s “North Star”.
It is not only possible to lift every child – it is imperative. I have seen it done with the right provision.
If the Minister is not highly ambitious – it will be very hard for the sector to be – let alone the students and families.
Alwyn Poole
Innovative Education Consultants
www.innovativeeducation.co.nz
www.alwynpoole.substack.com
www.linkedin.com/in/alwyn-poole-16b02151/
Five interesting bills pulled out of the ballot. They areL
Not often there are two Labour bills I agree with!
The Post reports:
Green candidate Geordie Rogers has won the council by-election, ahead of his rival candidate Karl Tiefenbacher by just 45 votes.
The final results of the Wellington City Council’s Pukehīnau/Lambton General Ward by-election were announced today. The results showed Rogers ahead by 45 votes, with 4147 votes to Tiefenbacher’s 4102.
Congratulations to Rogers. Hopefully he will vote sensibly and prioritise pools and libraries over corporate welfare to Reading Cinemas.
An excellent data driven report from the Salvation Army on key social indicators in NZ, for 2023.
The summary of their findings is:
Improving
No change
Getting worse
Boy that 80% increase in state spending really paid off!
The Herald reports:
Labour’s police spokeswoman, Ginny Andersen, claims Police Minister Mark Mitchell was “paid to kill people” and has asked him whether he kept a “tally of how many you shot” while providing private military services in Iraq.
Mitchell said Andersen’s comments were “outrageous” and she should apologise. Andersen refused.
Actually his job was to protect people from killers. I blogged previously on some of what Mitchell did, and how many people he kept alive.
The fact Andersen won’t apologise reflects far more on her than Mitchell. If I was Chris Hipkins, I would advise her to apologise.
This was Jon Stewart back to his best – not being preachy, but funny.
Stuff reports:
Green Party MP Efeso Collins has died at a charity event in central Auckland.
Collins collapsed while participating in the ChildFund Water Fun event at Britomart on Wednesday morning.
An organiser told Stuff he had died.
This is so sad. I actually had sponsored one of the participants in the event so was well aware of it. Thoughts are with his friends and family and colleagues who will be devastated.
This means Lawrence Xu-Nan will replace Collins as a List MP and when Shaw retires, then Francisco Hernandez will become an MP.
1 News reports:
The sign, which appeared on Rayner Autos earlier this week, has caused outrage among some residents.
When contacted by 1News the owner of the store Jacob Rayner said: “I’m not worried about looking bad.”
Waimate Mayor Craig Rowley said he had “no idea” why the sign was put up and said that the matter was now being resolved.
This is pretty astonishing. Not that we had the occasional Nazi in New Zealand, but that one of them thinks displaying the swastika on his business, will be good for business.
NewstalkZB reports:
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has cut the amount ministers can spend on taxpayer-funded cars and will not get one for himself as the focus goes on the Government’s cost-saving demands across the public sector.
Luxon’s office said he had cut the cap on ministers’ self-drive cars from $85,000 to $70,000, but had otherwise not changed the criteria for ministers who take up the entitlement to a car. A spokesman confirmed Luxon would not be taking the entitlement himself.
A smart move politically. The savings are very small (maximum $450,000) but it is important not to be seen as demanding your own areas are exempt from saving money.
As I commented on four months ago, Grant Robertson succeeded in his application to be Vice-Chancellor of Otago University.
It is in one sense an unusual appointment. Normally VCs come from academia and have been Professors. Almost all the other VCs have PhDs:
Grant has a BA from Otago. Now that is more than I achieved there, but it does remind me of the wag who wrote above the toilet roll holder in the union common room “BA degrees – please take one” 🙂
But Grant has a huge passion for Otago University, second only perhaps to rugby, and having been Minister of Finance is probably good prep for such a role – especially as Otago University is also running a deficit 🙂
The new Finance Spokeperson for Labour is Barbara Edmonds, which was expected. She is well regarded and was a former IRD secondee to both Judith Collins and Stuart Nash who rate her. However while good on policy, it is too early to know how she will go at being able to sell Labour’s economic credentials.
Robertson will be replaced as a List MP by former New Plymouth MP Glen Bennett.
So 86% of Americans think Biden is too old including 73% of Democrats and 91% of Independents!!!
The Democrats look doomed unless they change nominees.
You then continue with every second year being a local election year or a central election year.
The NY Post reports:
Embattled former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani says the Trump 2020 campaign and the Republican National Committee still owe him $2 million in legal fees for challenging the former president’s election loss.
Giuliani, 79, said during a bankruptcy court hearingWednesday that the former president asked him to spearhead legal matters for the campaign in November 2020 — the same month Trump lost to President Biden.
“Once I took over, it was my understanding that I would be paid by the campaign for my legal work and my expenses to be paid,” he told the Manhattan federal bankruptcy trustee overseeing his case from December, according to a report by Mediaite.
Poor Rudy. How was he to know that Trump stiffs almost all his lawyers. The smart ones demand payment in advance.
The Daily Mail reports:
A football fan has been banned from matches until 2026 after Premier Leagueconducted a ‘secretive’ four-month ‘Stasi’ probe into her social media posts that criticised transgender ideology.
Linzi Smith, a Newcastle United supporter, was investigated by a special unit set up to expose racism in the game, after she expressed strong views on trans ideology on the social media platform ‘X’, formerly known as Twitter.
The 34-year-old, who is gay and champions lesbian, gay and bisexual rights, was later presented with a 11-page dossier — compiled by the Premiere League — which included details of where she lives, works and even where she walked her dog.
This wasn’t about anything she had done at a game. This is them investigating her views on social media, and on that basis deciding she must be banned.
In October, Newcastle United emailed Ms Smith to inform her that she was being investigated by Northumbria Police for a possible hate crime offence and that her membership had been suspended.
It is understood that Ms Smith had not done anything to offend anyone during a match, inside the stadium or involving the club.
Days after, Ms Smith was visited by two police officers at her home and she agreed to be interviewed under caution about her tweets for 25 minutes.
Two hours later, she received a call from police to inform her that no further action would be taken as she had not committed any offence.
Ms Smith appealed her ban but was told on January 26 that it had been upheld because her tweets ‘constitute harassment’ and go against the club’s Equality Policy.
Imagine if a football club banned someone because they tweeted pro-Marxist views!
A guest post by Kiwhig:
A common “progressive” put-down of ordinary people in this country is to scold us for being confident and not self-effacing in situations involving non-white people. “Check your privilege” is the sharp reproof, followed by a moralizing criticism of the relevant aspect of our normal way of life.
Jacinda Ardern said that the term “white privilege” was not mentioned in the school curriculum, but it is included in the instructional materials prepared under the curriculum – probably under the $42 million Te Hurihanganui program introduced in 2019 to “address racism”, and by the Teaching Council to “unteach racism”.
Peggy McIntosh an American feminist and radical activist scholar invented (she said discovered) white privilege in 1988. The following year she published an article about how every white person carries a metaphorical invisible “knapsack” of an invisible kit of unearned assets – maps passports credit cards tools clothes codebooks and other things – that gives them an invisible unearned and unfair continual advantage throughout life over non-white people. In one place she lists 26 of these advantages from everyday life. The list is mostly unlikely – many advantages she lists relate more to her own Ivy-League-brahmin life or are market economy related in a country in which most people are white. Even so, I think it is fair to say that in the USA and New Zealand, being white skinned does give you a slight head start in life and in any interaction with people you do not know. A slight inside track or step ahead you might say.
But these small advantages of a white skin while unearned by their lucky holders (us), are not privileges, they are part of our intangible cultural inheritance, and were earned by our forbears and gifted to us. And explicitly so.
The ancestors of the majority, mostly from the British Isles, came to this country in the 19th century, and by agreement with the earlier settlers set up their systems of formal government and laws and institutions here. Infused as they were with their habits and thoughts acquired over centuries including the scientific method and Christianity. Subsequent generations continued nation-building.
Readers who are baby boomers will have actual memory of this. When Progress was spelled with a capital “P”; our fathers and grandfathers built the post war civic institutions – many of them as war memorials; when we had to sit through long windy speeches with elaborate protocol as to order of precedence – your Excellency …. worship …. etc…ladies and gentlemen boys and girls. How we squirmed while waiting for a dignitary’s wife to cut the ribbon. How we longed to go and play.
These interminable speeches were about tons of concrete and steel …. etc, and thanks to the Ministry of Works. About tangible materials, raising the money, and the instrumental people. And always building for future generations – the only nod to the likes of us – to drive over, or read the books in, or swim in, or whatever.
These speeches were in physical measurable terms. They did not mention cultural capital – tangible or intangible, although “raising the standard of living” might be said. But that is part of what they meant. A better life for us and further generations. Which is why people have always come to this country.
We should not hesitate to claim our collective inheritance – physical and intangible. It is not a “privilege” it is our property. And by all means welcome in those who wish to join us – both the descendants of the earlier migrants and those coming in more recently. And even go to some trouble to fit them in, as our forbears amended institutions to suit the earlier settlers from Polynesia, and we acculturate refugees at considerable expense. (It cost $100,000 per refugee last time I saw, but it would be a lot more than that now). But it is New Zealand they are being welcomed into, not anything else.White privilege is part of the subset of “privilege” slurs made by people who do not believe in property or inheritance – cultural or physical. I suggest readers tell their children and grandchildren not to accept any such remarks and why not.
The ABC reports that 3.5 billion will vote in 70 elections this year – a record number. But how many of them are free votes?
Not a lot of orange countries voting this year.
There was a great trend from 1980 to 2010, but we should all be concerned by the recent trend.
Matt Ridley has some fascinating polls which compares views amongst the top 1% of American earners, Ivy League graduates and all Americans. It shows that the top 1% are in fact very left wing with elitist views that the public can’t be trusted.
So 47% of the elite 1% think there is too much individual freedom as do 55% of Ivy League graduates. This compares to 16% for all Americans.
An astonishing 77% of the elite 1% favour rationing of gas, meat and electricity!
They love lawyers, unions leaders, journalists etc.
A whopping 84% of the elite 1% approve e of Joe Biden, despite the fact he appears to have died.
The elite and the Ivy Leaguers love banning things.