In another grasping at straws exercise within the last week the Prime Minister (the former worst ever Minister of Education) and the current (and second worst ever) Minister of Education (Tinetti) suddenly announced that the teaching of “Financial Literacy” from 2025 will be compulsory.

Despite Labour driving down qualification outcomes, increasing the percentage of NEETS (not in education, employment or training), and dropping school attendance through the floor – QUALIFICATIONS COUNT for earning. So, the first things that young people and families need to know for financial literacy and health are below. They can be summarised as stay at school, go to school, work hard, be nice to your mum and dad. But https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/80898/education-and-earnings adds great detail.

• Getting a school qualification makes a difference to how much you will earn. If you left school with NCEA Level 2, you can to expect to be earning twice as much, nine years later, as someone who left school when you did, but who had no qualifications.
• Staying on at school an extra year and entering the workforce with University Entrance (UE) gives you 25% more earnings, on average, than leaving school with just NCEA Level 2.

Non-degree tertiary qualifications

• So long as your tertiary qualification is higher than your school qualification, you can expect, on average, to have higher earnings. A Level 1 or 2 post-school certificate has the same earnings benefits as NCEA Level 1, on average, but 60% to 70% more benefit than no school qualification, 20% less benefit than NCEA Level 2, and 10% less benefit than a Level 3 post-school certificate.
• Completing a Level 4 certificate makes a difference. Nine years after leaving school, you can expect to earn 10% to 15% more than someone of your age with NCEA Level 2 as their highest qualification. Only those who completed a degree will be earning more per year. A large proportion of Level 4 qualifications are trade-oriented, and demand for trade-related skills and services has been high over the period covered by these results.

Degree qualifications

• Degree and higher-level education gives you higher annual earnings as well as higher earnings growth. Nine years after leaving school, you’ll expect to be earning 15% to 20% more than someone of your age who finished their education with UE, and 40% to 50% more than someone who finished with NCEA Level 2.
• But having spent less time in the workforce, the total cumulative earnings of people with degrees will still be catching up with those who finished their education with NCEA Level 2, UE, or a Level 4 certificate. The recent data – i.e. during a period of good labour market conditions – suggests it might take 12 years for the cumulative earnings of those that did degrees to overtake those of their peers who did a Level 4 certificate, and 10 or 11 years to overtake those who finished their education with NCEA Level 2 or UE.

Other messages

• Education contributes more to earnings through its ability to obtain and sustain employment over time. Lower employment accounts for much of the earnings disadvantage of people with no qualifications. But even when comparing just people in employment, there is still a benefit for higher qualifications. For example, those in employment with a degree, nine years after leaving school still earn 25% to 30% more than those in employment with NCEA Level 2 as their highest qualification.
• Field of study has a big influence on earnings. Average annual earnings benefits five years after graduation for a young degree graduate can vary by 30% or more (or around $20,000), depending on their field of study.

If you want a genuinely flourishing society and workforce educating young people well is a great start. It might help people on a job seekers benefit to budget – for a month of two – but it is hardly a future to aspire to.

Alwyn Poole ([email protected])
www.innovativeeducation.co.nz
www.cambridgefestivalofsport.co.nz
www.alwynpoole.substack.com

Radio NZ reported:

The two brothers who drugged and committed sexual offences against multiple patrons at the Christchurch bar, Mama Hooch, have been handed lengthy sentences.

Danny and Roberto Jaz used their positions in the family businesses and neighbouring restaurant, Venuti, to routinely spike drinks, drug and sexually violate people between 2015 and 2018.

Roberto Jaz, 38, has been given 17 years in prison, with a minimum non-parole period of 8.5 years.

Danny Jaz, 40, has been given 16.5 years, with no parole available until at least eight years have been served.

They were remorseless predators. They boasted about drugging their victims so they could rape them.

Ideally, when they are finally released, they will be deported back to Australia

The Australian reports exclusively:

US President Joe Biden’s 90-day probe into the origins of Covid-19 censored the input of intelligence agency scientists who concluded the virus was most likely genetically engineered. …

When the report was published it concluded that most intelligence agencies assessed the virus, even if it had leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, was natural rather than manipulated in a laboratory

The Australian can reveal that this was not the assessments made by the four groups within the intelligence agencies that actually engaged in scientific analysis, who concurred that there was either a highly likely or reasonable chance the virus was genetically engineered.

Once again we find out the truth later.

One of the scientists discovered that the size and location of a fragment of Covid-19 resembled the same fragment in Wuhan Institute of Virology research from more than a decade earlier, in 2008. It was the same technique that the WIV had used in grant applications to make chimeric viruses. 

“This paper is the smoking gun of everything. When the team reviewed this data, they thought ‘This is created in the lab. It’s a reverse genetics construct,” a source said.

I suspect those scientists who know the truth in China are now all dead.

Stuff reports:

National Party leader Christopher Luxon says his party would put an end to gangs getting government contracts, if elected in October.

The idea that if you just fund them, gangs will become benign has been exposed as optimistic stupidity.

Stuff reports:

The report into Tim van de Molen has just dropped. It has found Tim van de Molen should be censured for his behaviour towards Labour MP Shanan Halbert, and is in contempt of Parliament for stopping him doing his duties.

“We find that Mr van de Molen’s conduct towards Mr Halbert amounted to threatening him, that Mr Halbert was impeded in the discharge of his duties as a member, and that in doing so, Mr van de Molen committed a contempt of the House.”

The privileges committee said van de Molen’s conduct was not normal or acceptable, and that Parliamentary staff all considered calling security at the time of the incident. 

When the evidence is clear, it is good to see the Privileges Committee agree unanimously that the actions of an MP were wrong. In fact all their decisions this year have been unanimous.

This is a real change from 2008 when disgracefully Labour MPs dissented from the findings about Winston Peters, despite overwhelming evidence.

Newshub reports:

A Green Party MP has slammed Japan’s decision to release 1.3 million tonnes of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean, saying not all factors have been considered.

That sounds like a lot. Or is it. It is 1.3 million cubic metres which is equal to a 109 metre cube.

That is 0.0013 of a cubic km. The Pacific Ocean is 714 million cubic kms so it is equal to around 0.00000000018% of the Pacific Ocean.

The wastewater will contain about 190 becquerels of tritium per litre, below the World Health Organisation drinking water limit of 10,000 becquerels per litre, according to Tepco. A becquerel is a unit of radioactivity.

Japan claims the water release is safe. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog, greenlighted the plan in July, saying that it met international standards and that the impact it would have on people and the environment was “negligible”.

And the level of radioactivity is 1.9% of the safe limit, so 50 times under.

The Herald reports:

Westpac economists expect to see a continued deterioration in the books when the full-year results are published on September 12, alongside an updated set of Treasury forecasts. …

Westpac economists believe this will mean that instead of issuing $120b of New Zealand Government Bonds (debt) in the four years to 2026/27 (as forecast in May), Treasury will need to issue $135b.

In other words, if the Government sticks to its spending plans, and if Westpac economists’ forecasts of Treasury’s forecasts eventuate, the Government will need to borrow an extra $15b over the next four years.

This would add to a string of previous upward revisions, which would see Treasury issue $35b (or 35 per cent) more debt over the four-year period than expected in December.

So a $35 billion projected debt blowout in just eight months. That’s around an extra $7,000 of debt per person.

Stuff reports:

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi could face referral to Parliament’s powerful Privileges Committee, after appearing to breach both a court order and Parliament’s own rules.

Waititi appeared to substantially breach a name suppression order in Parliament’s debating chamber on Wednesday.

But Waititi denied he breached any suppression order, after he left the House. He told Stuff that because he did not say the defendant’s name, he couldn’t have breached a name suppression order.

Waititi is wrong. You can breach a name suppression order without naming someone. If you refer to details about them that can allow people to work out their name, then that is also a breach.

For example if Waititi was before the courts and had name suppression, and I said that the male co-leader of the Māori Party was before the courts, then I would have breached his name supression.

Waititi can’t be hauled before the court for his breach of name suppression, as it was done in Parliament, but it seems inevitable he will be referred to the Privileges Committee.

NB: Any comments that breach name suppression orders will be deleted and may get you suspended.

A depressing article by Gary Judd KC about the NZ Law Society abolishing their Rule of Law Committee.

The reason isn’t because it did nothing, but because it did too much. Specifically it raised concerns about judicial independence when Oranga Tamariki persuaded two heads of bench to try and intervene with a presiding Judge in a current case.

The Ministry of Education’s data arm, “Education Counts”, recently released secondary school qualifications and pathways data for the 2022 school leavers.

The summary for the leavers data for our nation makes very sobering reading and makes clear that we are at a tipping point where no amount of tinkering will make the needed difference.

Before looking at solutions here is a quick summary of the recent data release:

In 2022 the percentage of leavers with NCEA Level 1 decreased from 87.6% to 84.8% (down 2.8%). Attainment of NCEA Level 1 or above had been increasing between 2012 and 2017, since 2017 it has decreased 5.2%.

In 2022, 73% Māori school leavers attained NCEA Level 1 or above, a decrease of 3.6% from 2021. That 27% of Maori students are leaving without the most basic qualification is astounding and comes with huge consequences.

In 2022 the percentage of leavers with NCEA Level 2 decreased from 79.1% to 75.0% (down 4.1%).

In 2022 Māori school leavers attained NCEA Level 2 or above at 58.6% – a decrease of 5.1 percentage points from 2021 (i.e. in just one year). Between 2017 and 2022, the proportion of Māori school leavers NCEA Level 2 or above decreased by 10.3%.

In 2022 the percentage of leavers with NCEA Level 3 decreased from 56.3% to 51.8% (down 4.5%). It was 32.9% for  Māori school leavers. A decrease of 4.4 percentage points from 2021.

In 2022 the percentage of leavers with University Entrance decreased from 41.4% to 38.0%. In 2022, UE Standard was attained by 17.8% of Māori school leavers. For Asian leavers the UE rate was 62.5%. For Europeans 41.7%. For Pasifika students 20.7.

For the 2021 leavers there was a 5.6% decrease in participating in tertiary education.

There are solutions. The following are some suggestions.

– Working very hard to enhance the capacity of parents to help their child develop actively and to learn to read and learn about Maths, Science, etc – in the home. Great parenting is the deepest required foundation for great schooling.

– We have approximately 450 secondary schools in New Zealand. Having such a small number allows a government to set specific improvement goals for each school. I have heard of a number of schools that say things like; “NCEA does not show our students in a good light” or “Success in whatever way you want to define it.” These are not acceptable approaches because when students leave school they are significantly impacted by what they have or haven’t achieved. School leadership needs to be aspirational and accountable for the results their students achieve.

– The sector needs genuine leadership and direction. It has been conspicuously absent over the last six years and has led to issues such as a disastrous curriculum refresh, huge absenteeism, 10,000 students enrolled nowhere, disengaged families and a growing flight from NCEA as the qualification of choice.

– The room needs to be read. A growing number of families are seeking different forms of provision – home schooling (3000 children when Labour came in – now over 11,000), online learning, faith-based schools, school that understand forms of neuro-diversity. The government should be positively facilitating this and not trying to further centralise and protect their network of properties and buildings.

– Improving teacher quality at all levels, and that of school leadership, is crucial. The secondary teachers’ collective contract has recently been settled – with a net cost-of-living loss – and very little about recognising high quality teachers and how to create them. Australia, and elsewhere, is aggressively recruiting and we are just blithely hoping that things will change.

If the polls are correct there will be a new government after October. Massively improving our education system cannot be a can that gets kicked down the road again so as not to upset those with vested interests in the current forms that are failing. Our children deserve much better and we all benefit.

Alwyn Poole ([email protected])

Innovative Education Consultants

Cambridge Festival of Sport

www.innovativeeducation.co.nz

www.cambridgefestivalofsport.co.nz

www.alwynpoole.substack.com

This op-ed was offered to Stuff, NZ Herald and Newsroom to publish. They all declined.

There has been some interesting discussion in the past week about who can enter women’s bathrooms and changing rooms, or play on women’s sports teams, as New Zealand First and then the Act Party have announced policy positions. 

In brief, NZ First plans to ban transgender women (biological males who identify as women) from women’s toilets, changing rooms and sports teams, and Act has said it will review the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Bill (that enables people to change the sex on their birth certificate or ‘sex self-ID’) and the Human Rights Act.

Our media and major political parties would have us believe this is a non-issue and most New Zealanders don’t care. They say the cost of living, crime, health and education are more important, and I agree. But that doesn’t mean New Zealanders don’t care what happens when we allow males who identify as transgender in women’s spaces and sports teams. They do.

Last month I attended the International Women’s Sports Summit 2023 in the US, and presented as co-founder of the International Consortium on Female Sport (ICFS). We established the consortium earlier this year as we saw the need for a strong and united voice to advocate for the preservation of the female category in sport. We want to ensure the fairness and safety for those athletes born female.

For many years women’s groups from around the globe have been fighting to have fairness for females restored in sport, collaborating and supporting each other where we could. Yet we found the concerns we raised were dismissed and ignored, and we weren’t being given a seat at the table when these policies were being developed, while well-funded trans activist lobby groups have had the ear of our sporting leaders all the way up to the International Olympic Committee (IOC). 

Women deserve proper representation when decisions are to be made about their sports category and the ‘female voice’ must be considered when sports organisations undertake consultations regarding eligibility at every level – that’s local, regional, national, and international. The ICFS serves in this capacity and now includes members from the USA, Canada, Italy, Spain, France, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, NZ, Central America and Mexico. Our members stand united in the conviction that sport governing bodies must abide by fundamental principles of safety, privacy, and fairness, along with international laws prohibiting sex-based discrimination against biological females.

Recently there has been some movement. The Union Cycliste International (UCI) now prevents males (who have been through male puberty) who identify as transgender from competing in women’s cycling. It has joined World Rugby, FINA (world swimming’s governing body) and World Athletics to recognise the biological implications of sex and respect women’s rights to fair and safe sport.

While this sounds positive, Cycling New Zealand’s policy allows a person to compete in the sex category they identify with and New Zealand Rugby is yet to announce its policy but is aligned with Sport New Zealand (the major funder), which released guidelines that support a person competing in the sex category they identify in.

Many sports, especially at community level – which makes up by far the majority of sport in the world – have begun allowing total self-identification, prioritising the feelings and inclusion of males who identify as transgender in the female category over the feelings, fairness and safety of all females. 

Unfortunately, our political and sporting leaders have decided to believe that male advantage no longer exists in sport, when males who identify as transgender wish to participate in the female category. Or at least they think it doesn’t undermine meaningful competition for females enough to matter.

This position has seen sports allow biological males to take sporting opportunities from females, to injure female athletes and to attain female podiums and prizes. The fundamental rights of females to safety, privacy and fairness, along with international laws prohibiting sex-based discrimination against biological sex are being completely dismantled.

One of the first actions our Consortium did was to define key words that allow women to clearly articulate the objective reality of their physical bodies, so that sex-based discrimination cannot be ignored. This language, like the biology of sex, is not hateful or hurtful. Language is important in sports policies as it’s the only way we recognise women and girls in sport. It’s the only way we can defend their rights. And it’s the only way we can recognise when our rights to fairness, safety and inclusion are compromised. 

It goes without saying that everyone has a right to play sport, but just not in the category they choose for good biological reasons.

All sports should enshrine the significance of biology in their rule books to make it clear that the women’s category will always be protected for those athletes born female – from community sport to elite as, if fair and meaningful competition matters, then it matters at every level.

I encourage you to listen to these three key presentations given at the summit to understand why the female category in sport needs protection.

• British philosophy and ethics Professor Jon Pike discussing the IOC’s theory of fairness in sport, explores category and competitive advantages in sport, and where male advantage fits within those. (22 mins)
• World Rugby Head Scientist Ross Tucker PhD, who has also consulted with multiple governing bodies around the world, on how safe and sensible policy has resulted from apolitical data analysis and systemic processes and sometimes has been ignored. The implications for other sports and countries are clear. (1hr 22 mins)
• Dr Greg Brown shares the data from pre-puberty athletic performance studies from around the globe. (28 mins)

Ro Edge is the co-founder of the International Consortium on Female Sport and established Save Women’s Sports Australasia in 2020. She has been leading the movement to protect the female category for sport in New Zealand and aims to work proactively with sports.

National announced:

A National Government will pay for 13 cancer treatments that are helping extend survival rates in Australia, by making them available to patients in New Zealand, National Leader Christopher Luxon says.

“Each year, more than 25,000 Kiwis are diagnosed with cancer and more than 10,000 tragically lose their lives. Almost every New Zealander will have some experience with cancer in their lifetime – either personally or through a friend, colleague or loved one.

“But despite the hard work and dedication of New Zealand’s trusted healthcare professionals, cancer survival rates here lag behind Australia, partially due to Australia’s broader funding of cancer medicines.

“The New Zealand Cancer Control Agency recently identified 13 treatments for lung, bowel, kidney, and head and neck cancers that provide significant clinical benefits and are funded in Australia but not in New Zealand.

“Under National, New Zealanders will not have to leave the country, mortgage their home, or start a Givealittle page to fund potentially life-saving and life-extending treatments that are proven to work and are readily available across the Tasman.

“National will allocate $280 million in ring-fenced funding to PHARMAC over four years to pay for these therapies. We think this is a better use of taxpayers’ money than paying $5 prescription fees for everyone, including those who can afford to pay it themselves.

“Under National, superannuitants and those on low-incomes will receive free prescriptions. For everyone else, the total amount any family will pay for prescriptions in a year will be capped at $100.

This is politically a very smart policy. Chris Hipkins now has to defend him getting free prescriptions, rather than funding cancer drugs. National has taken an issue they were on the back foot about, and turned it back on Labour.

Ideally National would not be dictating to Pharmac what they spend the extra funding on, but politically I understand the need to specify what the prescription fee revenue will go towards.

Tova O’Brien writes:

Labour has been sent its most violent wake-up call yet in the latest 1News Verian poll with a four point tumble tipping them into the terrible 20s on 29%.

Anything with a two in front for major parties in a public poll this close to an election campaign will have apparatchiks freaking out that the rot has set in.

And when you have Luxon and Hipkins neck and neck in the preferred Prime Minister stakes there will be no more campaign consolation for Labour – only crisis stations.

Remember former National Party leader Simon Bridges was rolled when he took the party to 30.6% in 2020.

The problem for Labour is there is no Jacinda waiting in the wings.

A guest post by Carl Cerecke of NMIT | Te Pūkenga:

The TEU is losing its understanding of what its purpose is. In a time of university cuts and Te Pūkenga shambolics, the TEU is spreading its focus to social and ideological issues that, while arguably important, have the capacity to dilute and weaken the union’s core focus on advancing the industrial and professional rights of members, advocating for members with their employers, and upholding academic freedom. While the current TEU president stated in 2022 that “Industrial matters are the heart of any union”, the changes voted in at the May national conference (and at previous conferences) are crowding out that heart with side issues.

The two most controversial changes are a move to a co-governance and an expanded set of purposes beyond industrial relations: Co-governance will be with a large 24-member (12 Māori, 2 Pasifika, 10 non-racially-specified) council.  The purposes are collected under 5 headings: Mana Tiriti, Mana Mahi, Mana Taurite, Mana Mātauranga, and Mana Taiao. Let us consider the changes to the purposes first and the changes to the governance second.

As well as the standard purposes expected of a union in the tertiary education sector, the new purposes also include these statements: “The Union shall advocate for a tertiary education system that is accessible to all; acknowledges, values, and validates Mātauranga Māori and cultural provision” and “The Union will take action to transform the relationship of the Union and the tertiary education sector with Te Taiao (Papatūānuku and Ranginui) by supporting climate justice, just transitions and kaitiakitanga of the natural environment”. Note that I’m not arguing against these ideas here (for some ideas it is not even clear what the union means), I’m only arguing that these should not be part of the core purpose of a union.

Here are some reasons to reject the broadening of the purpose of the union:

The full results are here.

Party Vote

• National 37% (+2% from last poll in July 2023)
• Labour 29% (-4%)
• ACT 13% (+1%)
• Greens 12% (+2%)
• Maori Party 2.6% (-0.2%)
• NZ First 3.7% (+0.6%)
• Freedoms NZ 0.7% (-0.1%)
• TOP 0.6% (-1.1%)
• New Conservatives 0.3% (-0.1%)
• DemocracyNZ 0.0% (-0.6%)

Seats

• Labour 37 (-28 from election)
• National 48 (+15)
• ACT 17 (+7)
• Greens 15 (+5)
• Maori 3 (+1)

Government

• National/ACT 65/120
• Labour/Greens/maori 55/120

Preferred PM (unprompted)

• Chris Hipkins 21% (-4%)
• Christopher Luxon 20% (nc)
• David Seymour 6% (-1%)
• Chloe Swarbrick 2% (nc)
• winston peters 3% (+1%)
• Jacinda Ardern 2% (+1%)
• Nicola Willis 2% (+1%)

This shows the annual net departures of NZ citizens. In the year to June 2014 it was 12,224 and then it reduced over the next three years to 2,915 – only losing 55 Kiwis a week. It doubled during 2018 and 2019, but still relatively low. During the Covid-19 pandemic Kiwis returned home, of course.

But look at what is happening now. Almost 35,000 Kiwis have left in the last 12 months. That’s 670 a week.

A guest post by Phronesis

There is an ongoing debate in NZ around violent crime, sentencing, and prison numbers. This debate seems to me to always miss the point because it never deals with the fundamental question of what are we actually trying to achieve? What is the goal here?

The system is often called the Justice system but this presupposes a number of problematic ideas. Primarily that the world is or could ever be a just and fair place. It is obvious to everyone that the world is not just and fair, and (sadly) only the deluded believe that it ever could be.

So, in our “justice” system a criminal who “does the crime” then “serves the time” is held to have paid some sort of price to balance out the harm that they caused to their victims. Justice is achieved by individuals receiving the punishment which they deserve for their crimes. Of course this punishment doesn’t help the victim in any way, it’s only practical use is as either a deterrent to potential offenders or in the case of prison, an effective limitation on further offending (against the public at least).

The logical endpoint of this punitive conception of justice is that when an offender is not entirely culpable for their actions then the punishment should be reduced. So when an offender has been exposed to a childhood of abuse, poverty of parental input, and general uncivilness we should punish them less than we would the average member of society. The reasoning is perfectly valid but the outcome is that we should punish the most violent and psychopathic criminals the least.

This is Justice but is this what we actually want?

Alternatively we could take the view that what we actually want is a society with the least amount of violence and victims as possible. How would we achieve this? Well when a violent offender comes before the courts we would look at their history of criminal behaviour, we would look at their upbringing, and we would remove the most violent and psychopathic offenders from society for the longest. Not it must be clear to punish them, but to protect society from their near inevitable reoffending. Prisons would not be places of punishment but exist primarily to physically prevent reoffending. I would like to see them be much nicer places to live but I suspect that given the nature of the occupants this would be difficult.

We actually already do this in the case of those violent offenders who are found to have such diminished capacity that they are not punishable for their crimes by reason of insanity. We don’t just let them out on the streets to commit further crimes, we attempt to help them get better, and we don’t let them out till they are (in theory at least).Our Justice system is failing because it accepts the reality that many of those who come before it have diminished responsibility for their crimes but then fails to consider that true Justice must consider present and future victims. In many ways it even lets down the criminals themselves by failing to prevent them from reoffending. Can you imagine what it would be like living with having committed violent crimes, often against those you love? We need to move away from a punitive understanding of justice and towards a preventative understanding. It is clear that threats of future punishment are insufficient to prevent crime, or there would be no crime now, so the reality is that only segregation will prevent repeat violent offenders from reoffending and creating more victims. It’s an unfortunate situation, particularly for the individuals in question, but the world really isn’t fair.