Local Bodies

National was always quick to accuse the Clark led Labour Government of turning New Zealand into a Nanny State. They used to highlight the "anti-smacking" legislation to support this and claimed Helen Clark was dictating unnecessarily how New Zealanders should live their lives with a raft of "politically correct" but intrusive legislation.  Don Brash even appointed Wayne Mapp as their official political correctness eradicator . Most of this was just political posturing and when Brash was pressed to provide examples of the sort of things that they would hope to change he questioned the power of the Waitangi Tribunal, the Human Rights Commission and the Privacy Commissioner. He also suggested that censoring a conservative Christian video that condemned homosexuality was excessive political correctness. As far as I know, apart from supporting the release of material that condemned a legitimate sector of New Zealand society (that recently had their human rights su...

Three worrying pieces of legislation have being progressed through the house over the last few days and social justice and reason have being brashly cast aside in the process. Yesterday saw the Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill being passed through Parliament and while it was celebrated by the Government as positive, world leading legislation, there were very concerning elements. The bill was not initiated to put right a past injustice as Tony Ryall has spun it  but to protect the Government from further claims and expenditure. A group that included Peter Atkinson and Cliff Robinson  had won a long legal battle (costing the Government $1.4 million) to show that they had been discriminated against when the Ministry of Health had refused to pay them for caring for their disabled children or other close relatives. The court ruling  obligated the Government to having to pay the many people who had chosen to forsake other paid work to become a caregiver of a...

The biggest winner in this budget is tourism (40% increase) followed by the Prime Minister’s Office and the Cabinet (18% increase). The Biggest losers are Statistics NZ (a 30% cut) and environmental protection (10.2% less). Health will have cuts in real terms with the smallest increase (2%). It does appear to me that there will be more money spent on Government spin, while the data revealing the real state of our nation will be limited (five yearly environmental reporting and analysis has already been wiped). $36 million extra will go to promoting our apparent clean green environment for tourists and another $14 million will be cut from the already struggling departments that are charged with protecting it. 270,000 children are suffering in substandard housing, third world diseases and from malnutrition. After four years there is still very little in the budget to address it. The $3.4 million of extra funding being spent on the Cabinet and Prime Minister would b...

I tried to make sense of the detail in the Education Vote in the 2013 Budget and it was interesting to see where the biggest cuts were taken from and where the extra spending was going. The original document I used for these figures "Details of Annual and Permanent Appropriations" appears to no longer exist and my link goes to something entirely different.  I tried to copy it here but it was beyond my technical expertise. I did save it on my own computer in pdf form and can email to anyone who is interested. The biggest winners, when you look at the extra spending above the previous year, were: $65.5 million extra going to early childhood education and largely to private providers. $27.8 million for secondary/tertiary interface and presumably work training schemes $19 million is going towards setting up Charter Schools $11.5 million for the broadband rollout. $9.4 million to professional development specifically for early childhood $8.4 million of extra spe...

The Invercargill City Council consulted with us regarding improvements to our street. They were proposing to add speed bumps and narrowing the road beside each bump and planting extra trees. While the idea of the trees sounded nice, we didn't have a problem with speed or traffic on our street and it seemed a lot of expense when other parts of the city probably deserved greater attention. I was aware of a request for funding to landscape a shopping centre and car park in a low socio-economic part of Invercargill that had been supported in principle but with no money forthcoming. I was not aware of similar street improvements occurring in less affluent areas of the city either. I wrote a submission suggesting the improvements weren't necessary and that there were probably bigger priorities elsewhere. I got no acknowledgement of my submission and a month or so later we were informed that the "improvements" were going ahead and would be starting a week later. We end...

George Monbiot makes an interesting observation about the threat to society "when scholars sell out". He explains how our scholars or academics are generally the people who promote and hold on to the the higher values and purer endeavours in the pursuit and use of knowledge. There has been an altruistic element to our higher learning institutions where there is an expectation that the knowledge gained from research and the broadening of intellectual understanding will be used to help advance humanity in a positive way. Historically,  China recognised the value of supporting and educating those with promising intellect and using their knowledge and wisdom to support the governance of their nation at every level. In the past, and especially in Shakespeare's time, academics were held in higher regard than merchants. Monbiot refers to times in the past, especially during times of war and great conflict,  when ideals and values were set aside by scientists and academi...

Finance Minister, Bill English, has indicated there will be extra spending in the forthcoming budget to address child poverty. While any extra money going to this issue should be applauded it is still clear that the Government has no real appreciation of the problem and nor does it really care. The Government refuses to have any measures to define the extent of child poverty and identify needs and yet it was determined to do this for education through the introduction of National Standards (including the explanation that it would help to target resourcing). It is bizarre that every time Paula Bennett is questioned regarding how she measures child poverty or how the Government is judging how successful they are in dealing with it, all we get is laughter and the claim that  "there is not a Government measure for poverty" . This is just utter nonsense, every teacher, business leader or welfare agency knows that to solve a problem you must understand the extent of it a...