Hypocrisy and Idiocy in NACT

The recent headlines coming from the NACT government are hardly ones to write home about.

First we have the erstwhile PM pontificating at the CTU conference telling the teachers that they should take a salary cut so the NACT govt can then pay the school support staff properly, then we have "Double Dipton" declaring that the change in "ownership"of his family home in wellington had nothing to do with him being able to rort more of the taxpayers' money in "accommodation allowances" so that he could be a permanent resident in Dipton - a township that hasn't seen him as any more than a temporary resident since he left there to go to school. adding to that rort we then are witness to him being paraded in an election campaign style advertising blitz by none other than the state broadcasting corporation as the front man for a programme named after him and all being declared as being honest and transparent!

Add to that the revelation that the NACT govt is now going to privatise ACC, flog off local body assets, especially water, in the race to "super-size" Auckland and the path to corruption gets even smoother.
Then, today, we get a report that the Herald's favourite "perk buster" and supporter of local democracy, Rodney Hide, has been caught rorting the taxpayer as well. As this story demonstrates:

ACT leader Rodney Hide says he disagrees with the perk that gives MPs a taxpayer-funded 90 percent fare discount for themselves and their partners - but he still used it to take his girlfriend overseas.

The air fares for Louise Crome's trip to London, Canada and the United States are reported to have cost $25,163.

Mr Hide's fares and accommodation cost $26,872.

He said today the perk was "a silly anachronism" but it existed and he couldn't change it.

"I don't agree with that rule but I'm not a martyr," he said on Radio New Zealand.

"I checked twice with the prime minister that it was acceptable. It got all the ticks."

To make it worse Rodney "I'm a little piggy too" Hide declares that because it's alright with Key and the others are doing it too he'll dig his hands into the public purse to entertain his girlfriend with overseas trips again.

Lapsed perkbuster Rodney Hide says he will use his MP's travel expenses again to take his partner overseas.

The Act leader was making no apologies yesterday for the public purse paying $25,163 for his partner, Louise Crome, to accompany him as Local Government Minister on a Super City fact-finding visit to Britain, Canada and the United States, and some domestic travel.

Mr Hide is the second Act MP to run up a big globetrotting bill on the taxpayer by using a travel perk for longstanding MPs.

In July, it was revealed that Act's Sir Roger Douglas, Parliament's most vocal campaigner against wasteful spending of taxpayers' money, had spent $44,411 on travel - most of it on a trip he and his wife took to London to see their son and grandchildren. The figures emerged under a new quarterly reporting regime of transparency for parliamentary spending.

If this isn't hypocrisy in action and being given the "BIG TIC" by the John Key I'm at a loss to discover what might be.

Isn't it about time there was a real public outcry at the high handed manner this NACT government is behaving?

Is this a picture of future leaders?

The recent exploits of ABG boys while on a trip tothe Auckland museum do not give a lot of credence to the claims that the school is educating future leaders of New Zealand but then the activities of the present NACT government would indicate that the bully boy mentality these boys are "worshipping" is alive and well in the corridors of power around the Engkeylish power base.

Undervalued profession

This story gives the lie to Tolley's idea that graduates with MA's will rush to be fast tracked into teaching in New Zealand schools. It also demonstrates that the attacks on teachers, with the insistence that they are over paid and underworked by this NACT government is nothing more than shallow political rhetoric from those without a sustainable education policy.

Teachers earn below OECD levels

Thursday Sep 10, 2009

Primary and secondary teachers in New Zealand earn well below the OECD average, and thousands of dollars less than their Australian counterparts, a report says.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Education at a Glance 2009 report compared the salaries of teachers in primary, lower secondary and upper secondary education, at a starting salary and after 15 years of experience.

The salary figures, in US dollars, were based on buying power parity, which eliminates price differences among countries.

New Zealand teachers at each level of education started on about US$19,236 ($28,044) - significantly less than the OECD average starting salary of US$28,687 at primary level, US$31,000 at lower secondary level and US$32,183 at upper secondary level.

After 15 years, New Zealand teachers reached about US$37,213 at all three levels of teaching, compared with OECD averages of US$39,007 at primary, US$41,993 at lower secondary and US$44,782 at upper secondary levels.

Australian teachers, on the other hand, consistently earned hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars more than the OECD average.

They began on about US$32,259 at primary level and US$32,406 at both secondary levels, and reached up to US$44,245 at primary level and US$44,942 at secondary level after 15 years.

In New Zealand, female teachers comprise 98.8 per cent of pre-primary education teachers, 83.3 per cent of primary teachers and 65.7 per cent of lower secondary education teachers.

The number of female teachers dropped to 57.8 per cent at upper secondary education level and to 49.9 per cent at tertiary level.

Teacher-student ratios were slightly smaller than OECD averages, while the net time spent teaching was above the OECD average.

Teachers' unions said the figures confirmed teachers were underpaid and undervalued, the Dominion Post reported.

PPTA president Kate Gainsford and Educational Institute president Frances Nelson both said change was needed to make the industry more attractive and to retain teachers.

NACT import failed programmes from failed Bush policies

Let be said that Ann Tolley knows failure when she sees it and that she is prepared to follow the tried and true NACT philosophy that if it failed in the US it must be good and NZ will be able to tweak it with No 8 wire & baling twine. Here she is ready to screw up the NZ education system with a discredited US scheme. These two stories illustrate her lack of wisdom and knowledge.

Minister explores 'fast-track' teachers
By NATHAN BEAUMONT - The Dominion Post
Last updated 05:00 07/09/2009
Prospective teachers could skip specialist university training and be fast-tracked into the classroom under a plan to cope with an ageing workforce.
Under the scheme, anyone who already has a master's degree could bypass teacher's college and learn on the job.
The suggestion follows a high-level meeting between Education Minister Anne Tolley and controversial United States schools leader Michelle Rhee.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/2839264/Minister-explores-fast
-track-teachers
<http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/2839264/Minister-explores-fas
t-track-teachers>
And here is the research and argument to prove both Tolley and Rhee wrong.
(Previous daily news had comment from Australia - US expert condemns Teach for Australia 17 August 2009
http://www.nswtf.org.au/media/latest_2009/20090817_berliner.html
<http://www.nswtf.org.au/media/latest_2009/20090817_berliner.html> )

I'm a Victim therefore my argument is correct.

I'm a victim therefore my argument is correct and you're a big bully for challenging me.

While including the statement that perhaps the pupils' teacher deserved to be fired was extreme and unwarranted,there are not many times that I agree with Michael Laws for I regard him in the same light as Tom Scott portrayed him back when he was an M.P. - an opportunistic opinionated shallow individual- but to read that he is being accused of "bullying" because he gave a group of primary school pupils the courtesy of a reply to their letters arguing for a change to the spelling of Wanganui and chose to point out, very frankly, that their argument was based on somewhat tenuous grounds and that there were more urgent and deeper matters affecting Moaridom that they could be justifiably concerned about is unbelievable.

One of the problems in New Zealand society is the lack of robust, rational debate on issues that affect our lives (ironically the shallowness of that debate is partly attributable to the talk-back hosts, like Michael Laws, who do not encourage rationality on their radio shows, favouring, instead, the emotional, argumentum ad homenum as it gets better ratings.). The lack of robust, rational debate in the media and in our classrooms means that when pupils and teachers are faced with a frank and pointed rebuttal of their favoured position they immediately cry "BULLYING!!!" and then retreat into their corners to stroke their belief convinced that now they have painted themselves as victims their position is now even more correct and deserving of total public support.

So it is with this response to Mr.Laws' letters to the pupils of Otaki School.
The episode is a beat up, a proverbial storm in a tea-cup, that serves none of the "victims" of the "bullying" well.
Let's encourage robust, informed debate and, perhaps, our society can focus on real issues with a greater sense of arguing based on substantial and substantive information.

Supercity smackers

One of the great ironies of the NZ political scene is that of the ACT party. It was a party founded on the Friedmanite principles of "the individual behaves with total economic rationality and, therefore needs no assistance from the State tomake the best decisions" and yet the representatives of this political philosophy in the NZ government continually fail to live up or down to this principle.
First we have the clown prince of ACT- Rodney Hide (the only one of the ACT bully squad who professes to represent an electorate ) - who appears to believe that if he threatens to throw his toys out of the cot he will be able to continue on with his campaign to remove the democratic rights of ratepayers to be represented at the local level by someone who actually lives and works in their ward instead of by the "big business" interest whose concerns do not reflect those of the ratepayer. This is nothing more than corporate dictatorship being imposed on the ratepayers.
Then we have ACT's justice spokesman, Garrett, whose belief system incorporates Hide's bully boy attitudes and adds such niceties as inappropriate sexual suggestions to staff and threats of retribution against any state employee who chooses to criticise any policy he puts forward... like privatising the state prison service for the benefit of the foreign corporate raider.
And now we have "Let's smack-em down" Boscowen who is loudly campaigning on behalf of the religious right, both here in NZ and with interference assistance from the USA, for NZ to return to the pre-repeal of section 59 situation which allowed "responsible" parents to claim justifiable force when they injured their children in the act of disciplining them.
All three of these righteous men appear to have no clear idea about responsible individual behaviour or principle apart from that of the dictatorship of the selfish bully.
Mind you their founder Roger (Nosferatu ) Douglas certainly provided the foundation for such behaviour so I presume we shouldn't be too surprised.
Their sole reason for existence is to prop up one of the most inept and rorting governments of recent years.

Come off it Key - suspend your errant MP until he is proven innocent!

The Double Standard rides again. If Key was as principled as he portrays himself Bakshi should be taking gardening leave until all allegations of wrong doing are cleared... after all isn't this what he insisted Clark should do with Peters?

What is sauce for the goose must also be for the gander?

National MP Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi has assured Prime Minister John Key he has not done anything wrong and Mr Key wants him to be treated like everyone else during an inquiry into immigration allegations.

The inquiry, involving list MP Mr Bakshi, is back on after police were provided with fresh information.

Mr Bakshi has denied allegations he accepted money for false job offers to bolster Indian immigrant applications.

There have also been allegations about attempts to silence witnesses.

Mr Key, in Australia for meetings with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, said Mr Bakshi should be "treated like any other New Zealand citizen", Radio New Zealand reported.

"I've directly and personally asked him whether there's any truth to the allegations, he's given me a personal assurance there is not.

"If there is grounds for investigation then the authorities should conduct those investigations and they'll get full support from the Government if it's required,"

Mr Bakshi would be "called to account" if there was a case to answer, Mr Key said.

Acting Prime Minister Bill English said yesterday Mr Bakshi was "quite clear he hasn't done anything wrong". Immigration New Zealand started an inquiry last year but closed it in March because of a lack of evidence.

It has now provided police with further information on the allegations after interviewing a new informant.

The service also provided police with a sworn statement, obtained by Labour MP Pete Hodgson from another new informant, which said complainants were encouraged by people in India to drop the matter; "because he was going to be the first Sikh MP in New Zealand".

Police said they were looking at the role of former immigration consultant Darshan Singh Bains, who took job offers from Mr Bakshi and gave them to Indians to use as part of their applications to migrate to New Zealand.

Mr Bakshi said he knew nothing about the police investigation, and had not had any contact with Immigration since its file was closed.

Mr Bakshi has been away from work after a heart bypass operation but is expected back soon.