September 2008

Helen Clark and John Key have declined to appear in debates organised by TVNZ and TV3 with the leaders of the other political parties, saying they will only participate in head-to-head debates. They do not wish to share the lime-light with smaller parties and will only appear together. Such examples of the big two parties colluding against the others is, in fact, common.

The Television Companies are perfectly within their rights to issue the invitations, allow Miss Clark and Mr Key to decline and then go ahead anyway, but, in reality we all know this will not happen and the big parties will get their way. This is also the most boring scenario as Mr Key and Miss Clark will be striving to say the same thing whilst insisting that they are very different and that the other is insincere and untrustworthy.

Reason enough to advocate for voting for the MMP parties I'd say.

I'm reliably told that a teacher who is a member of the Labour party recently asked kids at the school - during school time - if they would help out at a Labour MPs function being held at a Wellington Secondary School. This is an outrageous abuse of position from a person who should be exhibiting political neutrality during working hours. Clearly Labour are so desperate for help that they are recruiting labour from the ranks of those too young to vote. The very same school, turned down my offer of speaking to Year 9 and 10 students about parliament and the role of an MP earlier in the year. The excuse given was that parents might worry that the school was showing political bias!

The Privileges Committee report on Winston Peters was presented tonight and can be viewed on the parliamentary website. Reports can have minority views from parties incorporated in the report but it takes a majority decision by the committee for this to happen. I submitted a report on behalf of the ACT party but it was rejected by most of the committee. Here is what we wanted included :-

Proposed ACT Party Minority Report

I've had a few (adverse)reactions about the moderation of comments to Royters posts. To avoid delays in getting comments up on this blog and to reward commentators for their current good behaviour moderation has been turned off. So, go for it!

15 Sep 08

September 15 is the day on which allied countries of WW2 commemorate the Battle of Britain. This is the day the Luftwaffe suffered its worst casualties in one day – 60 aircraft vs 26 of the RAF -resulting in Hitler’s postponement and ultimate cancellation of Operation Sea Lion – the invasion of England. 2,353 British and 574 Commonwealth aircrew, including 127 New Zealanders, are recorded as having flown in those ‘darkest hours’. 510 lost their lives. Their effort was well summarized by Sir Winston Churchill when he said “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few”.
We will remember them.

Most financial commentators were predicting a drop in the OCR (Official Cash Rate) but I don't think too many were picking the move Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard chose to make - a massive drop of half a percent to 7.5% - the biggest single change to the OCR since 2001.

While the 0.5% drop will be welcomed by those with a mortgage and exporters Mr Bollard's decision will make some people - those who save - worse off. While the Government tries to encourage us to save the lower OCR will see a drop in bank interest rates and encourage spending. So now we have two conflicting viewpoints - one from the Government suggesting we need to save more, and one from the Reserve Bank (no doubt urged on by the Government) suggesting we need to save less and spend our way out of recession.

John Key announced at the weekend that he will disband the Families Commission. Set up to keep Peter Dunne happy and seal his support on Confidence and Supply issues after the 2002 election, it was set up on 1 July 2004 with a $28 million budget over its first four years. The Commission has three functions:-

Analysis, Advocacy and Research of matters relating to family.

This is work work that can and is being done by the Ministry of Social Development. For example I understand MSD is currently setting up a database of organisations that assist the family.

So, while the Commission's 6 Commissioners and staff of around 30 were turning their minds to such important issues as defining "What a family is" far too many of our vulnerable babies and toddlers were being seriously abused - some of them killed. Remember Nia Glassie, the Kahui twins?

I was invited to speak on a political panel this afternoon to a Schizophrenia Fellowship - a support network for those suffering from the mental disorder schizophrenia - meeting. Unfortunately I was already committed to speaking at ACT's Upper South Island rally in Christchurch. As good luck would have it my husband is a Psychiatrist, so deals on a daily basis with conditions of this type. His political credentials aren't too bad either - he was the youngest candidate for the New Zealand Party (Bob Jones' political party) in 1984, so he stood in for me at today's meeting.

The front page of today's Dominion Post has an article "More pay to teach 'gangsta' students". Could this be the start of a move towards performance based pay? I hope so.

Everyone knows who the good teachers are and that they deserve much more than they currently earn. Conversely the poorly performing teachers are also easily identified. It's about time that those who teach to a high standard and get good results and outcomes were rewarded for their efforts. It has always surprised me that teachers are the ones most opposed to performance based pay - they advocate for higher wages for all, even their poorly performing colleagues. The solution for higher pay is to have a better performing economy.

Today's DomPost article says :
"Teachers want more pay for staff who work in problem schools, and also want colleges to be secretly classified by the number of violent, disruptive or anti-social pupils on their rolls" and