Free Press

ACT’s regular bulletin

Growing Shoots
The number one determinant of educational success is school leadership and teacher quality, and New Zealand has one of the most unequal education systems in the world. Thankfully this Government, with ACT’s pressure and support is opening up new ways of getting good educators in front of children.

To All the Great Teachers
The old saying goes, if you can read this, thank a teacher. Free Press comes to you weekly thanks to some wonderful, inspiring, life changing teachers. They are paid the same as the mediocre, draining, and even bullying ones that should have been moved on long ago but are almost immovable under collective agreements. Good teachers need to see through the bullying tactics of the unions.

Funding Review
Education Minister Hekia Parata is undertaking a funding review, one that could result in principals having greater control over their staffing budgets. At present principals are simply told how many teachers they can employ. They have little flexibility in the arrangements they can make, being hamstrung by collective agreements. Free Press sends the Minister power and courage.

Teach First NZ
Teach First takes top (only seven per cent get in) university science and maths graduates, puts them through an eight week residential boot camp on teaching techniques before putting them into low decile schools with a mentor.

Does it Work?
In the words of one principal: "Every single Teach First candidate we've had has just been outstanding, they are so thorough, so hard-working and so resilient, it's unbelievable. Our kids get major benefit from them… I put my kids first, and for my kids, these guys [Teach First trainees] are outstanding. This is the best thing for kids in low deciles and this system works." Northland College’s Jim Luders was one of 20 principals to sign an affidavit in support of Teach First when the unions tried to shut the scheme down by (mis) using employment law.

Partnership Schools
As regular Free Press readers will be aware, Partnership Schools already have total flexibility in their employment arrangements and their use of funding. They are also able to hire teachers not registered with the Education Council if they can show how the teachers’ qualifications, skills, and experience will benefit children’s learning. Of course, Partnership Schools are also knocking it out of the park with results and innovation.

More to Come
In case the unions thought it was over, it’s only just beginning, with Education Under-Secretary David Seymour announcing last Friday a fourth round of applications for those who want to run new Partnership Schools to open in 2018.

Relentless Negativity
The unions and their apparatchiks in parliament have launched attacks on all three initiatives in the last week. In education policy the battle lines are clear. There are those of us who want to do better for kids and are open to new policy, then there are those who simply want to protect the status quo for existing teachers.

Exhibit A
As Free Press readers know, union attacks on Partnership Schools know no bounds, the latest episode being the use of Health and Safety law to bully a state school principal who dared to share resources with a Partnership School.

Exhibit B
Labour Education Spokesman Chris Hipkins does not understand the point of a consultation. While Parata has tried to include all stakeholders in the education funding review, she has come under attack in the House from Hipkins who has little imagination beyond protecting the status quo for the unions that helped elect him. When one time Education Minister David Lange introduced Tomorrow’s Schools it was world leading, effectively making every school a charter school. Labour are now in a tailspin.

Exhibit C
New Zealand First have hastily drafted a bill to ‘protect the title of a teacher.’ In a debate with David Seymour on TVNZ’s Breakfast, Martin was reduced to admitting she had no problem with new pathways to teaching. Her one page bill would cost about $400,000 of parliament’s time to argue over a name. You can watch the debate here.

Why TVNZ’s Breakfast is in Trouble
There have been change ups and controversy around Breakfast as the show loses ground to Paul Henry. They chose to promote the above interview around Martin’s odd quip that ‘size doesn’t always matter Mr Seymour’. Let’s hope Jack Tame and Hillary Barry can turn the show around.

The Government will Help Find Your Luggage!
National’s Nuk Karako is a nice enough guy, but he doesn’t have to be a minister, lead a party or, being a list MP, even represent an electorate. He has had another one page bill drawn, that would also cost $400,000 odd to debate, to, wait for it, change the way that airports advertise lost luggage. What do these people do?

Easy Fix
Ever willing to be helpful, ACT is offering to help fold Nuk’s amendment into a much more appropriate place, the Statutes Amendment or the Regulatory Systems Bill. These bills are the right place for minor technical changes. We hope Nuk will come to the party and withdraw his bill to save parliament’s time.

A Test of Cynicism for Key
The National caucus signed off the bill, knowing it might be drawn. Now that it’s been drawn, to public scorn, will the leadership pressure Karako to withdraw the bill and fold it into a larger ‘tidy up bill,’ or will they urge him to keep it and take the heat so that it holds up an opposition bill being drawn?

Public Opinion on Assisted Dying
The Select Committee inquiry into assisted dying has received a record 22,000 submissions. Far more than the 8,974 who signed the petition asking for the inquiry. Opponents of legalising assisted dying are crowing that antis outnumber pros by 3:1.

Scientific Polls
Of course, it is a self-selecting sample. What do the scientific polls of public opinion on the topic tell us? A Reid Research Poll in July 2015 showed 71% support and 24% opposition, and a Colmar Brunton Poll in July 2015 showed 75% support and 20% opposition. A poll of 2800 persons commissioned from Curia last year showed 66% supporting and 20% opposed.

Strength of Feeling
It could be that the submissions show greater strength of feeling than those who answer telephone polls. Perhaps, but this interesting blog post from Lindsay Mitchell shows many of the anti submitters couldn’t even muster a full sentence.

Poor old Graeme Wheeler
Politicians are attacking the Reserve Bank Governor for inflation being too low. He points out that most of it is driven by global trends (e.g. weak commodity prices) that he cannot control. A better solution would be for politicians to leave him alone and focus on their own. We used to have a 0-2 per cent inflation target, it was changed to 1-3 with a mid point target of 2 because 0-2 was thought to be too onerous. Given the main purpose of monetary policy is price stability, what a great time to change it back.

Uber and Ride Sharing
Government’s taxi regulations don’t make you safer, as any Google search of ‘taxi sex assault’ sadly shows. It is a shame that Simon Bridges insists on maintaining anachronistic passenger-licence regulations when they mean it costs $2000 to legally share a ride, and ridesharing (where many people effectively become Uber drivers) remains the preserve of professionals.

© Scoop Media