Key keeps Hekia

Can only be because he sees himself in her.

The Backdown Budget

"Errrmmmmm..."

That's what it's being called now, and rightly so. Flipping on the 'bigger classes is better for you' education portion of the budget meal (and they made a real meal of that) has had Hekia Parata dragged through the mud, but where's Bill English? It was his budget and his responsibility, but where's he hiding while bits of it fly off spectacularly? There've been no shots of Bill's weathered mug on our screens, no questions put to him by keen journalists, no appearances on TV's political half-hour shows, no sign of the wee mousy at all! Was it not his budget after all? Where does the buck stop, for a budget that's been named, 'Backdown'?

*Update - seems I've fallen for McCully's spin - I'm letting Key slither away from his poor performance as Prime Minister responsible for what his Government does. Better include his mug as well.

We all hate John Key

"I got home last night and my 12-year-old step daughter was waiting for me with a stern message: "We all hate John Key," she exclaimed.

Why, I said - pretending to be shocked by it all, but secretly knowing what she was about to say.

"Well, he's going to close our cooking and technology classes at our school. So we all hate him. And we're writing him letters - no one likes him at our school anymore," she said."

Duncan garner lets rip!

The good Oil

I would ordinarily be struggling to support anything Whaleoil says on any topic at all, but today, he's singing from my song-sheet. He doesn't like Hekia Parata, nor does he shrink from sheeting the blame for the Budget stuff-up the person responsible for the Budget, Bill English. I've cut-and-pasted his whole post here, as it's comprehensive and I'd hate to lose any of it's grunt by pruning it. No doubt the irascible Whale will let me know if he's unhappy to be quoted in full.

" Speaking to many constituency MPs in the past week they have shared with me their frustration of having to explain and apologise to their constituents that latest cluster-fu*ck by a List MP.

Hekia Parata appeared ill-advised, arrogant and poorly researched as she rammed home her education reforms. She could afford to do that, when she went home each night and at the start of the current parliamentary recess she had only Wira Gardiner to answer to.

Not so for the poor constituency MPs who return to their electorates to face hordes of bewildered parents who don’t know whether or not to believe the over the top, hyped outrage of the teacher unions and their patsy friends in the media or a over-blown minister making excuses.

It is those MPs who have to explain to their constituents that it appears there may have been a mistake. And as the old saying goes, if you are explaining a position you are losing.

Hekia Parata as a List MP faces none of that. The only outrage she will face is that which she is paid to face. From the teacher unions as expected but now within the caucus room…from electorate MPs who have explain her screw up.

Many in the caucus room will be wondering why they should bother standing up for someone who can’t win a seat and someone who appears totally aloof to the intricacies of her portfolio.

Anne Tolley isn’t the sharpest crayon in the box, but she does have a low rat cunning that saw her deal to the teacher unions and push thorough National Standards without any cluster-f*cks of the proportions that Hekia Parata has delivered. Anne Tolley saw off four Labour education spokes people including the rabid old dog Trevor Mallard. It must gall Trevor Mallard that he was bested by Anne Tolley. Parata, however, fell over at the first hurdle.

The only other person who should be smarting is Bill English, as it was his idea to push through these reforms..to save what is really pennies in the big scheme of things. It is of no surprise that he got his acolyte Hekia Parata to try to deliver it and if she had been successful then Bill English’s succession, vicariously through Hekia Parata, would have been assured. Those dreams and plans are now in tatters.

This was the last throw of the dice for Bill English, papers will reveal eventually the real culpability for the education budget screw up. That he has managed to take out Hekia Parata on the way through is a blessing really for the long term viability of the National party.

Private school privilege

Why is it, people might be wondering, that New Zealand's private schools received a $35 million 'boost' from the National Government, soon after they took office? Why is it, they might continue to wonder, that private schools were not included in National's national standards reforms and don't have to test and report the way state schools do?
Why is it, do you think, that private schools are able to continue to advertise the educational advantages of lower class sizes, while State schools are told that class size makes no difference and that they will have to have larger classes now, thanks to the latest Budget?
It's very odd.
Someone has pointed out that the children of National Party MPs generally attend private schools, recipients of National's largess, schools that are exempt from the austerity measures of the Budget and exempt from the authoritarian national standards regime.
Those making the suggestions that the National Party MPs putting these measures in place might be doing so because they and their children will not be affected by the cuts and extra pressures, are being accused by the commentators of the Right, of being 'envious'.
I suppose they might be a little. Watching one section of society being treated in a privileged way can be irritating, to say the least.
Hekia Parata's Budget stuff-up, where she's gutted the Intermediate schools in one arrogant stroke of her blue pen, shows how haughtily out of touch National ministers have become and how damaging to New Zealand society their self-serving decisions are.
Back to school, all of them. A State school, that is.

New Zealand Conservative

Now does that sound like me?
New Zealand Conservative is a blog quite unlike mine but this morning I found we have a commonality and that is around Intermediate schools and the harm they will suffer under National and the iron fist of the ever-grinning Hekia Parata. "Manual" classes, that teach skills such as woodwork and cooking, are going under Hekia's knife and Lucia Maria at New Zealand Conservative is not at all impressed.

Larger class sizes... for some

"Maori immersion schools will be exempt from increases in class size announced in this year's Budget - a move critics have labelled unfair."


Goodness! Sounds like the clause that allows private schools to ignore the Government's requirement to implement national standards. Does this sound at all like favouritism to you? 

Parata gets slammed!

"Tena Koe Minister Hekia Parata
I pen this Open Email to you, with the purpose of saying respectfully that your arguments re: the proposed changes to class numbers, staffing ratios are so false, that you must be aware that they have little to do with doing what is right for children. Rather they have more to do with politicians using glib phrases to try and justify the further ruination of an education system, that was once the best in the world. Minister it is not you and your colleagues, nor is it me and my colleagues who will suffer from your changes. It is the children of this nation!"

Thus begins the open-email letter to Education Minister Hekia Parata from her old school mate and now

Principal Pat Newman T.T.C. Dip Ed(Waikato) B.Ed(Massey) Dip.Tchg, ANZPF.

There's plenty more reading in the email and I invite you to go to The Standard to read the remainder. You too, Parata, if you're reading :-)