General Debate 21 January 2011

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Manolo

The wise PIta Sharples spouting some inanities while his racist policies continue to be implemented. His party’s first priority should be the people outside the prisons, not the criminals inside.
Dr Sharples said the philosophy of Whare Oranga Ake is a challenge to conventional approaches to crime and punishment, and he praised the Department of Corrections for embracing the kaupapa so positively.

“The design for the Whare Oranga Ake programme is truly offender-centric, and for the Department, this is a radically different model for partnerships with other agencies,” he said.

He also paid tribute to his government Ministerial colleagues for their courage in giving the new approach a trial run.

“It shows they recognise that Maori philosophies, and the strength of Maori communities, may offer solutions to some of our most intractable social issues,” he said.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1101/S00057/community-support-vital-to-success-of-whare-oranga-ake.htm
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January 21, 2011 8:34am
k.jones

ding dong
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January 21, 2011 8:34am
AlphaKiwi

I’m pretty much a minimalist. I don’t like being bogged down with many possessions.
I own a few books, computer, iPod, clothing, and some toiletries and cooking appliances. That’s pretty much what I own.
I’m not much of a consumer per se, but still see regulated capitalism as the best economic system there is so far.

However, if more people started to just buy the minimum they felt they could be content with like me, and got out / or stayed out of debt, then would our economy collapse?

Does that show that our version of capitalism is flawed as it relies on a consumerist mentality where marketers have to make us desire to buy something that we would never have really thought about having in the first place?

Is there a better alternative?
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January 21, 2011 8:34am
AlphaKiwi

@ Manolo

If by chance the trial proved to work wonders and seriously reduced re-offending, then it will be worth it. I think it’s worth noting it’s only a a trial run, and though keeping Maori (and all people) out of prison would be ideal through being law abiding citizens, it’s also worth trying something different from what they’ve been doing. They currents system turns them into better crims with a tough reputation.
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January 21, 2011 8:54am
Max Call

@ Alpahkiwi

you might want to check out

http://www.storyofstuff.com/
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January 21, 2011 8:57am
Inventory2

Nice to see that Judith Collins wasn’t going to give Rob Pope another year just so he could maximise his superannuation. Well done that Minister!

http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/2011/01/rob-popes-dcm.html
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January 21, 2011 9:00am
Mark

Has Tolley popped her head up on the Auckland Grammar NCEA debate yet or is she still hiding in her Wellington Office?

At this point she has a state school that has out of hand rejected NCEA as an acceptable qualification for its students but will offer it to the 10% of its students it considers are incapable of completing the cambridge exams. Whilst Auckland Grammar is one of NZ’s top schools it is not a private or integrated school, it is a state owned and controlled school that has in effect flicked the single digit at the ministry of education.

Auckland Grammar is sending a strong signal to both the New Zealand education sector and those international students looking to come to New Zealand that NCEA is a sub standard qualification that they nor anyone else should have any confidence in.

Tolley is in a bind and at some point has to make a definitive choice here to either back the Ministry of Education or Auckland Grammar. There is no middle ground for her on this issue. If she backs Auckland Grammar’s stance she is endorsing it’s vote of no confidence in NCEA and if she backs the Ministry she then must act to bring Auckland Grammar back into line as a state owned and run school.

Tolley’s reaction so far has been startlingly ostrich like. Arse in the air and head in the sand.

This issue is now less about the merits of NCEA versus the Cambridge option as I am sure there are cogent arguments for both. It is now clearly about whether this government, and this minister in particular, shows any confindence in NCEA beyond a very weak press statement saying she has confidence in the NCEA programme. If she beleives her own rhetoric she must back the Ministry on this issue.

DFP you are spectacularly silent on this issue.
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January 21, 2011 9:02am
AlphaKiwi

@ Max Call

Thanks for that, mate! I have already started watching it.
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January 21, 2011 9:06am
Pete George

Does that show that our version of capitalism is flawed as it relies on a consumerist mentality where marketers have to make us desire to buy something that we would never have really thought about having in the first place?

At the moment, on the one hand they are saying people are saving more (or paying off debt) and that’s good for the economy, but retail sales are struggling (people are buying less crap) and that’s bad for the economy.

Not sure if it’s our version of consumerism that’s flawed, or our version of reporting what is happening and what is best to happen is flawed. Maybe both.
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January 21, 2011 9:06am
BeaB

Mark Grammar has been doing this for years. Do we really want to make a huge fuss over what 15-year-old lads are doing at school?
The failure of Cambridge exams to make any real headway in NZ shows that most of our schools are happy with NCEA. Grammar knows its demographic and knows how to market to them.
NCEA is still available. John Morris will know the rules backwards. He and his board are not dopes. Neither is Anne Tolley. There’s no point having a go at Grammar just to satisfy some kind of political pedantry. You’ll have to find a better stick to beat her with if that’s your idea of fun.
Interesting the unions want Anne Tolley to sack the Grammar Board but not the primary school boards refusing to implement national standards. Double standards? From unions? Surely not!
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January 21, 2011 9:16am
Ryan Sproull

However, if more people started to just buy the minimum they felt they could be content with like me, and got out / or stayed out of debt, then would our economy collapse?

I don’t think so. The Useless Shit industry would collapse, perhaps, but there are still necessities and basic pleasures to provide as goods and services. It would be a good time to consider the 10-hour working week, perhaps.
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January 21, 2011 9:20am
Mark

BeaB , firstly Grammar has offered Cambridge exams but has not as overtly given the flick to NCEA as it has this year yet the Minister is still trying to tell the rest of us that NCEA is an acceptable qualification. You cannot have it both ways, either it is good enough or it isn’t. What the unions think in this issue is largely irrelevant. You and I might have to disagree on whether Tolley is a dope or not.

I agree with you that Morris and his Board will absolutely have done their homework. What worries me as a parent with a kid starting secondary school is that you have one of the country’s leading educators saying that NCEA is a crock. The question the minister must answer is whether Morris’ assessment is correct.
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January 21, 2011 9:39am
Dirty Rat

Great day for a music festival…rock on
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January 21, 2011 9:42am
malcolm

However, if more people started to just buy the minimum they felt they could be content with like me, and got out / or stayed out of debt, then would our economy collapse?

I don’t think it would. The world economy would just shift to producing the intangible things you do want. Also if you’re not spending money on stuff, then you’re either spending it on intangibles like travel, or you’re saving it in which case everyone else is getting slightly cheaper credit on which to build a business, or buy crap.
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January 21, 2011 9:48am
BeaB

John Morris has been doing this for years. It’s nothing new. He is a master at grabbing the headlines at the start of the year. Priceless publicity even for something the school told its parents about back in August! No need for you or anyone else to lose any sleep over what Grammar is doing to market itself.
The argument about NCEA is well over for most educators and schools. The Minister has no need to say anything as schools and the public generally have already made up their minds. Go along to your school’s information evenings to educate yourself, make sure your kid chooses good courses and relax. School quals are important for about five minutes.
Your child will get far further with regular attendance, good behaviour, hard work, learning to enjoy learning and taking advantage of everything on offer at high school, – sports, the arts etc.
And most of what kids achieve at school and in later life is based on the foundation you have already laid – love, language, books, music, travel, family values etc.
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January 21, 2011 9:50am
Manolo

A liberal do-gooder was ill (for a good cause): http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2011/01/20/2011-01-20_george_clooney_contracts_malaria_following_trip_to_sudan_fully_recovered_with_he.html
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January 21, 2011 10:06am
nasska

AlphaKiwi’s position as a minimalist consumer contrasts interestingly with crap advertising (electronic & paper) urging us to spend money we don’t have on consumer goods we don’t need.

Is it only me who thinks that western civilisation could survive the closure of a few fashion boutiques & $2 shops? If as a nation we are borrowing about $300 million a week to pay for the groceries how can the bleatings of impoverished retailers be taken so seriously & used to judge the financial performance of NZ?

Even allowing that new cars may impact on the road toll & that retail employs people who would be otherwise unemployable I cannot see how consumerism benefits a nation whose manufacturing base has been sacrificed to the global economy.

Doubtlessly I am a financial Luddite. Who can enlighten me?
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January 21, 2011 10:19am
Pete George

naaska, we have to have continued growth, or the world will end. It’s easier to induce people who can probably pay back loans to buy more and more stuff, much of which they don’t need, than to develop new markets where people hardly know what money is. Selling three TVs and two cars is more profitable than selling a handful of rice.
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January 21, 2011 10:46am
AlphaKiwi

@ Pete George

Then aren’t we building our system on sand if we have to have continued increasing consumerism?
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January 21, 2011 10:50am
cha

@ AlphaKiwi: The 100 things challenge.
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January 21, 2011 10:53am
AlphaKiwi

@ cha

Thanks for reminding me of those. I read about them a couple of years ago. Man, I would have to throw away lots of socks to get down below a 100 possessions. 🙂
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January 21, 2011 10:57am
Manolo

The article says China’s ambitions are no modest.
”If China becomes the world’s No. 1 nation … .” That was the headline in the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, The People’s Daily, on the eve of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s state visit to Washington. The article went on to boast how “China’s emergence is increasingly shifting to debate over how the world will treat China, which is the world No. 1 and has overtaken the U.S.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jan/19/usacross-out-usa-china-1/
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January 21, 2011 10:57am
MyNameIsJack

Never EVER forget how evil the Roman Catholic Church is.

In Texas, a Catholic bishop made two hospitals cease doing tube-tying operations for women who are not going to have more babies. In Oregon, another bishop cast a medical center out of his diocese for refusing to discontinue the same procedure. In Arizona, a nun was excommunicated and the hospital where she works was expelled from the church after 116 years for allowing doctors to terminate a pregnancy to save a woman’s life.

Tha’s right, they’d rather four living, breathing children become orphans than perform a simple procedure to save their mother’s life.

Never. Ever. Forget.

Evil, despicable bastards!
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January 21, 2011 11:01am
RobbieBlack

Breakfast.

What the fuck were TV1 thinking putting in those two?

OK the guy, sorry forgot his name, Koran, Coren, I thought was brilliant in business in the business stuff, the dumb fuck switched over for ego, or bad advice?

And Petra, is that right? The ever-lasting virgin.

I guess, she went, well the pay aint bad and I am a mum too just like Pippa, and our names both begin with the letter P.

Nah, sorry pardners, I think you are about to feel how cruel TV is in a small cuntry like NZ.

No sympathy.

You stick your head up high in a tiny country, you get it chopped off.

Ego and the desire for fame is a nasty thang.

Bring back Pippa AND Paul, soon.

You have already destroyed two people’s future jobs.

How many will it take?
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January 21, 2011 11:02am
RobbieBlack

I mean TV1 of course, and I am not talking about Pippa and Paul.
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January 21, 2011 11:06am
bc

BeaB, I think the point Mark was making (correct me if I’m wrong, Mark) is that Tolley was going mental, huffing and puffing and threatning to sack Boards that were considering not reporting on National Standards. Her cry, echoed by DPF and people on this site is that they are state schools and they have to do what they are told by the Government. And now we have a situation where the headmaster of Grammer with Board approval is effectively doing the same thing, yet Tolley (and this site) remains strangely silent.

Curious.

[DPF: Auckland Grammar is not breaking the law or refusing to implement Government policy. They are merely strongly encouraging their students to do Cambridge exams, which is their right.

I do note however the PPTA has called for the Board of Trustees to be sacked merely for encouraging students to do Cambridge, which presumably means they also support sacking for schools that refuse government policies such as national standards or maybe in the future performance pay and bulk funding]
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January 21, 2011 11:19am
RobbieBlack

Let’s put a couple of robots, seals, puppies, kittens, Datsuns, cicadas, as Breakfast presenters then monitor the ratings.

I would even stick the Walrus in there (actually he is improving in my opinion on Close-up, less “now look here’s” with the Seagull.

At least the Seagull, as un-charismatic as she is, has a strong view and sticks to it.

Koran, Coren? is like, um, um, well I feel strongly about that and next segment he’s um, um, um, well they do have a point.

Just weak.

And Petra, well, I would be keeping my plants away from her, OK she is unattractive and old, she has a terrible Kiwi accent, no talent and Ali Mau would kick her ass in a mud wrestling match but nevertheless she doesn’t quite seem suited the job.

Personality TV1!! Charisma!

Remember the first rule of TV!
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January 21, 2011 11:27am
Fletch

The Story of Stuff is put out by socialist greenies, intent on indoctrinating children against the idea of Capitalism.

A series of videos have been racking up viewings on YouTube, thanks in part to public school teachers and university professors making them a part of curriculum, and indoctrinating our children with left-wing anti-capitalist propaganda.
Annie Leonard, an activist with Greenpeace, created “The Story of Stuff,” a web video disparaging America’s consumer society and attacking capitalism (or, as she calls it, “the current economic model.”) It was funded by the mysterious Tides Foundation – the group that also funded ACORN before it became a liability to the left and rotted away.

There has been a successful effort to debunk Leonard’s indoctrination effort, which can be found at Glenn Beck’s site.

But Leonard’s own words show that this Story of Stuff project is simply a means to an end. The end, of course, is to transform America’s economy away from capitalism and towards something that can only be described as socialism.

“I go around the country and I show the ‘Story of Stuff’ film and for those of you that have seen it you know it lays out a pretty broad, pretty systemic critique of the economy – of the current economic model,” Leonard said in a May 2010 speech in South Carolina. (emphasis added)

The problem is, Leonard, and many like her, don’t have the courage to simply say they want to ditch capitalism. Instead, they use poll-tested phrases like “an economy that works for everyone.” Or, she objects to “trashing each other on the equity front,” and apparently believes “stuff” is distributed unevenly among human beings. “We’re not sharing the stuff we use well enough,” she says.
What Annie Leonard – and many other with socialist beliefs – lack is the cajones to say what they would do about it. Clearly their remedy is more government intervention in our lives. More regulation, more taxes, more nudges to get us to act as they would see fit.
They don’t do that because it would face stiff opposition. So they go about it in a different way

MORE
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January 21, 2011 12:24pm
Fletch

MNIJ – Hypocrite! What about the “simple procedure” of abortion that kills millions of soon-to-be “living breathing” children every day? Admit it: the simple fact is that you don’t care about children. You only care about using them (if you can) to smear the Church with, whom you hate with a vengeance because the Church supports traditional values and goes against your liberal “tolerant” ideas.

Unbelievable.
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January 21, 2011 12:27pm
cha

Yeah Fletch, abortion = slavery.
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January 21, 2011 12:34pm
BeaB

Robbi Black I thought Anne Tolley was calm and dignified over National Standards. I didn’t see her ‘going mental’ or making any threats. I think you are embroidering for your own purposes.
She listened to schools, set up consultative committees, brought in experts etc etc. No educational change is ever perfect first time round.
Look at all the changes over the years to SCert, 6FC and UE. (Funny how people forget you used to be able to get into university solely on your teacher-determined ranking at school, with no exam at all. Lop a few dim bulbs the bottom to sit the exam and satisfy the officials and yippee for the rest. Bless accrediting. It gave me a cruisy year at school. No chance with NCEA – tests and exams all year long for three long years poor kids ).
Remember Grammar does offer NCEA. It does follow the regulations etc that govern a state school. It also has access to top advice so I doubt the Ministry can touch it, even though they have tried in the past. And its results are stellar.

Now look at our primary schools, unable to teach every kid to read and write in the 8 years they have them!
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January 21, 2011 12:34pm
MyNameIsJack

Fletch (1,792) Says:

January 21st, 2011 at 12:27 pm
MNIJ – Hypocrite! What about the “simple procedure” of abortion that kills millions of soon-to-be “living breathing” children every day?

Please do not assume you know my opinion on abortion in general. What I am talking about are ignorant men in dresses, who have never had to care for a family, who think that it is better that a foetus, not a baby, note, a foetus, be preseved, even though it will die and take the mother’s life with it, than a simple abortioon be performed. This is not ageneral argument for abortion, it is a response to a very specific case where the men in dresses of your church, determine it better that 4 children become orphans that one foetus be terminated.

And you think this is right, this is good, this is god’s will. Well its not right, its not good, and god and his followers can go fuck themselves until they find a spark of humanity.

Admit it: the simple fact is that you don’t care about children. You only care about using them (if you can) to smear the Church with, whom you hate with a vengeance because the Church supports traditional values and goes against your liberal “tolerant” ideas.

If “traditional values” means, as I suspect, a woman needs to know her place, that the Pope knows best, that a collection of cells is far more valuable than a human life, then I’ll do a lot more than smear.

You DARE to call me hyocrite when YOU claim to be “pro life”, but don’t care if a woamn lives or dies as long as a collection of cells is left alone.

Hypocrite thy name is I M Fletcher.
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January 21, 2011 12:36pm
starboard

Agree with you Mr Black on the TVNZ breakfast presenters. Corin doesnt interact very well with Petra , he’s too stiff. They wont last. All TV3 have to do is hire Paul Henry and re-start their breakfast show with him as the lead presenter. That will f*** TVNZ’s brekky ratings.
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January 21, 2011 12:37pm
Fletch

MNIJ, oh come on, give it a rest. Where’s the link to your story then? I want to see ALL the facts before I comment on it, as I suspect you’e spinning it.
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January 21, 2011 12:39pm
Pete George

The problem is, Leonard, and many like her, don’t have the courage to simply say they want to ditch capitalism.

That seems like a sweeping assumption (or attempted smear). Where are ALL then facts rather than an opinion?

Fletch, are you happy with the “current economic model”? Or could there but just a bit of room for improvement?
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January 21, 2011 1:09pm
Manolo

More of nanny-state endless chain of initiatives, committees, busybodies, etc.

Economist Gareth Morgan is to a head a new motorcycle safety council funded out of ACC levies.

The Motorcycle Safety Levy Advisory Council was launched at Parliament today and will receive $2 million a year from the motorcycle safety levy of $30 introduced in July.

ACC Minister Nick Smith said it followed Transport Minister Steven Joyce’s announcement last year of measures to tackle growing issues of motorcycle and moped safety.

“We need government agencies and motorcycle organisations working together to reverse the ugly and deadly trend over the past decade in motorcycle accidents,” Dr. Smith said

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/politics/4565955/Morgan-heads-ACC-funded-bike-group
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January 21, 2011 2:24pm
thedavincimode

“too stiff”

lol starboard
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January 21, 2011 2:26pm
Manolo

You have to feel sorry for the guy, but is he right? After all he chose to live in a different country and did not take a new nationality.

But Mr House says when they applied to Government support agency Centrelink for an Australian Government Disaster Relief Payment, they were turned down because they are “not Australian”.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10701102
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January 21, 2011 3:07pm
bereal

My Name Is Jackoff.

Further to yesterday where you were unable to respond.

As one of this blogs premier haters of “Amerika”
Is there any country that has a political system you admire ?
Is there any thing you don,t hate ?

Have you EVER made a positive comment about anything ?

I guess you have decided thats its a lot easier and more suited to your disposition
to confine yourself to being a wrecker and hater. Thats what you are good at right ?

Attack the messenger, obsfucate, scoff, sanctimoniuosly condemn.

Where is there a political system anywhere/anytime you consider superior to the USA?

You wont answer because you are incapable of any positive sentiment.

Prove me wrong.
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January 21, 2011 3:28pm
bereal

No reply..
Not capable..

OK you are now,
My Name Is Joke.

And a sad, bad, sick joke at that.
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January 21, 2011 3:34pm
bc

Yes, DPF, I’m sure Auckland Grammer aren’t breaking the law, but they are sure thumbing their nose at the Government. Note that the headmaster is saying that they will offer NCEA for the bottom kids. So he is doing more than just “strongly encouraging” their students to do Cambridge – he is saying that NCEA is only for the thickos. I wonder how many of the students will do NCEA now, knowing that if they do, the school has labelled them the dumb kids.
Grammer already gets to cherry-pick the top kids, now it looks like they are pushing out the poor sods that aren’t smart enough for them.

Tolley is still coming off looking a bit hypocritical in my opinion. She plays tough with everybody else (even if it is all just hot air), but is strangely being very “relaxed” (to use a John Key term) here.

Having said that I agree Kate Gainsford has made her point and should now move on. She has got better things to do like dealing with the secondary teacher negotiations. As an aside, with inflation now over 4% suddenly that 4% pay increase that PPTA are asking doesn’t seem so out-there any more does it? Apparently John Key, teachers are in the “real world” after all!
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January 21, 2011 4:26pm
bc

Hmmm BeaB, so you think Tolley was “calm and dignified” over National Standards and you didn’t see her making any threats.

Clearly you haven’t been paying attention.

Tolley made numerous threats to Boards, including stating that she would disband them and withdraw funding. She has also theatened her own Ministry officials who felt uneasy about having to contact Boards and intimidate them. It has been extremely well reported in the media. I find it had to believe you didn’t notice.
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January 21, 2011 4:33pm
Pete George

As an aside, with inflation now over 4% suddenly that 4% pay increase that PPTA are asking doesn’t seem so out-there any more does it? Apparently John Key, teachers are in the “real world” after all!

What world bc? One without a PAYE decrease that more than covers the GST component (~2%) of that inflation?
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January 21, 2011 4:34pm
BeaB

bc My recollection is that she was asked what the situation could be for schools that didn’t implement National Standards and she outlined the possible steps the Ministry could take. Can you find an example of her actually saying to a board, “Do this or I will sack you”. Or actually doing any of these dastardly deeds?

As for Ministry officials intimidating Boards – don’t make me laugh. Have you ever met any of them?

But who cares? If the boys are working hard and doing well does it really matter what quals they get at the end of the fifth form? Or are your past glories of School Cert a crowning moment in your life?

I think Cambridge is a crock but have a lot of time for John Morris and he may well be right. In the meantime he has started the school year hogging the headlines and our dear intrepid reporters are throwing round words like ‘prestige’ and ‘elite’. Even Grammar would find it hard to pay for such fabulous publicity. Kings must be livid as Parnell parents flock to Grammar.
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January 21, 2011 5:14pm
Luc Hansen

[DPF: Auckland Grammar is not breaking the law or refusing to implement Government policy. They are merely strongly encouraging their students to do Cambridge exams, which is their right.

I do note however the PPTA has called for the Board of Trustees to be sacked merely for encouraging students to do Cambridge, which presumably means they also support sacking for schools that refuse government policies such as national standards or maybe in the future performance pay and bulk funding]

I question the accuracy of the first statement. The report I saw said that NCEA was only to be offered to a select few underperformers, no doubt overwhelmingly from the lower socio-economic deciles and whom Grammar just can’t be bothered with. “Strongly encouraged” is a euphemism. The top end teaching resources will be directed into teaching Cambridge, and to suggest that pupils will have a genuine choice is deeply misleading.

Cambridge should be available alongside, but not instead of, NCEA, which was specifically designed for Kiwi kids. Incidentally, has anyone bothered to check out the relative standings of Britain and New Zealand in international achievements tables? It sort of puts the lie to the thought that the board has done its homework.

And as for sacking boards, if Grammar is permitted to proceed, can we now expect Tolley to drop her strident calls to sack boards for refusing to implement the deeply flawed (non)National Standards?

No wonder Tolley is quiet! Morris has put her between a rock and a hard place.
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January 21, 2011 5:43pm
Luc Hansen

The Beeb has just played a doco on troops in Afghanistan that perfectly illustrated the futility of the mission creep to supposedly eliminate the Taleban in their own homeland.

But worse was the exhibition of the casual cruelty of the troops towards the locals. One poor guy was nervously scanning outside his home, obviously in the knowledge that ISAF troops were nearby, so he was “dropped” by a sniper with as much thought as we would give to squashing an ant. The guy supposedly was talking into a modern walkie talkie of the type our cops use. And Britain’s finest couldn’t go into this most primitive of villages to actually question the guy.

When they did summon up the courage go into a village, their unpopularity was evident, as was the tragedy of the villagers who refused an offer of compensation for the killing of livestock and damage to property by the troops as this would have entailed a trip into town, which would have been spotted by the Taliban and retribution exacted.

Every time I see coverage of meetings between villagers and troops, the villagers complain about the killing or imprisonment of their kith and kin and evince no interest in the largely specious offers of nation building by the ISAF forces.

It’s time the West declared victory and left.
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January 21, 2011 6:01pm
Nookin

I think we should co-opt members of this Parole Board!
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/4565835/Manson-follower-denied-parole
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January 21, 2011 6:02pm
wat dabney

“The Beeb has just played a doco…”

Let me stop you there.
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January 21, 2011 6:10pm
bc

Yes Pete, the “real” world where petrol prices are increasing and food is projected to increase by 10% this year.
You don’t really think, after the spike of the GST increase (2% according to you) inflation is going to go back to where it was previously do you?
Silly boy.
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January 21, 2011 6:13pm
wat dabney

Let’s be clear: “prices going up” is not a synonym for “inflation.”

Rising commodity prices are not inflation.

GST increases are not inflation.
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January 21, 2011 6:20pm
Luc Hansen

wat

Rising commodity prices feed into retail prices and THAT is inflation.
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January 21, 2011 6:31pm
bereal

BeaB
your comments re NCEA v Cambridge seem to be valid.
i could have underestimated you in the past.
Your wider comments on education in general are thoughtfull and thought provoking, to me at least.

Luc Hansen. really mate, a nudist that wants to see eye candy, and reconds he isnt a deviant.
i’ll ask again. If your daughter was dancing naked, would that be eye candy ?
i wouldnt call you a sicko, but i bet a lot of your mates at the nudist colony are.
What say you ?
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January 21, 2011 6:37pm
bereal

i predict
My Name Is Joke will not appear again tonight, if he does, he will not answer my question posed earlier.
Name a system of government you consider superior to the USA you hate so much, and why ?

Even forget the why, just start by naming a better system.

i started you off with Albania. Come on mate, show you are not just a negative wrecker and hater.

Have a go, it could be fun.
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January 21, 2011 6:53pm
Pete George

It’s been widely reported on bc.

Inflation risks from the increase in GST appear to have been contained for the time being, economists say.

Official figures showed that the consumer price index (CPI) jumped to 2.3 per cent in the final three months of 2010, mostly because of the increase in GST from 12.5 per cent to 15 per cent.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/4563570/GST-led-inflation-risks-contained

And from the Herald…

New Zealand consumer prices rose 2.3 per cent as expected in the three months ended December 30, mainly reflecting the hike in goods and services tax and suggesting the Reserve Bank won’t rush to raise interest rates.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10700850
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January 21, 2011 6:57pm
bereal

Hey Pete,
So once again, 8807 plus later,

What is your point ?

Have you ever had one ?

Just for fun, in your mind, what was the point of your post at 6.57 above ?

JEEZ
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January 21, 2011 7:07pm
Luc Hansen

Anyway, I logged in today to tell a little personal story.

Many moons ago, a forerunner of blogs was set up by a 16 year old Kiwi kid (I think his name was David Buckingham?) called Soapbox.co.nz. Initially, it was well supported by many leading politicians of the day, and, unlike Kiwiblog, once one became a trusted contributor, one could freely contribute one’s own articles. The kid couldn’t keep up with the finances required and had to close. That was many computers ago and I no longer have any copies of articles I contributed, but I do clearly remember the title of one article:

From Which Palestinian Family did Ariel Sharon Steal His Land?

Well, now I have an answer, or at least a partial answer, as the word “family” should have been the plural.

On the two-year anniversary of the Israeli massacre of the inconvenient Palestinians in Gaza (those whom the “man of peace”, Yitzhak Rabin, wished would “fall into the sea”) DemocracyNow!” interviewed a Palestinian gynecologist whose three daughters (out of four) were killed by Israeli shelling on the penultimate day of that inhuman massacre.

The house was shelled for an obvious reason. Israeli journalists were banned from Gaza and the only coverage for Israelis from the Palestinian side were daily interviews with this doctor, who was trained by Israel and who worked in Israel. The IDF decided to execute him and his family, but he survived and now has published a book telling his story both of that incident and his ongoing battle with the Israeli authorities to admit responsibility and confess as to the real reason for the attack.

During the course of the interview, he told Amy Goodman that although raised in the refugee camp of Jabaliya, he and his family hailed from the village of Houg, near what is now Sederot, which was misappropriated by Sharon after the expulsion at gunpoint of the indigenous population by the Israeli militia in 1948.

I wrote the post for Soapbox in response to the fawning coverage Sharon received as he continued to brutalise Palestinians while being depicted as a noble American-style rancher astride a sturdy steed on his “ranch”.

You can see the full interview here.

It’s graphic and gut wrenching, and includes a description of how he watched his eldest daughter decapitated by a shell as she ran to tell him her cousin had been wounded. It shows him addressing Israeli supporters. It shows him as a brave and truly noble man who eschews recrimination in favour of conciliation.

It’s an appropriate way to remember the victims of that merciless attack on innocent people whose only sin is to wish to remain in their own land.

And it reminds us all of the obscenity of awarding Barack Obama a Nobel Peace Prize after he refused to speak out against the massacre of a defenceless population while he was preparing to take office.

Watch the interview, and renew your faith in the inherent goodness of so many people.
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January 21, 2011 7:22pm
AlphaKiwi

@ Luc hansen

See if you can track down those article from this site:

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://soapbox.co.nz

You need to select the whole link, even the part that isn’t showing blue.

Hope it helps.
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January 21, 2011 7:31pm
bereal

Hey Luc
Obama getting the Peace Prize was not an obcenity, it was just a joke.
It was awarded on the grounds that he wasn’t W Bush,
The Nobel committe disgraced themselves and Alfred Nobel with that award. How sad.
Thereby diluting the honour for ever for partisan political reasons.

Bye the way, what about the eye candy of naked girls dancing. Like your daughter.
You still think that nudists are not deviants ?
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January 21, 2011 7:34pm
Pete George

Sorry bereal, threads can be a bit hard to follow when you just dive in, sometimes people here have ongoing exchanges, debate sort of stuff. This might help you:

http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2011/01/general_debate_21_january_2011.html#comment-787284
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2011/01/general_debate_21_january_2011.html#comment-787293
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2011/01/general_debate_21_january_2011.html#comment-787329
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2011/01/general_debate_21_january_2011.html#comment-787346
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January 21, 2011 7:39pm
Luc Hansen

Hey, Alpha Kiwi, thanks very much! I’d love to email that article to Amy Goodman!

Bereal, you are the deviant.
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January 21, 2011 7:40pm
reid

Luc the way I see it the searing pain of the Holocaust caused a race of previously peaceful human beings to change forever and we still reap that legacy, we, them, all people who live in and around that region.

It’s tragic, borne out of death, what the hell else can one expect.

I’ve been surprised however by what’s happened since 1946, in terms of the inter-generational rage not having died down. The way I see it, Hitler started it, the Israeli’s were literally driven mad, and consequently committed atrocities like the bombing of the King David hotel which killed the very British troops who were there to help them. Unfortunately they continued to commit those atrocities against a people who weren’t willing in the first place even to try to understand them.

This vicious cycle has never ended, and no-one except Yitzhak Shamir ever showed any sign of breaking it, and someone killed him, possibly they were thinking, in the name of protecting the State of Israel.

Fuck it’s tragic. Also illuminative of human nature and fortunately rare, in the inter-generational implacability on both sides.
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January 21, 2011 8:00pm
bc

Pete, your links talk about inflation in 2010. I’m talking about this year! Although I note that your first link talks about increased petrol prices likely to have an impact on inflation in 2011 (exactly what I was talking about!)
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January 21, 2011 8:07pm
Yvette

“A nine-year-old girl suffered horrific abuse despite a dozen agencies being involved with her family, but an inquiry has found no single error led to the repeated abuse.”
“The girl’s teacher wrote to Prime Minister John Key in the middle of last year, and the letter was transferred to Ms Bennett. She replied but would not discuss it while the court process continued.”

It may be interesting to find, in the course of time, why a teacher would by-pass what would surely seem the logical or normal line of assistance and write to the Prime Minister on such a matter.

And does TV ONE know something the rest of us don’t at this stage to yesterday evening, in their 6pm news, screen scenes that were a reconstruction, showing apparently a European child and European mother, and why were these reconstruction scenes needed anyway, when they must be either prejuditial or mis-leading at this stage?
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January 21, 2011 8:12pm
3-coil

Yvette – excellent points.
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January 21, 2011 8:14pm
Pete George

bc, we don’t know much about this year’s inflation yet. Until the last quarter 2010 works it’s way out of the 12 month rate that 2.3 will keep it looking high. But it’s accounted for already.
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January 21, 2011 8:22pm
bc

BeaB: My recollection is that she was asked what the situation could be for schools that didn’t implement National Standards and she outlined the possible steps the Ministry could take. Can you find an example of her actually saying to a board, “Do this or I will sack you”.

Now normally I would say, ignorance is no excuse! Find out something for yourself. But I don’t believe you are being ignorant, BeaB. Having an interest in education, I find it hard to believe that you no nothing of Tolley’s threats against Boards. Anyway, just for you…

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10615353
First paragraph: “Education Minister Anne Tolley says she will sack the boards of primary schools which allow teachers to boycott national standards, saying they would be refusing to obey the law.”
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January 21, 2011 8:22pm
bc

Yvette, that’s been covered already. The teacher did go through the usual avenues of informing people of the abuse, but didn’t get anywhere.
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January 21, 2011 8:25pm
hj

In an excerpt from his new book, Bill Fulton suggests that it’s time for America’s cities to focus on prosperity, not population.

Over the past half-century, we have come to equate a stagnating population with a stagnating economy. Orlando and Phoenix are growing fast – so they’re prospering. Cleveland and Detroit are losing population fast – so they’re in decline.

But with so many metros now slowing down in population growth, maybe it’s time to re-think the relationship between economic growth and population growth. Maybe it’s time to figure out how to have growth without growth.

The “wealth builders” are of particular interest – places where population has slowed down or stagnated, yet are still adding income and wealth. Pittsburgh, for example, has been losing population for decades. Yet nobody thinks of Pittsburgh these days as an economic failure. It’s reinvented itself, adjusted to a smaller population, and today thrives on a “new economy” that emerged from the old. St. Louis is the same way.

Indeed, in most cases, the “wealth builders” were older, blue-collar places in the Northeast, the Midwest and the South: Kansas City, Little Rock, Milwaukee, New Orleans, Providence and Tampa.

What is the difference between these cities and the ones that had both low rates of population increase and little economic growth? That is, places such as Buffalo, Hartford, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia and Charleston, West Virginia. After all, both groups of cities have lower educational attainment and strong manufacturing bases. Even more baffling, why are some of these gritty, non-dazzling metropolitan areas doing better on Gottlieb’s “growth without growth” index than supposed superstars such as Atlanta, Austin, Las Vegas and Orlando?

The answer appears to be that not adding population has some benefits. First, much of the nation’s population growth in recent years has been driven by immigration, and recent immigrants pull down the overall per-capita income. And second, many of the fastest-growing metros — Las Vegas and Orlando among them — have parlayed climate and raw land into a tourism-based economy, which tends to create low-wage jobs.

The “growth without growth” champs, such as St. Louis and Pittsburgh, may experience higher levels of educational attainment and high-tech employment — more than Buffalo and Cleveland, and, at the same time, more than Las Vegas and Orlando.

http://www.planetizen.com/node/47772
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January 21, 2011 8:33pm
reid

bc I think the more excellent of Yvette’s points is the second one – got spotting Yvette – and it’s worth a complaint to the BSA, in fact. I’m off to TVNZ On Demand to look it up – I haven’t watched ONE live for quite some years, I’m not sorry to say.
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January 21, 2011 8:33pm
Nookin

Yvette
I am a bit vague on this but seem to recall that the teacher made regular complaints thru the proper channells but got nowhere. Those who fielded the complaints put it all down to the girl’s clumsiness. On another note, it was reported today the the mother even wrote to the PM for help. I have seen extracts from that letter (hard copy and so cannot reference or link) and it seems her main beef was wanting to sue CYFs rather than get help. Have to be guarded in drawing conclusions because I haven’t got the full text. It was published. Someone else may have the link?
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January 21, 2011 9:15pm
BeaB

From the Herald link Dec 2009 given by bc:
Mrs Tolley has ruled out a trial, and said that in “extreme” cases of a boycott she would dissolve the board involved – because the trustees would be refusing to obey the law – and replace it with a commissioner.
“If despite having that pointed out to them, they absolutely refused, I do have the power to dissolve the board and put in a commissioner,” she said.
“In the end, I would have to do that. I don’t think it would come to that, but if it went to the nth degree I would do it.
You just cannot have schools disobeying the law.”

Doesn’t sound too threatening to me or that she was ‘going mental’ or even ‘huffing and puffing’.
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January 21, 2011 11:03pm
Hurf Durf

It’s 11.05pm on January 21st 2011 and you know what? NCEA is still balls.
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January 21, 2011 11:06pm
bc

BeaB – huffing and puffing is all Anne Tolley does! She’s all bark and no bite. I’m constantly amazed that people here seem to like her, supposedly because she is tough. But despite all the tough talk, what has she done exactly?

Key won’t dump her while the teachers industrial action is on, because that would be perceived a sign of weakness. But once that’s settled, when the next round of cabinet reshuffling happens, my bet is that she will be demoted (again).
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January 22, 2011 12:03am
bereal

Pete George.

Thanks, that did help me, maybe sometimes i can be a bit quick out of the blocks to criticise,
sorry.
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January 22, 2011 10:34am

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