The Education Review Office have published a report correctly calling school attendance in New Zealand a crisis and stating:

“Tens of thousands of “chronically absent” students are missing weeks of school – and the Education Review Office (ERO) says it has reached crisis point.

In the past decade, chronic truancy has doubled in secondary schools and nearly tripled in primary schools.”

The core reason students are not going to school is that many, many families have completely lost faith in the school system as a whole, their local schools, the Ministry of Education and the efficacy of our qualifications system. Don’t forget 10,000 students are enrolled nowhere at all.

We are the nation in the developed world with the most bullying in schools and the greatest difference in achievement between haves and have nots.

Ethinicity statisitics are telling too. In Term 2 of 2024 approx 53% of students fully attended but only 41% of Pasifika and 39% of Maori.

Instead of accepting any level of responsibility for this dire situation the teacher unions come straight out with … give us more money and will will fix things and buy the Auckland Harbour Bridge as well.

Post Primary Teachers’ Association president Chris Abercrombie said “governments need to be brave enough to address underlying causes of chronic non-attendance, including poverty, housing insecurity and mental health”.

This included integrated and funded solutions involving “gateway, alternative education and activity centres, pastoral care and learning support”.

No mention there of teacher quality, school quality, qualifications quality.

NZEI Te Riu Roa President, Mark Potter, says “the weaknesses identified in the current system are down to either lack of resourcing or socioeconomic factors that contribute to absenteeism like trauma and poverty.”

There are two key problems/solutions here:

1. Parenting. This is not to dump on parents but as a society we need to recognise that we need mechanisms to massive improve our parenting – starting from having outstnding information and programmes from pregnancy to 5 years of age. This should in no way be funnelled through the Ministry of Education or schools. Good parenting can, and should, occur – regardless of wealth, ethnicity, parent’s education levels.
   
2. The Ministry and schools need to accept their very significant part in creating the problem – and actually set our to reform and inprove. At present they offer no genuine solutions to the attendance crisis.

Alwyn Poole
alwyn.poole@gmail.com
Innovative Education Consultants Ltd
Education 710+ Ltd
(both sites currently being re-done)
alwynpoole.substack.com
www.linkedin.com/in/alwyn-poole-16b02151/

An excellent address by Attorney-General Judith Collins to the University of Western Sydney (which has also made her an Adjunct Professor of Law).

The criminalisation of speech is one of the most serious limitations on the right to freedom of expression that can be contemplated.

There are situations where this may be justified, such as where speech serves to incite violence.

However, criminalisation should not extend to speech that is merely insulting or offensive.

It is important to condemn speech that is purposefully designed to insult or offend, but this is quite distinct from criminalising it.

To do so could have a chilling effect on democratic participation, leaving people reluctant to express their opinions or views for fear of prosecution.

Criminalising speech that forms part of public discourse carries a risk of undermining the function of democracy.

In the words of Lord Justice Sedley, free speech allows for “not only the inoffensive but the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and the provocative provided it does not tend to provoke violence.”

It is, therefore, fundamental to a functioning democracy that all people are able to freely express their views. While words matter, the fact that someone possesses an unpopular view, or an opinion that may cause offense to another individual, does not serve as a basis for limiting the right to freedom of expression.

It is undisputable that certain forms of speech are unacceptable – but what level of harm does the speech need to meet for criminal prosecution to be appropriate?

We can, and should, take steps as a society to clearly condemn speech that is offensive or insulting, without always needing to resort to measures that create a chilling effect on freedom of expression.

Good to see the Attorney-General state this, especially as so many other politicians do want to criminalise speech they deem hateful.

The Electoral Commission announced:

A referral has been made to Police on 4 October 2024 relating to Te Pāti Māori’s failure to file annual financial statements with the Electoral Commission. The financial statements and accompanying audit report were due on 30 June 2024 under sections 210G and 210H of the Electoral Act.

Their financial statements are not a few days late, but 115 days late.

Has anyone asked the co-leaders or president why they are refusing to file audited accounts for the year ending 31 December 2024? Every other parliamentary party has done so.

One week to go, and the forecasts improve slightly for Trump.

All but one of the forecasts now has Trump winning Nevada also, giving him five of the seven swing states and a 287 to 251 victory. Nevada is important as with it, he can afford to lose Georgia or North Carolina yet still win. However Pennsylvania remains a must win for Trump (and Harris). If Trump loses Pennsylvania he loses 268 to 270.

All three forecasts that do a probability estimate have increased Trump from around a 52% to 54% chance of winning. Still very much a toss up.

The Daily Mail reports:

Shortly after winning the prime ministership in May 2022, Mr Albanese asked then-Qantas CEO Alan Joyce to make Nathan, 23, a member of the Chairman’s Lounge, an invitation only perk of the airline, a new book claims. …

Mr Albanese defended the arrangement saying his son became his ‘plus one’ after his marriage to former Labor MP Carmel Tebbutt ended. 

But that does not account for his partner Ms Haydon also reportedly being a ‘plus one’ for the Lounge. 

It is also claimed in The Chairman’s Lounge book, by former Australian Financial Review columnist Joe Aston, that Nathan’s Chairman’s Lounge membership was not listed on Mr Albanese’s register of interests, which logs gifts of significance to MPs. …

He denied getting special treatment.

‘People get plus ones, and if anyone knows anything about aviation, what they will know is that there are regularly, regularly, a range of airlines will put in,’ Mr Albanese said.

In his book, Aston also claims Mr Albanese personally approached Mr Joyce to get dozens of free Qantas flight upgrades including with an international partner on a trip to Rome. 

Mr Albanese said he had declared ‘every single flight upgrade’ which were purchased by himself.

‘From time to time members of parliament receive upgrades, what’s important is that they are declared, all of mine have been declared, I note that a range of them go back a long period of time,’ he said.

An airline upgrading a politician at their discretion is quite routine and normal. A politician personally contacting an airline CEO to ask for upgrades or perks for family members in not normal. It isn’t quite clear whether what happened here is the former or latter, but if it is the latter, the PM is in a lot of trouble.

Albanese was the actual Minister of Transport in the previous Labor Government. To have the Transport Minister asking an airline CEO for favours, when he regulates the airlines, is a terrible look.

NewstalkZB reports:

Former Labour Minister and list MP Ginny Andersen has reshared a meme on her personal Instagram of Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and King Charles meeting at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm) in Samoa that poked fun at the shape of His Majesty’s trousers.

The former police minister has since removed the post from her social media accounts.

Luxon and Charles were attending the meeting in Apia this week, as leaders and foreign ministers from 56 Commonwealth nations came together for the annual summit. The pair snapped a photo together while there, which the Prime Minister shared on Instagram.

“King Charles III has a great love of New Zealand. It was a pleasure to have an audience with His Majesty today in Samoa,” Luxon captioned the post.

The post Andersen reshared – a meme created by the page @cindywithsign – took the picture shared by Luxon, overlaying the screenshot with a sign that labelled a clothing blunder the King had in the photo as a “king*ssy”.

“What I’m saying to you is that showing his king*ssy on main like that is just crazy [crying emoji],” the sign read.

I don’t think she needed to remove it. When do you look at the photo, it is sort of funny.

Not particularly wise for an MP to reshare it, but it is sort of funny, and done in humour not malice.

The Liberal Party has been the dominant party in Canada for many years. However in the recent provincial elections in British Columbia they were not even on the ballot, as they were looking to come a distant third – so they pulled out.

Their withdrawal has allowed the more leftish NDP to narrowly beat the Conservatives by one seat, but what the Liberals did would be the equivalent of Labour not standing any candidates in an election, so the Alliance could win.

The Liberals ruled BC from 2001 to 2017. Here’s the number of seats each party has won since 2000:

The Conservatives went from 2% in 2020 to 43% in 2024, a remarkable achievement. They won’t quite get to form Government due to the Liberals pulling out to stop vote splitting, but probably will in time.

Stuff reports:

A Northland principal has questioned the level of nutrition in the new free school lunch programme that will be rolled out from next year at a cost of $3 per meal.

The moment I saw this paragraph, I knew who the principal would be.

However, Hora Hora School principal, Pat Newman, said at $3 per meal, he doubted the new external providers of the food would prioritise health.

“I don’t think families from homes with more funds would be sitting down to $3 meals. Why should kids from lower income families be made to do that?“ Newman told Stuff.

The current model of providing lunches on site meant children had “nutritious, healthy and nice food”, he said, whereas the Minister was only interested in “saving money”.

Of course it is Mr Newman, who is quoted regularly by media as a critic without reference to the fact he stood for Parliament for the Labour Party.

Radio NZ reports:

The Ministry of Health has not won itself many friends this week with its failure to inform minister Casey Costello that one of its staffers is related to her arch-rival in Parliament.

Costello has every right to feel aggrieved.

For months, she has been working with health officials on tobacco reform policy, all the while, unbeknownst to her, one of them was the sister-in-law of Labour’s Ayesha Verrall.

It is staggering that no-one told the Minister. This was not a minor conflict, but the sister-in-law of her direct parliamentary opponent, and in an area which she had been most attacked about.

The Chief Executive and/or the secondees in the Minister’s office should have advised the Minister.

It is true, as has been stressed by Verrall and Labour leader Chris Hipkins, that many MPs have relations who work in the public service. Hipkins points out that when he was a minister, he regularly held meetings attended by a National MP’s sibling.

Public servants can’t choose their relatives. That should not be a barrier to them being in the public service, and we never want to see again the disgraceful treatment of Madeleine Setchell who was sacked at the behest of a Minister, who then lied about it, because her partner worked for National.

But Ministers should be aware of political conflicts with senior staff, so that it comes as no surprise to them, and that they can be reassured about how the conflict is being managed.

The ministry has accepted as much and apologised for the “oversight”. It says the responsibility lay with the ministry and not with the staffer, who it says followed all the correct protocols.

“The ministry’s conflict of interest protocol is well communicated to all staff and was adhered to by the individual in this case. Specifically, appropriate declarations were made and management plans put in place.”

Given that, the health official herself should also feel deeply let down by her employer.

By the ministry’s account, she did everything that was asked and expected of her.

The fault is with the ministry, not the employee. Having said that, it would be prudent considering the seniority of the staffer, the role of the person she is related to, and the sensitivity of the policy area she was in, to have proactively asked if her conflict had been disclosed to the Minister.

Hipkins has not helped Labour’s case in initially describing the official as Verrall’s “distant relative”.

When it comes to in-laws, there are varying degrees of closeness, but “distant relative” is not a fair descriptor for a sister-in-law. Hipkins says he misspoke.

A distant relative would be a second cousin, not someone married to your sibling or is the sibling of your wife.

There has been a large amount of confidential material in the area of tobacco and vaping leaked to the opposition and/or the media. Now personally I think it is highly unlikely that Verall’s sister-in-law would be the leaker, as she would know she would be under intense scrutiny. But you can imagine the surprise to the Minister who has had ministry staff leaking to Verrall in this area, and then finds out the principal advisor in this area is Verrall’s sister-in-law.

Willie Jackson writes:

The backlash generated by ACT, National, NZ First, Hobson’s Pledge and other right-wing bad faith actors towards Solicitor-General Una Jagose’s prosecution guidelines, has been nothing short of a race-based moral panic to fan the flames of racism rather than challenge them.

Sure. Opposing racism is racism.

Jagose’s prosecution guidelines were not new! These guidelines had been in place to ensure that when a judge passes sentence, they have the flexibility and independence to pass judgments that ensure mercy and rehabilitation are at the heart of our justice system.

This is so justice is fair.

It is concerning that Labour’s fifth highest ranked MP doesn’t understand the difference between prosecutors and judges. This is not a trivial technical error. Does no one in Labour (or the Herald) fact check what Willie writes?

For the benefit of Willie, and his staff, the prosecution guidelines have zero impact on a judge passing a sentence. None at all. They are guidelines for prosecutors in deciding whether to charge someone with a crime.

The prosecution guidelines list all those who should have a fuller context looked at before a judge passes sentence.

This was not a one off error. Willie literally has no idea what he is talking about.

The Herald reports:

Onslow College said the gym previously had a seismic rating of 70% of the NBS and O Block had a rating of 55%. …

Gym (Block Q): An overall NBS rating of 15%, with the ceiling braces posing the greatest risk.

I’m not an engineer but as a lay person I don’t understand how a building can be assessed at 70% of NBS one moment and then 15% the next.

The Herald reports:

The Māori Development Minister has cautioned the group tasked with deciding the future of Ihumātao – which has so far cost the Crown $500,000 – that they could be shown the door, if they fail to find a solution.

It has been almost four years since former Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern oversaw the purchase of the highly-disputed Auckland land from Fletcher Building for $29.9 million.

This was private land, with 480 houses to be built on it. Ardern spent $30 million of taxpayer money to buy it (which was ruled by the Auditor-General to be illegal), and set up a committee to decide on a mix or housing and other uses for it.

The houses they stopped being built there – 480 – is greater than the entire first two years of Kiwibuild.

So four years later we have $30 million spent, $500,000 on a committee that has done nothing and no houses.

Documents show Te Puni Kōkiri (the Ministry of Māori Development) has contributed $200,000 to cover costs for the steering group.

A contract valued at $300,000 was also entered into with the office of the Kīngitanga in June last year, to engage with the local community and produce a report on potential land use options.

Jackson said disestablishing the group now would see that money go to waste.

LOL. It has already gone to waste. Willie just wants more of it.

NewstalkZB reports:

Former Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson told Mike Hosking all this group is capable of doing is talking.    

He says he wouldn’t give them an ultimatum, he’d just boot them now. 

Abolish the group, and have the crown offer to sell it at cost to local iwi or hapu, and they can spend their own money then deciding what to do with it.

The Spinoff reported:

On a quiet Friday afternoon in August, justice minister Paul Goldsmith announced the appointment of three leadership roles at the Human Rights Commission: Stephen Rainbow as chief human rights commissioner, Gail Pacheco as equal employment opportunities commissioner and Melissa Derby as race relations commissioner. The three are scheduled to take up their new roles next month. 

Human rights commissioner appointments have historically been uncontroversial, even if the commissioners themselves sometimes court controversy in the role.

This is nonsense for a start. What they mean is that when the appointments are the normal left-wingers, then the media don’t cover it. There was in fact lots of criticism of Paul Hunt being appointed considering he was in the Corbyn faction of the UK Labour Party, but it is only controversial if it is left wingers who are upset.

But documents released under OIA to The Spinoff last week suggest the recruitment process wasn’t straightforward, with neither Rainbow nor Derby being put forward as shortlisted candidates by the independent panel tasked with conducting the “transparent process”.

Of course not. This is a good thing, not a bad thing. The Government wants Commissioners who believe in equality, while the officials want ones who only believe in equity.

In 2003 I founded Mt Hobson Middle School and led it for 18 years.

Emily Martin is a wonderful young person and so superbly supported by her family.

The reasons she gives (from 27mins on) for Mt Hobson Middle School being a key to her development is exactly why we are applying for Charter Schools.

Happy listening.

Alwyn Poole
alwyn.poole@gmail.com
Innovative Education Consultants Ltd
Education 710+ Ltd
(both sites currently being re-done)
alwynpoole.substack.com
www.linkedin.com/in/alwyn-poole-16b02151/

Not a huge amount of change in the last three days, except five of the six forecasts now have Trump winning Pennsylvania, and hence the White House.

Almost 32 million Americans have already early voted.

Geoffrey Kabat writes:

In 2003, UCLA epidemiologist James Enstrom and I published a study of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS)—also called “secondhand smoke” or “passive smoking”—in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). Using data from the American Cancer Society’s prospective study of 1 million adults, we concluded that ETS exposure was not associated with increased mortality.

Since that conclusion flew in the face of the conventional wisdom that had long driven state and local bans on smoking in public places, our study understandably sparked a controversy in the public health community. But the intensity of the attack on us in the pages of a medical journal—by critics who were certain that our study had to be wrong but typically failed to provide specific evidence of fatal errors—vividly illustrates what can happen when policy preferences that have taken on the status of doctrine override rational scientific debate.

We see this in so many other areas of science. Findings that contradict policy preferences are often attacked by scientists.

The response to our paper was largely political. This was evident from the fact that the ACS attacked the paper during the two-day embargo period, before it went online. The clear intent was to delegitimize the study in the court of public opinion. This initial attack invited others to pile on, alleging flaws in our methods. But as the BMJ‘s editors pointed out, those charges generally were not backed by any reference to actual data from the paper.

The head epidemiologist at the ACS condemned our paper as tobacco industry “disinformation,” and other tobacco control activists went even further, citing our paper in a federal racketeering case against cigarette companies. They alleged that the paper was part of a tobacco industry conspiracy to discredit scientific evidence concerning the hazards of smoking. This use of lawfare rather than open scientific debate seemed designed to have a chilling effect on researchers studying passive smoking, discouraging them from reporting politically inconvenient results.

The organizers of this attack felt it necessary to portray us as corrupt agents of the tobacco industry, even though we had long track records researching the effects of smoking and other questions in public health. Our paper included a 200-word declaration stating that the tobacco industry had no involvement with the paper.

We saw similar with the Covid-19 science. Anyone who deviated from the accepted line was pilloried.

The new paper from the American Cancer Society, published last April in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, comes 21 years after the brouhaha over our BMJ paper and sheds further light on the controversy. This major ACS paper aims to further reduce the incidence of cancer by providing data that can be used to improve policies and practices. …

The “population-attributable fraction” (PAF)—that is, the share of cancer deaths that could be prevented if a given risk factor were removed—is 28.5 percent for cigarette smoking and 0.7 percent for secondhand smoke—a 41-fold difference. Although the PAF for secondhand smoke is statistically significant, the magnitude of the risk is negligible and similar to the risk estimate in our BMJ paper.

So the ACS attacked the paper 21 years ago, but has now just released its own study that backs it up.

For the scientific enterprise to succeed, unpopular findings must be discussed objectively, rather than dismissed summarily as obviously wrong. Leveling ad hominem attacks at researchers for alleged pro-industry bias is no substitute for a rigorous and fair-minded analysis of the data.

The part in bold should be nailed up on the wall of the Royal Society.

One can of course still make a good policy case for banning smoking in enclosed areas, even if the risk of actual cancer or heart disease from second hand smoke is low. You can make a policy case on the basis it is very unpleasant for people to be subject to second hand smoke on the basis of irriting the eyes, making you cough, the smell etc.

Radio NZ reports:

Waikato public hospital has told nurses not to speak to patients in any language other than English.

A memo sent to all nursing staff last Friday, obtained by RNZ, said concerns had been raised about other languages being used, and that exclusive use of English in all clinical settings was safer for treating people.

A doctor who saw the memo said it was clearly aimed at Indian, Filipino and Pasifika nurses, who were healthcare “heroes” but were now being victimised.

No one is being victimised by being asked to speak in English in health clinical settings, just as English is also the required language for aviation. The need for clarity and clear communication saves lives.

Having said that, there should be some flexibility. If both parties to a conversation are more fluent or comfortable in another language, then I have no problem with that being used. So if a patient is more fluent in Mandarin, and a health professional speaks Mandarin, then that helps clear communications.

However if there are more than two people present, then English should be used unless everyone can understand the other language. You shouldn’t have one healthcare professional unable to understand what is being said.

In 1992 the Canberra Times asked 300 political and history academics to nominate the five greatest Australian PMs. The results of that survey tells us much more about the academics than the PMs. Their top six were:

1. Ben Chifley, Labor, won 1 election, served 4.5 years
2. John Curtin, Labor, won 1 election, served 3.75 years
3. Alfred Deakin, Protectionist then Liberal, won 1 election , served 5 years
4. Gough Whitlam, Labor, won 2 elections, served 3 years
5. Robert Menzies, Liberal, won 8 elections, served 18.5 years
6. Billy Hughes, Nationalist, won 2 elections, served 7.5 years

Placing Gough Whitlam over Robert Menzies is so ridiculous it is funny.

Radio NZ report:

E tū union spokesperson Michael Wood, himself a former transport minister, told Nine to Noon on Tuesday privatisation would undermine safety.

“Having appropriate aviation security is one of the most safety critical things of the system, and the prospect of privatising those services does compromise them,” Wood said.

“We, alongside other unions, have real concerns about this and staff are extremely concerned about what this might mean for the safety of everyone who uses our airports.”

Around the world, almost all airport security is done by the private sector, not the Government.

The notion that changing airline security from the CAA to Airports is extremely concerning for safety is hysterical. The reality is you could abolish aviation security entirely, and 99.9999% of flights would be unaffected.

If security was privatised, Wood feared competing interests could lead to lacklustre safety measures.

“If they were airports or airlines who could deliver these services… [They] have an interest in other operational matters,” he said.

“If things are running late, that costs airlines a lot of money and that starts to bring other incentives into the system, other than the safety of ensuring everyone is appropriately screened and that process is done well.”

What Michael Wood is saying is that if airports ran airport security, then they might actually work to reduce massive queues, as it is in their interest to do so. Wow, that would be terrible.