The Good News:

On the 27th and 28th of October 2012 Ngai Takoto and Te Rarawa are settling their Treaty Claims with the Crown. This is after the Waitangi Tribunal threw out Ngati Kahu's attempts to intrude on their claims area. I understand that Te Aupouri will also follow. The hold up was totally unnecessary and entirely the negotiators of the Ngati Kahu Runanga to blame. However they are away now. I wish them well with their claim and I know that with the people at the helm of their respective waka they will make a good start. However since it has taken so long (25 years?) they have a lot of opportunities to make up for. Kia Kaha koutou.

The Lost Opportunity:

Ngati Kahu having had their claims to bits and pieces of the other three iwi disallowed by the Tribunal are having to wait now for a decision on the remedies application against the Crown. While I don't know what exactly this entails, I do know that this is going to mean a long delay in Ngati Kahu's settlement; a totally unnecessary and expensive one. The Runanga is now in financial strife because of their various and expensive adventures into the High Court and the remedies hearings at Kareponia Marae. They want ALL the "fish money" allocated to marae to plug the gap in their budget. They say it happened because they were trying their best to get a settlement for all of Ngati Kahu. This nonsense is a cover for incompetence and bad faith negotiations. They are in fact responsible for this and Ngati Kahu are yet to hear them admit it. 

Hobit Economics

Hollywood Economics

Soon after his DotCom red face and apology the PM is off to Hollywood to drum up business for the film industry. He claims that the Hobit Movie employed 3000 jobs. Before you say WOW, are those 3000 still employed now that the Hobit movie is finished? Of course not. Don't forget that the contribution to our GDP is minus the tax break and tax payer contribution to Warners of some $40m. Most of that money went offshore. This is the kind of market economics that fairy tales are made of. In the meantime our coal mines are closing and miners are laid off, not to mention Mataura Freezing Works redundancies and other horrors. And our PM goes off to Hollywood. He has no vision, plan or sense of direction. Once a merchant banker always one. He's whistling in the wind if he thinks that is the way out of the recession. 

Poverty? What Poverty?

Don't think I've gone gaga. I know what poverty is. I was born into it like so many of my post-depression generation. Then the 1950s and 60s full employment lifted most NZers out of it to be one of the top five per capita income nations by the 1950s. Now we have studies and statistics indicating that there is child poverty in NZ on a proportionately large scale especially for the usual Maori and Pacific Island population. The problem is poverty generally is invisible and child poverty is visible only if you happen to see it as concerned teacher, social worker, community person or even policeman. I have seen men scouring the bins for food or the footpaths for cigarette butts outside a bar. That to me is more than poverty but signs of mental illness and social  

neglect. However, I find it hard to look past the huge number of the latest vehicles on our roads and streets to get a clear impression of poverty. The whole country is clogged with them. They don't only belong to the top 20% of income earners. So what is poverty and how is it measured? Or rather, how should it be measured? 

He Wai

"He wai" was a call that the orator used to get the group up to embelish his speech with a waiata. Now "wai" This is an issue caused by the sale of state assets like Mighty River Power. Really is there any need to sell power assets in order to balance the books or whatever? They are making money for "everyone" not some faceless already rich investor who will rachett up power prices in order to make on the investment. The National Government is just trying to avoid the obvious remedy for fiscal problems; increase taxes beginning at the top of the income food chain and working down towards a tolerable level of income earners ($60k?) .From about there then reduce taxes. Those with less than $20K income should not pay anything. They already pay enough on GST.

Whose "wai" is it anyway? There's a water company who reticulates water down to Taipa from  Peria and sells it to a horticultural company (it was Kerifresh) for their orchards and gardens. The main source of this water are the springs at the base of Maungataniwha. Is it their "wai?" They no doubt got resource consent from the regulator the Northern Regional Council or whoever. Is it their "wai" then? If  it's no one's water as our capitalist PM says then why is he privatizing the use of it by selling Mighty River Power?

If I could quote from a local letter writer to the Taupo Times; "When the rain falls on his roof it is his water just as it is for his neighbour of whatever ethnic gender. When it runs into Lake Taupo it is Tuwharetoa water because they own the lake bed and have title to it. However the Crown has put a gate at the exit into the Waikato River. This raises it about a meter. That is the Crown's water, except that it is sitting on Tuwharetoa water which makes it Tuwharetoa's. " If the PM says it's nobody's water, then why is it being sold in the super market? That 'nobody' is not selling only the plastic bottle and obviously thinks it's his/hers. I say that the wai is a "red herring'. The real issue is who owns Mighty River Power et al? I believe everybody does and should continue to do so.

Bits And Pieces

Kia Ora:

These are bits and pieces only since I have been off the ether for quite a while. I don't know what's happened technologically but I have had heaps big raruraru. 

Politics: I find it hard to believe the polls that tell us that our show pony PM is so far ahead of his rivals. Inspite of the economy, assets sales, high prices for petrol, etc, etc, etc. I'm not surprised that Shearer is so far behind, but really, why? Answer:  He is only a shadow and his visibility is virtually nil. He recently growled his caucus in order to remind them that he actually is the leader. They probably forgot and some were listening intently to Cunnliffes centre-left on the economy. They should listen intently. The last thing we need is tweedle dee and tweedle dum in parliament with a few minor tweedles in between. I don't know how long it's going to be before we tumble to the fact for example that asset sales are a no-no. Telecom was a private monopoly and had a head start on its competition. Air NZ crashed. The boys running it thought they could buy and run Ansett Australia as well. They couldn't. So socialism rushed to the rescue. NZ Rail was even worse. The boys who bought it made $700m and then took off leaving the grass growing between the rails and not much else. If evidence is needed, private enterprise cannot do better than the state except perhaps run a corner dairy or two, or rather a super market. So Mr. Shearer lets have policies of income equity and a more realistic tax policy. Also what about Reserve Bank Credit that built the first state houses?

"Crusher Collins" Morphs; Now "Crusher Tolley"

As the ad says for breast cancer screening, "Get the girls out boys." Honestly! If the government thought they had done one u-turn too many lately what made them think the populace would ra ra them for crushing one car? It's nearly three years since the Act and "Crusher Collins" who didn't crush one dinky toy. Now some poor hoon gets caught for the third time. Lucky for him the law only allows cars to be crushed. No doubt however his driving spirit will be dented. Whether his mates will be deterred from hooning is dubious.

What a photo op! The Minister on top of a crushed car. No doubt it felt good and the voters will be distracted from such mundane policies as selling off state assets to Mum and Dad investors; the same ones who buy those cars for Junior. I wonder why such a crime does not result in a jail term of say 3 months? That will at least keep one hoon off our roads for that time. I suspect that hoons come from whanau who can afford such cars and are therefore Middle Class. Crushing a car is embarassing  for that whanau but not as bad as a jail term. So come on "Crusher Tolley"; crush the car, AND throw the hoon in jail. 

Larger Classes: Good Education or a Cost Cutter?

Larger Classes = Less Teachers = Less Expenditure On Education

= ?

Rangiawhia School in the 19s60s

My comments here are based on experience as a primary teacher. The largest class I had was 40 fortunately only for a term. Most classes I had from 1959 to 19 72 were between 32-36. My smallest class was a special class of 14 children. What a relief to have that few even though they had learning difficulties; in two cases severe. They improved in reading, speaking, writing, and other subjects. In every case they were well below their chronological age in reading; the most severe was a twelve year old with a reading age of six. He improved from that to eight in one year. Four improved their reading so that it equated with their actual ages in the same time; or an improvement of about three years. Those were able to go to a larger, "normal" class, but kept coming back. Eventually two had socially advanced to the point where they could cope and didn't come back. 

We sometimes forget the effect in learning that a proportion of the children can have on a class. In one of say 35 children, if there are 10-15 who are academically advanced, their presence and impact can improve the rest. In some cases the improvements are spectacular. They can "pull" up the rest academically including themselves. Behaviour also becomes less disruptive. I had large classes (35 plus)  at a time when I was an inexperienced teacher. This does not mean that those classes did not progress. Far from it. Each class has its own character reflecting communities they came from. Parental unemployment wasn't a problem then. SES status was, as was extreme social behavior. The child poverty spoken of now was rare. Teachers tended to blame parents for  learning difficulties. Eventually I realized that however true that was, only the teachers were paid to educate children, not parents. We tended to claim successes and make orphans of our failures. However as far as class sizes are concerned smaller is much better academically whether they be in private or public schools. 

Paying the "best" teachers was through grading of teachers performance by Inspectors and scaling of positions. This enabled the best graded to win higher paid jobs within schools and education. In other words if the "best" teachers should get higher pay then someone/system has to decide who these are and what the criteria are to determine "best" teacher. It's ironic that  the harshest critics of that system were us teachers and our unions. Whatever system is imposed to determine this would need to be fair to all teachers.

Those Asians Again!

Those Asians Again!

Haven't we Kiwis got anything better to do than whinge about Asian language signs on their shop fronts? Are we that sensitive? It's a reminder of those times when Kiwis complained about Maori names and greetings in Te Reo on radio. Bloody ridiculous in other words. Winston Peters tells us that these signs are an indication that the English requirement for immigrants from Asia is not working. Rubbish! The fact that they can open a shop in Queen Street surely one of the most expensive places to do business tells us otherwise.  Winston's just continuing his Asian bashing.

This generation of Asian immigrants will ensure that their next generations will speak English. This is already obvious given the numbers graduating from university. In the meantime if we are interested,  we only need look in the shop window to see whether it sells aquapuncture, Peking duck, or Asian goods in their superb supermarkets. Go in and ask, don't complain. You don't have any reason to. My guess is that Kiwis are afraid of being outnumbered. Get over it. Maori did. An Asian majority is not too far away. What we should do is adapt to this "globalization." If you are irritated by the above picture you are going to have a hard time.