The support of speaking freely depends on who is in power.

I have huge respect for the way David Farrar operates Kiwiblog. As opposed to almost all other political blogs in NZ – he allows genuine debate.

I have, and never will have, a political affiliation. From the beginning of my career in education I made a choice to research and tell the story of what I saw – regardless of who was in power. People love to talk about “evidence based policy” – but when you present evidence that their policy is not working they do not appreciate the rug being pulled.

When I produced data sets to show that the decline in NZ education had been significant over the last 15 years – from a very low base in many ways – few on the “right” complained because Labour was in power at that time. A high up member of the PPTA even called me the most hated person in NZ education.

When Erica Stanford – for whom I had organised a highley successful two day education summit in Cambridge when she was National’s “spokesperson” – became Minister of Education I was hopeful.

When she immediately appointed long-term, and distastrous, Dep Sec of Education: Ellen McGregor-Reid (EMR), into her Ministerial office … I critiqued that decision immediately as all it did was signal that very little would actually change and that the Ministry would be the main power-broker – not the Minister.

I immediately received criticism from Jordan William (Taxpayers’ Union) about “friendly fire”. I then received an email from Michael Johnston from the NZ Initiative – who had been appointed as the chair of the Minister’s Advisory Group. He told me that “as a friend” (I had never considered him so), that the Minister was devastated and the the role of EMR was to do the difficult task of setting up the Minister’s office – and then change would take place. One could only assume that that change would include completly transforming the Ministry and keeping the election promise of reducing the FTEs to 2,700.

Well; EMR has since been appointed Secretary for Education (on approx. $700k per annum), the FTEs are approx 4000. The MInistry is no more functional that it was when the NZ Initiative leader Dr Oliver Hartwitch said that TNT was the only solution. And yet …. silence! A HUGE loss of credibility for all involved.

We live in a democracy – “Government of the people, by the people, for the people”.

The problem for NACT is not the Labour government’s intervening years – Labour do not care anymore about the failing aspects of the education system than Nationals and ACT do. They do not care about the incredibly poor outcomes for Maori, Pasifika and low-income students any more that NACT do. But NACT do not either and there is MASSIVE evidence of that over the last 27 months. The problem is that the purported supporters of NACT do not hold their people to account and fall back on … “Well, they might be crap, but at least they are not as crap as Labour/Greens/TPM.”

Then there is the moral repugnace of this type of communication I receive on occasions. The good thing is that this person chose an appropriate alias for anyone who understand the nonmemclature of the penis.

“I won’t be entering into any discussion about my note to you, it is meant only as feedback not engagement.

I am always sure that when you put up a post it will be negative and certainly anti government.

I can understand you being resentful because of your unsuccessful applications for 4 private schools (“sic” – we have an approved private school” , and some would say it is quite legitimate for you to air your resentful views on a platform such as Kiwiblog. However it becomes predictable and nauseous almost to see you prattle on as you do.

Do you seriously think that continually criticising the government is going to carry favour with a government of any hue or indeed with the public that reads your posts? 

I wish you luck with all of that.

JohnThomas”

The key thing here is that … you do your research and you express what you see. How morally repugnant that anyone would consider that you should “curry favour”. Or – as Michael Johnston said: “Being outspoken excludes you from being in the tent.” Why would I care? My life is very good! But – if it wasn’t – in a democarcy you are supposed to speak up when you see problems. And our education system remains a mess – and it may well be accelerating on the way down.

Being “tribal” on either side – damages NZ.

alwyn.poole@gmail.com

The post The support of speaking freely depends on who is in power. first appeared on Kiwiblog.