A quick note to John Key

Written By: - Date published: 9:59 am, July 7th, 2014 - 44 comments
Categories: david cunliffe, education, election 2014, greens, Hekia parata, john key, labour, mana, schools, slippery, spin - Tags:

Remember when you said this:

John Key Private Schools small classes

h/t Jerome Mika on twitter, who tweeted:

Smaller classes should be for all our Kiwi children, not just .

And now, Mr Key, with your support, Hekia Parata says this:

“Labour’s ‘back to the future’ idea of reducing class sizes at the margin is proven to achieve very little in terms of better results for Kiwi kids. We know that because that was their policy last time they were in government and student achievement flat-lined at best.

The wider vision of Labour’s latest education policy, which aims to serve the many not the few.

David Cunliffe - TS-1

The Greens

and Mana

have some pretty got education policies, too.

Meanwhile, the current NZ government plays with words and spin, and fails to serve all Kiwis.

Vote left this election!

 

vote left 2014

 

[Edit] See 2012 NZ Herald article on Key’s statements and the Listener poster derived from it:

The Prime Minister told the Listener he sent his children to private schools for educational reasons, including smaller classes and better resources.

It was not a direct quote, but a picture of Mr Key with the comment alongside was posted on Facebook yesterday and by last night had appeared on numerous blogs and been shared by more than 6000 people.

Comments about it included labelling Mr Key a hypocrite for arguing now that increasing class sizes in the state sector would not affect standards of education.

[h/t Paul via Anne’s reference to his comment]

 

 

44 comments on “A quick note to John Key ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. Mary 1
    7 July 2014 at 10:23 am

    That’s a very good message on that poster.

  2. Mary 2
    7 July 2014 at 10:25 am

    And after national’s failed “let’s increase class sizes” Parata on Radio NZ this morning said national will reduce class sizes “because the research is clear.” Labour needs to start making hay.

  3. Jester 3
    7 July 2014 at 10:28 am

    Guess Jerome didn’t get the memo about positivity and petty politics.

    • karol 3.1
      7 July 2014 at 10:31 am

      I wouldn’t call highlighting the Nats’ contradictory claims on some crucial polices, “petty”.

      This is not about negativity or cheap smears. it’s about comparing and debating policies, and highlighting the differences between parties and their values.

    • Paul 3.2
      7 July 2014 at 10:57 am

      Pot…kettle…black

    • Ant 3.3
      7 July 2014 at 11:30 am

      What’s petty about that? Key supports Labour’s policy, directly demonstrated by his choices in raising his own kids, a ringing endorsement.

    • Appleboy 3.4
      7 July 2014 at 5:22 pm

      f for god’s sake – calling key out on his lies nis not being petty. Key said smaller class room is a he sent he sent his kids to a private school, now he says class size is not an issue. What Planet are you right whingers on?! Oh that’s right. Planet key.

      He needs to have this lie rammed down his throat til the election.

  4. North 4
    7 July 2014 at 10:33 am

    ” One Rule For Me And Mine – A Different Rule For You And Yours “. This reeks so badly of naked elitism that it must be pushed really, really hard.

    Evoking a visceral sense in the public will render presently paraded “figures” and “studies” mealy mouthed cover-up. Something to ‘say’ in the absence of anything to say. The bogus Everyman image will depete significantly with widespread exposure. There’s a paper trail a mile wide which must be hoist on GodKey and The Parrota. Social media – into it !

    To the impeccable and immaculate amongst us: what pray tell is petty or non-issue based about exposing the The Scam Of The Everyman in the many contexts in which it is operative ? That scam has been foundational to the National Party modus operandi since before its present leader was returned to New Zealand in the very early 2000s.

  5. One Anonymous Bloke 5
    7 July 2014 at 10:38 am

    What’s wrong with Hekia Parata? Why does she struggle to construct a meaningful sentence? What does “at the margin” mean in the context of her flailing incompetence wider remarks?

    How does someone with such an obvious intellectual handicap retain a seat around the New Zealand government’s cabinet table?

    Relative merit?

    • Te Reo Putake 5.1
      7 July 2014 at 10:42 am

      Could it be that Parata is a perfect reflection of National’s commitment to education?

      • One Anonymous Bloke 5.1.1
        7 July 2014 at 10:54 am

        She’s charged with destroying the public education model, hardly a minor goal. I think she’s the best they can do.

        Can you name a more talented minister?

  6. Anne 6
    7 July 2014 at 10:43 am

    And lets rub it in yet again – hat-tip to Paul on Open Mike:

    Key called hypocrite over class sizes

  7. vto 7
    7 July 2014 at 12:45 pm

    Then there is the perverse act by this horrid government to subject East Christchurch (but not the northwest private schools – no, no) to not just larger class sizes, but larger super-schools…..

    ffs, when a government takes aim at ones children it really does get the blood to boil, especially when they claim and do the opposite in their own personal lives.

  8. Tracey 8
    7 July 2014 at 12:53 pm

    My guess is mr key wanted his children to thrive, have choices and reach their potential.

    As PM his aim is to provide the minimum, produce fodder for the low wage economy. This govt’s objective appears based around an idea that people have a right to survive, not thrive.

    The sign of a successful nation is how many are thriving. Not living on top of rubbish tips is not the measure of this.

  9. dimebag russell 9
    7 July 2014 at 2:26 pm

    now he is going to throw the education system over to lunatics who want the jobs and the prestige but have no expertise whatsoever except their own say so.
    John Key will go down as an egregious criminal wrecker of the education system if he lets this dismemberment proceed.
    best just get rid of him and his party and the rest of their peculiar ideas.

  10. NZJester 10
    7 July 2014 at 2:30 pm

    Hekia Parata says this:
    “Labour’s ‘back to the future’ idea of reducing class sizes at the margin is proven to achieve very little in terms of better results for Kiwi kids. We know that because that was their policy last time they were in government and student achievement flat-lined at best.”

    Flat-lining is what most things do just before they start to go up again and how is flat-lining worse than it dropping again under National? All Labours hard work of taking the time to reduce class sizes and trying to better resource schools was tossed out the window by National just as it was about to pay off for public school students.

    National has made it so teachers are bogged down in paperwork so they can hardly give any time to students even when in class. Some of that paperwork is them just trying to get paid and hold off their creditors till then thanks to Novopay!

    National seams to have been trying to make their coalition partner happy be making schools so under funded and by closing a number of them down so that there are plenty of empty schools to be had and lots of students needing smaller classes that their parents will be happy to send them to a charter school most that will be run in previously closed public schools.

    National was very happy to fund charter schools at much higher per child rates than a public school. Charter schools have also been set up in such a way that they will end up having better results than public schools due to two big factors. They can pick and choose their students so will only take the best students and leave the harder ones for the public schools to educate. Having better funding also helps them to better educate their students.

    If National gets in for another 3 years they will use those stacked figures as proof that charter schools are better than public schools and close more public schools to replace them with charter schools.

  11. ianmac 11
    7 July 2014 at 2:58 pm

    Parata reckons that class sizes won’t matter anyway because she has discovered Open Plan Classrooms. This is where you but 75 or 80 kids together in a large space with say 3 teachers. They share the group and have small withdrawl rooms for group teaching. Tried during the 80s but because of serious logistical problems, difficulty in matching compatible teachers, lack of suitable buildings, stress for many kids who were unable to fit the model, kids falling through the cracks, it faded away.The sometimes gains were outweighed by the failures.

    So Ms Parata try another harebrained idea or even consult with the people who have the research and the experience. Unless that is too hard.

    PS I believe that the Charter Schools run classes of fewer than 18 kids.

    • Tracey 11.1
      7 July 2014 at 3:14 pm

      john key’s children are at university now, so class sizes are irrelevant to him.

    • miravox 11.2
      7 July 2014 at 3:26 pm

      Jeepers ianmac, if class sizes don’t matter why would she need 3 teachers?

  12. dimebag russell 12
    7 July 2014 at 3:12 pm

    heka paratai is just a big bag of words that mean nothing.

  13. whateva next? 13
    7 July 2014 at 6:26 pm

    The far right are very worried about Labour’s policy….I have just been rung to ask if I would complete a survey for maritime NZ…..they immediately ask what I think about Labour’s policy which will cost $50,000,000 to stop parental donations??? I asked what that has to do with Maritime NZ, and she mumbled something about social policy questions being added?

    • Tracey 13.1
      7 July 2014 at 6:58 pm

      yikes?

      did they carry on the questions?

    • Anne 13.2
      7 July 2014 at 7:08 pm

      whateva next.

      Can you recall anything else the woman said?

      It sounds like the Tories are indulging in push polling.

      From Wikipedia:

      A push poll is an interactive marketing technique, most commonly employed during political campaigning, in which an individual or organization attempts to influence or alter the view of voters under the guise of conducting a poll.

      In a push poll, large numbers of voters are contacted briefly (often less than 60 seconds), and little or no effort is made to collect and analyze response data. Instead, the push poll is a form of telemarketing-based propaganda and rumor mongering, masquerading as a poll.

    • mickysavage 13.3
      7 July 2014 at 8:03 pm

      Any chance you can dig out the phone number the call was from?

    • felix 13.4
      7 July 2014 at 8:55 pm

      Curias and Curiaser…

    • freedom 13.5
      8 July 2014 at 7:28 pm

      This is the only operational public consultation Maritime NZ is currently engaged in that I could find
      http://www.transport.govt.nz/sea/maritime-labour-convention-2006

      It is for the Ministry of Transport and it closes on July 11 2014. Perhaps they are running a small poll to include with the submissions, but for the questions you referenced to be included in such a submission seems a bit odd. Unless there is some under the door poll gathering being done in that grey area of public consultation all Ministries seem to wrangle out of their budgets. Like the opposition policy questions on ‘Your local MP’ fact sheets that have been pouring out of some National MP electorate offices the past few months.

  14. North 14
    7 July 2014 at 6:47 pm

    For as long as I’ve had any political consciousness at all, which now approaches 50 years, I’ve been aware of the National Party parading itself as possessing that admirable ‘something’ known to no other political grouping. It was irritating but one felt, grudgingly, that even with the hooting snobbery and ‘Born to Rule’ delusion there was a broad decency attaching to the ‘Old National Party’. That hint of ‘noblesse oblige’, if patronising, was somehow caring. Under the “Old National Party’ knowing one’s station at least connoted having a ‘station.’

    The Neo-National Party of today ? Wide boys/girls, cynical, bullying, hectoring demonisers, shameless self-promoters, crashing incompetents hidden in power, barefaced unrepentant liars. Many whose ethos is ” Get away with it ? Go for it ! “. Cold reptilian eyes above fake gargoyle smiles applied to professing love for Kiwis’ and New Zealand. Endless whipped-up celebration of the bogus Everyman/GodKey.

    Producing, creating, enlarging the nation’s pie for the general good, all unfashionable, unworldly, naive. Pointing of the illusory cargo-cult where it will best politically advantage the upper echelons of the Neo-National Party. Worse and more ruinously still – serial, concerted, targeted, public campaigns of vilification. To market as justified the clinical eviction of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders from any ‘station’ in life previously held, however lowly. To render as fodder for any prevailing construct.

    The road to an emasculated, malignant, shamed, ‘toy’ state. The Neo-National Party stands ready to proceed to denouement.

    • Once was Tim 14.1
      7 July 2014 at 9:01 pm

      @ North.
      Your first paragraph I find really interesting because that was my experience of the Nats too (though I’ve never voted or agreed with their politics).
      I often wonder though, what the likes of McKinnon and others think of his party today – Bolger even.
      It’s also why I can only conclude that the likes of Finlayson are either really shallow and superficial, or are basically whores operating with the expectation they’ll be rewarded with some cushy little number when they leave the chamber (probably in some nice little Pacific Isle the Kethlic Church has had to abandon). Perhaps Finlayson is actually a Populuxe2.0 – or even a 1 – maybe not! He’s more likely to be the sugar daddy than the sugar dadee.

      There’s always been cronyism (I’m useless with names), but I’m thinking of NZBC appointments, Post Masters General, SIS appointments and so on, but there is something really different about modern day Nats (aside from the fact that they’re now Natzis – prepared to whore and accommodate at will, anything and anyone that’ll serve their cause – ACT/Conservatives for example).

      It’s probably that they can legitimately lay claim to having lost their snobbery – philistines, anti-science adherents, ferals, liars, sociopaths – they’re all welcome in today’s #TeamNational (and I didn’t see a Karori Blue rinse dowager in sight at MFC the weekend before last – even though there were some pretty bloody horrendous fashion crimes coming and going).

      I ‘spose that makes them unpretentious despite being a bunch of pretenders.

      If you can show me a couple of original ideas I could rub together offered by Neshnool (i.e. ones that aren’t regurgitated shite from days gone by or from offshore), I’ll modify my opinion.
      So far, much as I try, and with the respect I hold for one or two or the ‘Old National’, I can’t see anything.
      The other thing I notice with the ‘New National’ is the effects of cargo cultists invading: Hek Yeas in sham relationships playing dress-ups; regular gals in leopard skins from the West very suddenly ‘re-imaging’ to suit their cause(s) and heading up to market North Shore; traditionalists from Wellington’s Eastern suburbs who have become SO utterly pragmatic and expedient they’re destined for ‘bitter old queen’ status; Kapiti Coast stoners who ‘never inhaled’ desperately trying to get respectable with the treats and trinkets laid on them; …… Christ – let’s not go near BOP/Tauranga!!! (It’s a bit of a lost cause but there are so many MPI/Immigration/CYFS/WINZ failures I could recount, it’s a fekkin joke).

      Do you think the trolls will be in shortly to protest (too loudly). I’ve just returned after a couple of days but they seem to be in hiding very recently.

      • North 14.1.1
        8 July 2014 at 8:41 am

        Never fear OnceWasTim – FizzyAnus stands true !

        Marvelled at in Neo-National circles for weekend after weekend after weekend – come rain or shine – of simultaneous door knocking in Johnsonville, Woburn, Melrose, Paekakariki – engaging astral travel even when Christchurch Central calls.

        Returning exhausted but satisfied to the rat hole late of a weekend afternoon to deposit in the bleak carport thereof his weekend bag of up to 300 formerly Labour and Green souls. All glowing with the ‘light’ transfused by FazzyInus.

        Then to genuflect on abcessed knee before the garishly flashing wall mounted neon study of TheGodKey. Chokingly – “Mine Labours Are For Thee Oh My Lord”.

        This faith does not go unnoticed. It is said the 9th floor puts store by FuzzyAnis delivering govern alone. Yes…..really !

  15. Anne 15
    7 July 2014 at 6:47 pm

    Maritime NZ? Your caller is not operating from a bona fide polling company whateva next.

    My immediate reaction is that its a wealthy advertising agency acting for either National or ACT. I was involved in a poll conducted from a well known ad. agency back in the mid 1990s. The recipients of the calls had no idea it was a poll being carried out for ACT by ACT members and supporters. How I came to be involved is a long story but one I don’t regret. Gave me an insight into how the other political half operates.

  16. Clemgeopin 16
    7 July 2014 at 8:14 pm

    What we need is not increased class sizes as proposed by Key, Parata and the National party, but a much reduced size of these stupid and dangerous right wing nut jobs in parliament after Sept 20.

  17. North 17
    7 July 2014 at 9:01 pm

    Native Affairs Maori TV right now. Peter-Peter-ShonKey-Eater. What a clapped out but personally ‘done very well thank you’ old fool !

    “Colonisation took Te Reo from the people.”

    My God, HE talks about colonisation !

  18. Whatever next? 18
    7 July 2014 at 9:18 pm

    The young woman asked to speak to oldest female over 18, went straight into asking if I agreed with labours policy regarding school donations costing the tax payer $50 million etc. went onto ask about if I had school age children. At the end asked if I thought everyone should wear life jackets, all the time and then asked me if I had various sea vessels, of which I have none.an 0800 number was given, but it was 6.00 and I was too busy to note it, which I regret now! Cannot get number, so I might ask maritime NZ if they are actually doing a poll at the moment?

  19. Dramaticus 19
    14 July 2014 at 10:45 am

    Tell it like it is Key, you sent your kids to private schools because your a rich elitist prick who thinks your better than everyone else and you really couldnt give a fuck about the under paid, unemployed, unemployable,lower class white people, beneficiaries,polynesians who are dying because of your shit , intellectually impaired ,fiscally challenged,poor
    ANGRY voters who have had a guts full of your fascist policies that suck the life and resources out of this country and leave us with lies, corruption, pollution, debt, despondency and a country with no history before Key came to be, You should be charged with treason and convicted

  20. Dramaticus 20
    14 July 2014 at 10:49 am

    Tell it like it is Key, you sent your kids to private schools because your a rich elitist prick who thinks your better than everyone else and you really couldnt give a fuck about the under paid, unemployed, unemployable,lower class white people, beneficiaries,polynesians who are dying because of your shit , intellectually impaired ,fiscally challenged,poor
    ANGRY voters who have had a guts full of your fascist policies that suck the life and resources out of this country and leave us with lies, corruption, pollution, debt, despondency and a country with no history before you Key came to be, You should be charged with treason and convicted

  21. Dramaticus 21
    14 July 2014 at 10:49 am

    Tell it like it is Key, you sent your kids to private schools because your a rich elitist prick who thinks your better than everyone else and you really couldnt give a fuck about the under paid, unemployed, unemployable,lower class white people, beneficiaries,polynesians who are dying because of your shit , intellectually impaired ,fiscally challenged,poor
    ANGRY voters who have had a guts full of your fascist policies that suck the life and resources out of this country and leave us with lies, corruption, pollution, debt, despondency and a country with no history before you Key came to be, You should be charged with treason and convicted

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