Performance pay for ministers to be introduced

Written By: - Date published: 11:46 am, May 17th, 2012 - 10 comments
Categories: john key, national/act government, Satire - Tags:

In a surprising pre-Budget u-turn, Prime Minister John Key has announced the Government will drop its policy of incrementally introducing performance pay for teachers and, instead, introduce it for ministers.

“Listening to Hekia Parata fluff her way through her spin lines on the teacher cuts, I had a kind of epiphany” said Key.

“Any fool can see that performance pay for teachers doesn’t make sense – it’s not like the country is overflowing with wannabe teachers, so where are you going to find replacements for your low-quality teachers?”

“If you want more qualified teachers, up the pay, attract better candidates.”

“That’s without mentioning the obvious problems with performance pay – its inherent unfairness, the nonsense of assuming teachers are wholly in control of their students’ achievement and just need to ‘work harder’ to lift results, its inherent racism, the incentive it gives teachers to ‘teach to the test’.”

“No country in the world with a better education than ours has performance pay and its corollary national standards.”

“The only reason you would introduce national standards and performance pay would be to break the teachers union so you could reduce teachers’ wages, which are the biggest cost in education.”

“I mean, you could do that if all you cared about was cutting some spending to fill the $2 billion hole you had carved in the government’s books with tax cuts. But if you wanted better education, no way.”

“Ministers, on the other hand, are perfect candidates for performance pay. They set their own goals and make a hell of a racket promising that they will achieve them.”

“So, let’s have a look:

Judith Collins promised to crush boy-racers’ cars. Three years later, no cars crushed.

Anne Tolley promised that National Standards would lift achievement. Three years later, no result.

Tim Groser, has become special envoy for stalling trade talks – he’s only meant to do that at climate change talks!

Kate Wilkinson, please. We give her a gold star just for finding her way to the office.

Steven Joyce’s idea of economic development is cutting dirty deals with casinos to increase problem gambling in return for a white elephant convention centre.

Speaking of white elephants, did I hear Brownlee that other day say that $5 a litre petrol is irrelevant to his plans to spend $14b on extravagant, unnecessary highways.

Hekia Parata’s cutting the frontline – teachers – breaking our promise not to do so.

Tony Ryall’s cutting the frontline – prescription medicine – breaking our promise not to do so.

David Carter cut the frontline – biosecurity officers – breaking our promise not to do so, and its now trying to close the gate after the horse has bolted.

Paula Bennett has overseen a 70,000 increase in the number of beneficiaries and still has no jobs policy.

Tariana Turia took money from working social welfare programmes and have it to corrupt organisations and gangs.

John Banks… Yeah, well.

Murray McCully turned the most loyal government agency into the most leaky.

And the rest basically haven’t done anything. Don’t think there will be any performance bonuses there.”

“And as for the economic dream team. I reckon Bill, Steven, and me would end up owing New Zealand about ten billion in growth we promised but didn’t deliver.”

“Now, that would be a way to free up some money for the frontline” the Prime Minister concluded.

10 comments on “Performance pay for ministers to be introduced ”

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  1. Nick C 1
    17 May 2012 at 12:22 pm

    “It’s not like the country is overflowing with wannabe teachers, so where are you going to find replacements for your low-quality teachers?”

    Except there is an oversupply of teachers… Even the teachers unions accept that http://www.3news.co.nz/Smaller-class-sizes-could-solve-teacher-oversupply—NZEI/tabid/423/articleID/251521/Default.aspx

    • bbfloyd 1.1
      17 May 2012 at 2:44 pm

      the ministry(and the minister) would have been well aware of the numbers of teacher trainees in the system. (investment undertaken by a labour govt, to cover the last nat govt stripping money from vote education)… so to actually create a situation that forces most of them to depart overseas to make a living in their chosen profession is just another example of just how empty the brains trust is in this excuse for a government….

      well done morons…. how much has it cost to train these teachers to work in australia, america, africa, europe, and wherever else they understand how necessary it is to have adequate numbers of teachers?

      do we get discounts on our imports for gifting trained teachers to our trading partners?

      or is this just more ass licking from johnny sparkle? … maybe the trade off is him getting invited to A list photo ops once he’s been given an ambassadors post as reward for services rendered to corporate head office……

  2. tracey 2
    17 May 2012 at 12:54 pm

    Theres an over supply of politicians too

  3. Dave Kennedy 3
    17 May 2012 at 1:31 pm

    It is probably easier to measure the performance of Ministers than teachers. Even though this post was satirical in nature it actually makes more sense than performance pay for teachers:
    http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/05/performance-pay-for-teachers.html

  4. Matthew 4
    17 May 2012 at 2:33 pm

    We cant forget Anne Tolleys promise to solve the biggest block to student achievement, which is endemic truancy. 3 years later, still 30,000 a day missing from school… 6 attempted prosecutions, including one grandmother who dropped her granddaughter at the gates every day, but was apparently not doing enough.

  5. ianmac 5
    17 May 2012 at 2:41 pm

    John Key will tell you that their Performance is reviewed every three years. Unless you are in a very very safe seat of course.

    • Dave Kennedy 5.1
      17 May 2012 at 3:27 pm

      Most children only have each teacher for a year, the idea of John Banks limping on for three years on full MP pay appalls me. Teachers have regular appraisals and there are programmes of advice and guidance when they drop below the expected professional standards. According to John Key the only criteria he will judge Banks on is a very loose local government regulations, even ethics don’t apply.

    • Georgecom 5.2
      17 May 2012 at 9:17 pm

      Teachers are appraised every year, Key et al only every 3 years. Maybe Key should put his Govt up for an annual election?

      Performance pay however, different story.
      Maybe judge Bill English on his ability to create economic growth, reduce the deficit
      Paula Bennett on her ability to reduce unemployment
      Nick Smith/Smiths replacement on reducing Greenhouse gases
      McCully on saving $24 million in foreign affairs without destroying the service
      Banks on fund raising and alzheimers

      • Dave Kennedy 5.2.1
        17 May 2012 at 11:21 pm

        Kate Wilkinson on protecting our conservation estate from private developments
        Phil Heatley on improving the housing shortage
        Gerry Brownlee and his ability to improve our relationship with other countries and develop sustainable energy sources
        This would be fun, Georgecom, if it wasn’t actually real and we didn’t have to survive another 2 years of such poor performance.

  6. prism 6
    17 May 2012 at 5:41 pm

    Excellent idea. Good post. It will act as the outline of this policy to be introduced very soon. The ordinary government planning and thinking for new policy can’t be more detailed than this when one looks at what we have foisted on us.