Richard, all those findings you quote involve increased government expenditure over and above inflation increases. The public want tougher (longer) sentences, so look at what happens - the prison population goes up! I haven't seen the report so don't know ...
Morning tea time, I'm off to get a sausage roll. I wonder if I can claim it on expenses - I'll say it was a plain sausage roll, not a luxury one with fennel and an extra packet of tomato sauce.
I can understand why National doesn't want to release policy in areas where it thinks that Labour may copy it's policies (e.g Student Loans), but the Kiwisaver case is not like this at all. It seems to be simply because they know that their policy will be ...
AYB - but it then gives Curia a chance to do a quick poll and then work out which why to jump, or which ones to shut-up about!
There are some patronising comments from Stephen Franks on his blog about the debate last night, including this parting shot: "Judging from last night, the left, and especially the teaching establishment, is too poorly educated even to frame the questions,...
Burt, I thought I was criticising ACT policy, not National's. Allan Peachey does seems to favour vouchers though, so perhaps it really is National policy, but no-one wants to announce it. Know me before you judge me. I think it would be great to have more ...
"I could start a school for ‘troubled teenagers' ..." I've got a good name for that policy - "Closing the Gaps" !!
Mike, my point is simply that to get a good education system you have to pay for it, and if it's vouchers then it comes out of tax revenue. We are only going to get better educational resources if we are prepared to put more Govt revenue into education. If...
Mike Collins - The Swedish system would help explain why tax revenue as a % of GDP is 50% in that country. (Source: Economist 24 May 2008)
If zoning is abolished then there are two options for schools: 1 - First in, first served (when do you register your kids - conception, birth, 5 yrs old...?!) 2 - Take the kids that live closest to the school (oops, now we've got defacto zoning) There has ...
So if I understand you correctly Burt, it's a subsidy for those sending their children to private schools? ;-)
Could someone from "the right" please explain how these would work. Currently zoning provides a relatively crude, but effective, form of rationing. If we had vouchers how would the schools decide who gets in? (I'm assuming zoning would be done away with) ...
What the graph doesn't show is how many of the people on the left hand end are in a household with someone from the right hand end. Two reasonable common (I think) examples are: 1) High earner + spouse at home (or doing part-time work) 2) Both parents ...
Rodney seems to be assuming that tax was at the "right" level in 1999, but I seem to remember that back then a lot of public/social services needed more money. Brett - how would you pay for the tax cut Rodney is suggesting?
zANavAShi - thanks for the supporting info a couple of hours ago. I've recently heard the spokeman for the Prison Fellowship say similar things. Brett seems to want spartan prison conditions and longer sentences. What sort of released prisoners will that ...
get your facts right Brett - he was convicted of manslaughter (not murder), along with 5 others. From memory, he was the look-out - he didn't swing the baseball bat. The guy deserves another chance, let's support him so he will become a good influence on ...
sorry, Steven not Steve in my comment above.
Steve "I'm living under a regime ... I don't see a cent of benefit of any of it." - so you're not living in NZ then?
"there's no pay differential based on the decile level of the school the teacher works at. But what a good idea that would be!" Hillary - I'd be interested if you could explain that one a bit further. From my observations the teachers at a lower decile ...
Glad to see the y-axis starting at 0! Now, how about some horizontal grid-lines!
"This has also been during a period where National have been very quiet - attacking the EFA ..." But what people (outside the blogosphere) are seeing is free speech still happening (e.g. One and half protests outside the Labour Party Congress), so they are...
In case anyone is confused (as I was initially), National's 49.9% equating to over 50% of the seats is because the Greens and NZ First votes are effectively lost votes (3.9 1.1 = 5%). This is because they don't get over the 5% threshold or win an ...
Phil - I certainly do remember Lange (and Muldoon, Marshall and Holyoake). My comment was intended to be a light-hearted one, showing how lack of experience will be used by all sides of the political spectrum.
"experience" - something that's only important when it's a fault with your opponent! paraphrased from kiwiblog: I think Key's experience, or lack of it, is going to become more of a factor. It got me wondering if any other PM (I am assuming he becomes the ...
Agreed HIGHERSTANDARD (or is it LOUDERSTANDARD!). It's a shame one of them had to lose. Captcha: Despite election
Thanks for that insightful comment Murray. btw, do you think John Key is slippery? If not, why not?
I certainly expect a leader of a major political party to be able to think on his feet without stumbling and getting thibgs completely wrong. This is hardly "PM in waiting" stuff as surely this was something he campaigned on last election!
"I understand it contains emails, but that they can't be verified." Camryn - the fact that National refer to them as "stolen emails" verifies that the emails did exist.
Well Adolf, it got your attention!
you've managed to add a few superfluous characters in the link to the Age that screws it up.
"The market treats all workers ... they are free to change to another job or improve their employability with further education." In utopia maybe, but it is a lot easier said than done to take on further education, especially if the worker has family and/...
Recent Comments