Wee gripes: Another Tolley lie

Written By: - Date published: 11:29 pm, November 28th, 2009 - 10 comments
Categories: education - Tags:

Minister of Education Anne Tolley is obviously feeling the heat of the reaction to her inexplicably daft decision to read a moralising children’s story book* to the PPTA Executive.

Minister defends reading kid’s book to PPTA

…The council says it was left somewhat bemused and feeling patronised that the minister chose to read to them from a children’s book relating a tale of Riley the Rat who was happy with the crumbs it was given.

Ms Tolley says she was just being lighthearted. “There was no underlying message, I was just trying to share with them a book that I had come across during a visit to a school. And I thought they might be interested, and I understand a number of them have followed it up as I understand and bought the book.”

Mmmmm, yeah. My wee gripe is that the last statement is just another wee lie from a Minister. “A number of them” have not followed it up and bought the book, unless by “a number of them” you mean exactly one. Mrs Tolley might be interested to learn that the reason it was bought was not because the assembled teachers had fallen head over heels for Riley, but in order to show people and branches exactly what it was that the Minister had chosen to read to them**. So there you go, another wee twist in this odd tale, and another wee lie from a Minister…

[* NB – not to say that I think it’s a bad book for kids. Probably wonderful, why not buy one for a kid today! Some good should come out of this bizarre event.] [** Since Tolley’s statement a second copy has been bought for the same reason.]

10 comments on “Wee gripes: Another Tolley lie ”

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  1. Galeandra 1
    28 November 2009 at 11:42 pm

    If there’s a pattern to her departures from the truth, perhaps we could create a new verb as in to tolley…?

    Mind you, of course, we’d have to discriminate between tolleying and smithing, or even brownleesing, for that matter.

    Sadly, such humour eventually becomes a bit punishing.

  2. rocky 2
    29 November 2009 at 12:05 am

    This story just gets funnier and crazier! Haven’t laughed so much at something a NACT minister has done before 😉

  3. George D 3
    29 November 2009 at 12:16 am

    “The Children’s Book Council of Australia named this title the Picture Book of the Year.”

    Yeah, it’s a good book. For children.

  4. CrosbyTextor 4
    29 November 2009 at 12:42 am

    NOTIFICATION OF CHANGE IN COMMUNICATION STRATEGY

    From: Xemu

    To: All Class V Orgs ANZO

    Due to a Coffee Grinder Incident, an inappropriate release of Tech Material has occurred. Because this happened, the use of childrens books to explain mission details to Ministers will cease, effective immediately. The copy of Charlie In The Chocolate Factory has been recovered from the 9th Floor and destroyed. All operatives will deny ever having seen Riley The Happiest Rat In The World.

    Work has begun on formulating a new method of bringing the Ministers up to speed and will be merged into the remaining aspects of the overall strategy when this work has been completed.

    That is all.

  5. Tigger 5
    29 November 2009 at 8:51 am

    Why on earth is she reading ANY book to a group of adults. Not only was the book a bad choice, the act of reading was clearly designed to make people sit there and listen to her. That’s patronising but Tolley appears to be oblivious to it.

    I suspect my version of hell is National MPs reading me children’s books over and over and over…

  6. Craig Glen Eden 6
    29 November 2009 at 10:39 am

    I bet this event gets added to the CV Under Qualifications and Skills to be Minister of Education in a National Government.

    1 I went to school
    2 I have kids who went o school
    3 I am a grandmother
    4 Members of my family are Teachers
    5 I have taught the PPTA about being thankful for crums.

    Yup she’s right up there with the rest of the performers in this Governments Cabinet.

  7. Macro 7
    29 November 2009 at 5:02 pm

    It’s not so good really! It has spelling mistakes. Would she pass the National Standard? Fail I fear…
    Anne must learn to spell “to”

  8. tree hugger 8
    29 November 2009 at 7:43 pm

    Maybe she thought she was being wry. Unfortunately for her, the PPTA people smelled a rat (and it wasn’t in the book).

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