Speech to NZ Principals’ Federation Annual Moot

22 March 2013

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.

On Wednesday I had the opportunity to speak to the Auckland Primary Principals Association and set out some initial thinking on a new, positive direction for education in New Zealand.

Some of you were in that audience, and many of you seem to have read the speech online judging by the emails, tweets and facebook messages I’ve had since then.

In that speech I restated Labour’s commitment to Peter Fraser’s vision for education:

“The [Labour] government’s objective, broadly expressed, is that all persons, whatever their level of ability, whether they live in town our country, have a right as citizens to a free education of the kind for which they are best fitted and to the fullest extent of their powers.”

Today, just as we did in Peter Fraser’s time, Labour recognises that every child is different, that children learn different things at different times, and that students are far more likely to be engaged in education if they are taught a broad and varied curriculum. Read the rest of this entry »

Speech to the Auckland Primary Principals Association

20 March 2013

Thank you for inviting me to speak to you today.

This is the first opportunity I’ve had to address a larger audience of education professionals since I formally took up the role as Labour’s Education spokesperson.

Up until now I’ve been out and about, listening to your views and concerns, and discussing how we can do things better.

The feedback I’ve had can be divided into two groups of thinking. One group asks questions like “why aren’t you sticking it to the government more?”, while the other asks “why are the Labour Party always so negative?”

So today I hope to prove that it is indeed possible to walk and chew gum at the same time by setting out some initial thinking on an alternative positive approach to education by Labour, whilst simultaneously but very positively spelling out the things the present government are doing wrong. Read the rest of this entry »

I begin my remarks today by paying tribute to the 40,000 New Zealanders who, through no fault of their own, found themselves joining the unemployment benefit ranks last year—40,000 extra New Zealanders. They are real people who previously had real jobs. They have real families, real homes, and real mortgages.

Too often in this House when we talk about unemployment, we talk about numbers. We saw that with John Key last year, when he said that he was happy with the increase in unemployment rates last year given the economic conditions. I do not think that anybody should ever be happy with an increase in unemployment rates. Read the rest of this entry »

There we have it! Max Bradford is back, and he looks a bit like Gerry Brownlee. Max Bradford would be very, very proud of the National Government today. It has picked up his failed tertiary education reforms, dusted them off, and passed them through the Committee stage of Parliament this afternoon. Now it has picked up his failed reforms to the electricity industry and it is to give them another whirl, as well. Read the rest of this entry »