Sorry forgot that I said I would give brief report on Ed workshop. The main remit:
“That the Labour Party affirms the principle that all New Zealanders have the right to free, high quality, publicly provided early childhood, school and tertiary education and will proactively advance policy aimed at achieving this.”
Was passed without dissent.
A couple of remits were more heavily debated and voted on.
“That the next Labour government provide adequate central funding for the salaries of support staff in school with some amendment made to the Operations Grant to enable this to occur.”
Was passed about 2 – 1 with an amendment to include cleaners, groundstaff etc.
“That the next Labour government will ensure that tertiary education in New Zealand shall be free.”
Was lost on a division.
High quality informed impassioned but really polite debate.
Free tertiary education????
principle statement David – lost as part of next term agenda
No details of any remits discussed at the Nats conference David ?
Surely your own idea of indexing the retirement age to move up from 67 was raised and discussed ( think of the money saved !!!)or was there a media lockdown for that sort of thing .
“The main remit
“That the Labour Party affirms the principle that all New Zealanders have the right to free, high quality, publicly provided early childhood, school and tertiary education and will proactively advance policy aimed at achieving this.” was passed without dissent.”
It is astounding that in this day and age there are still a large body of people around (the Labour Party) who actually are so limited in their understanding of economics and with such stunted and immature perceptions of reality that they use such terms as “free education”.
There is no such thing as “free education”. There’s never any free anything. There is always someone somewhere paying the bill.
The phrase is “tax payer funded education”.
That Labour apparently does not understand this simple fact, and the need to be accurate in their descriptions of policy, is why the party is going to fall further and further into irrelevancy.
This is the language of 1940’s Marxists, and is way way past its use by date.
Free..!!!
Pfft.. what an infantile joke.
Note to redbaiter: everyone else *does* understand what it means, unlike you they don’t assume that anyone else does not.
Interesting to see you decend into trivialities so quickly – not too long ago you were rampaging about the socialist mass-brainwashing scam/conspiracy that is the education sector, and now you are having a whine about terminology.
Nevertheless, if you want to storm the teacup, I call it “universal” instead of “tax payer funded”. Eat your heart out.
[Minor edits. Keep it civil please - admin]
How could NZ possible afford free tertiary education? It’s a great thought, but the fees are so high, and our tax-intake small, all the same, uni fees especially seem very high. Maybe more scholarships for those in need, based on ability, govt funded.
Tanya – we were managing to do it 20 years ago. The party in government at the time (what was their name? It’s on the tip of my tongue) got rid of it.
Good point, Kadin. Who was in govt at that time, too long ago, (National – Jim Bolger?). Anyway, now that the Nats are are charging the taxpayer even more (cancelling out any taxcuts we didn’t get), they can bring free tertiary study back in. It would be of terrific benefit, and allow teens to reach their full potential, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Even the evening adult education classes have been canned, what is to go next? National, cared so much while in Opposition, that’s all suddenly changed.
ETS ’scam’, I see this as the Nats helping the rich at the cost of everyone else, meant to mention that above.
@Kadin – 20 years ago the government had a huge amount of debt from all these policies they couldn’t afford. I was studying when Labour brought in the $1250 fee, a good move for reducing wastage.