Today I received, along with numerous Labour colleagues and a Green one, petitions with over 53,000 signatures on them, all asking Anne Tolley to reverse her benighted decision to cut $13.2 million from the Adult and Community Education budget.
Maryke Fordyce from CLASS presents petitions to Phil Goff, Damien O'Connor and me
Anne Tolley’s constant repetition in the House at Question Time of irrelevant information (”we are giving $124m to ACE over 4 years” – that’s not night classes) completely ignores the decimating effect that the lack of night classes will have on many communities which can not afford to self-fund them. In fact, her effort to drum up laughs from her abashed National colleagues with the return to her myths about Moroccan cooking and – wait for it – ukelele classes for Maori (what deep recess did that come from Mrs Tolley?), fell flat as they all studied a newly discovered paper of importance.
She was left looking not only like a dork, but also as someone not fit to hold the Education portfolio. Education is the opportunity to lift the poorest out of poverty, the most disadvantaged out of the trap of intergenerational repetition. It is a precious portfolio which should be held with respect and care. Today Anne Tolley showed neither quality. She was disgraceful.
Let’s hope those signature make a difference. Good to see the three of you supporting this.
You raised a point of order regarding the petitioners not being able to visit the public gallery today. Have you heard any response from the Speaker yet?
Yes, that was strange and if true, troubling, that is more important to our democracy than a few night classes that will be restored when Labour is back in…
Thanks for all of your hard work on this Maryan. The people who live north of Auckland’s Harbour Bridge are reeling from the news that there will be no ACE funded nightclasses in their areas in 2010. Nothing in Wayne Mapp’s electorate of North Shore, nothing in Jonathan Coleman’s electorate of Northcote, nothing in John Key’s electorate of Helensville and nothing in Lockwood Smith’s electorate of Rodney. North Shore and Rodney have a combined population of around 450,000 people. That’s a lot of people who will miss out, not to mention the community organisations providing essential services who will lose ACE funding.
This is great! Good luck with this. We should not have to lose ACE funding.
I couldn’t agree more with your comment: Education is the opportunity to lift the poorest out of poverty, the most disadvantaged out of the trap of intergenerational repetition.
Will Labour promise to restore this funding?
I hope she listens – I see she was asked questions in the house about Aorangi primary yesterday and struggled to answer the questions – it would seem she is immune to having to face up and be honest about issues. Will she not listen to any one? I note that Lianne Dalziel wrote a fantastic article in yesterdays chch press about the issue, in the perspectives page – well worth a read as it highlights some really important issues – esp in relation to Gerry Brownlie. (Sorry – I know its slightly off topic)
Kia ora Maryan,
Thank you all very much for your support toward our campaign and also for the massive undertaking of the petition.
As one of the ‘few’ that managed to get into the public gallery – I was really surprised at what they did to try and ’stop us’ getting in.
They told us that because we were ‘protesting’ that only 10 were allowed to go in. Since when did handing over a petition count as protesting?
Maryke had to pick the other 9 and even then it was difficult to go in, I wondered if we would even reach the chamber in time!
I too like Ivory… would like to know what happened in regards to your point of order.
Thank you.
Sorry for delayed response to questions – have been a bit busy.
@Ivory Tower et al – I just got a response from the Speaker’s Office yesterday. It goes like this:
Speaker’s Office was contacted by security on Tuesday to see if petitioners could enter the public galleries to hear their petition being presented in the House that day. Speaker’s Office advised that it has been a longstanding tradition to allow a delegation from any petition group (of approximately 10 people) to enter the galleries after the presentation of a petition within Parliament’s grounds that day. This is different from a protest group where noone is allowed to enter the galleries if they have been involved in a protest within the grounds on the same day.
This message was relayed to the group who then self-selected 10 reps. Others were sent away.
Isn’t this interesting?? Petition but not protest, and even then only 10. I got another couple of people in because I went down looking for any who were still around once I got word they had been prevented from coming into the gallery. I insisted they were my guests and the security guy said he would have to inform the Speaker’s Office…..now this security chap wasn’t uniformed. Odd I thought. DPS? (Diplomatic Protection Squad) What are they doing here? They have no jurisdiction in Parliament – they are police officers. All sorts of constitutional clashes there……perhaps he wasn’t DPS. I’ll check.
Do you think this dates from the purple bra protest? Or earlier?
@ Hilary – hi. Welcome to this thread. Good to have you on board. Yes – we have said repeatedly that we would restore this funding. Geez – it’s chicken feed and should be only the start of investing in people as opposed to divesting the country of people. Wrong choice Mrs Tolley. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
@Paul – Aorangi would have been closed if this was 2001, when Trevor was the minister, please just get used to it. Do you work there or something. I think you are not doing a very good job of advocating for Aorangi. Christchurch is oversupplied with primary schools, it is inevitable that Aorangi would be for the chop, no matter what questions are asked in Parliament. For example why has Lyttelton got two primary schools only 1.1 km apart. Remember Sydenham School, used to be major but it closed quite a few years ago now. Happens all the time. Get used to it.
[...] she has done anything positive and her gaffes are legendary. The chopper ride was just stupid. Night class cuts have annoyed Nats as well as others. Not reading the budget papers she signed cutting teacher [...]
@swampy – interesting question – do you work for the minister or in the moe as you seem to think you know what you are speaking about? I know little to nothing about the schools in Lyttleton or the other one you mention. As I stated in an earlier post, I know people there, and I know the work they do – it would seem that you are not fully conversant with the facts of this situation – from what I recall of previous posts you have made, your facts are a little off (aka – a lot off).
My guess is that not only do you not actually understand the situation, but you have no idea of the ramifications for all schools. And I am picking a feel of a right winger MOE person with little hands on experience in an actual school – and if incorrect, certainly not a multicultural and bicultural one that is primary and low decile…
As for Trev cutting the schooling network down earlier this decade, I don’t think he would have ‘chopped’ this one, because:
1. He understood the moe are not always competent – and I think that he, and when Lianne was associate, understood that there are two sides of a story – and the moe, like lots of bureaucrats, have a tendency to cover up the incompetence and punish those who show them up (not to say all are like this – just some) (too many examples to list sorry – but I point out the inquiry by the auditor general into property which had serious findings but not much has changed since)
2. It was under an organised network review system – not singling out schools that were doing great things. This is a different approach – and I expect that this is not actually about the school per say, but perhaps more about making a buck by selling off an asset. And if correct, then there will be more unsuspecting schools hit.
3. The network reviews, good or bad, were under a whole different agenda.
4. Trev knew his portfolio – still does. He has and had, a far better understanding of the education system than the current management will ever know – and he took heed of what the sector said.
5. And finally, he understands the value of schools like Aorangi.