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.

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.

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.

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.