I only got the actual meeting details forwarded to me today about Georgina Te Heuheu and Sam Lotu-Iiga’s meeting with the Pacific Community on Pasifika Education. Given the invite said that all members of the Pasifika community were invited to attend – I figured that included me, so I went along.
There were National Party rosettes floating around the room, so it was obviously a surprise to them that I showed up – in fact Georgina even said that when she acknowledged me in her speech (there is a long standing tradition that you acknowledge other parliamentarians, regardless of political party – NOTE: Sam Lotu-Iiga doesn’t do this).
The meeting was suppose to be about the National Party listening to the concerns of the Pasifika Community, but they obviously preferred not to be asked too many questions and as a tactic to ensure this – Georgina’s speech went for about an hour (the meeting was only schedule for 1 hour 30 minutes).
When it did actually get to question answer time, I refrained from saying anything – I didn’t want to use this forum for political grandstanding. These are a summary of three of the questions that were asked and the answers that were provided from Te Heuheu and Iiga (I’ve put what I was thinking in brackets):
1. Why is the Government capping numbers given this is impacting on our Pacific people accessing tertiary education?
Answer Te Heuheu – Too many students are lingering in study and taking up student loans that are funded by tax payers – we need to weed out the ones who are lingering (well Georgina – has anyone told you that Maori and PI take longer to complete their degrees – for a number of reasons, none of them being lesser intelligence or a higher level of laziness?)
Answer Lotu-Iiga – Students Associations are backing this decision (are they?). The caps were put on by Labour (true but Nats can remove it given high levels of unemployment that didn’t exist under Labour). National wants to support Pacific people going in to all sorts of jobs – Physiotherapy; Engineering (yeah but how can they do that when they can’t even get entry in to Uni???). I’d like to see the caps taken off and Steven Joyce is considering this – we’re in discussions about it at the moment (well – Joyce didn’t put this in the budget did he – watch that space).
2. Early Childhood Education is so important to Pasifika Communities – why is the Government cutting the funding?
Answer Lotu-Iiga – We’re not cutting it, we’re increasing it by $400 million (really????)…There are places around New Zealand that don’t need the funding that they’ve been receiving like Nelson who’s kindy association have $8 million in reserves (I don’t actually think it is $8 million, but I was under the impression that the money they did put away was in case of a change of Government…for this very reason). The Government is cutting money from them and ring fencing money for communities who need it like the Pasifika Community (well I didn’t see any ring fencing of money in the budget for Pasifika ECE and by the way – all New Zealanders deserve to access to quality ECE for their children – and there is actually a large number of low-middle income earners in Nelson who could do with support). We need to focus on getting more Pasifika kids in to ECE and that’s what this Government is focused on. (If what Sam says is true – why are all Pacific ECE Centres kicking up a fuss over the budget announcements on ECE?)
3. Why did the Government cut funding to Adult Community Education (ACE)?
Answer Lotu-Iiga – It’s not cut – theres still $3 million dollars alllocated to ACE (yeah but how many millions were cut Sam?). The National Government doesn’t prioritise things like Morrocan Cooking (good old Morrocan Cooking again) we are prioritising numeracy and literacy (so why did the Government cut the funding to workplace literacy programmes?).
Was the audience satisfied with those replies?
Good call to hold back putting your own 2c in, best organise a specific opportunity for that to happen. I bet you had to bite your tongue. Hard.
Must suck now that National can set the agenda…
I did have to bite my tounge. When Sam told the audience that ECE funding had gone up $400 million, I repeated what he said in a questioning way – not deliberately out of disrespect – but out of disbelief that he was telling such a blatant lie. He then said ‘Yes Carmel’ and then repeated what he’d said and then asked me if I wanted to go up and take the mic – I said ‘Yip would be happy too’ – he ignored me and carried on.
Chris73 – sucks when they set the agenda and then blatantly lie about what they are doing.
Why talk for that long instead of having questions? They are elected to listen to communities.
They don’t like being questioned.
Right wing agendas can’t deal with normal down to earth questions. The normal R-W response is a glib hand off, subtle (or not so subtle) put down, or obscure reference to (usually false) market theory ideology.
Now people are going to be denied access to tertiary education!
Yes, the long speech was devious 
Was same with Anne Tolley’s National Standards meetings. Surprised you were allowed more than one question …that’s actually progress!
“Maori and PI take longer to complete their degrees – for a number of reasons, none of them being lesser intelligence or a higher level of laziness?)”
Interested to hear the logic behind this statement of yours. It’s a pretty broad generalisation: are you saying some Maori and PI, or all Maori and PI?
Disclosure: I am strongly anti-racist and certainly hold the view that intelligence and laziness do not correlate with race. (So don’t misunderstand where I am coming from in asking the question).
Lower socio eco groups tend not to perform as well in academia for a variety of reasons.