Most people know that before I became an MP I’d spent a good number of years co-ordinating and managing Equity Programmes at the Universtity of Auckland. In 2005 Maori and Pacific students at the University showed up in large numbers to support Helen Clark when she visited the campus. Many of them knew that if the National Party were to win that election, all of the Maori and Pacific mentoring programmes and/ or academic support and pastoral care programmes, would be gone by lunch time.
It’s ironic that the very issues that nearly won National that 2005 election, were also their demise in the end. Many Maori and Pacific went out and voted out of fear for what might be taken away.
However, the messages put out by the National party in the lead up to the 2008 election were very different. The 2005 right wing attack on equity focused programmes and funding/ ‘race based funding’ – was dropped. National made it look like very little would change. They attempted to create a perception of National being ’Labour lite’.
Now after two years too long of this National Government. All of the assertions made by Don Brash are coming to the fore. The most recent example of this sits with the recent announcement regarding the Tertiary Education Commissions Equity Funding. The National Government are ‘tricky’ – they didn’t do an outright cut. Instead what they’ve done is based next year’s equity funding for Maori and Pacific students, on 2009 numbers.
Most New Zealander’s would be very aware that unemployment rates for Maori are comparitively higher and that a lot of those that are unemployed are young. Most kiwis would understand that this therefore, pushes the demand for tertiary education up. Most would therefore accept that there has been a probable increase in Maori and Pacific taking up University and Polytechnic study (when they can get in – keep in mind the Government’s caps on numbers). So funding at 2009 numbers is the equivalent to a cut, given that there will be the same amount of money for an increased number of students.
The National Government would love to cut this type of funding all together, but they are being a little bit cautious at the moment as that wouldn’t assist them with wooing our Maori and Pacific communities as they attempt to extract some vote from them in the upcoming 2011 election.
I wonder what other creative strategies the National Government has for cutting back on Maori and Pacific specific programmes. I’m sure that they have more for us to not look forward to.
PAH
The only time we’ve had Great Depressions as in 1930 and NOW is BECAUSE of classical freemarket neo-con economics!
(BS use of the term ‘liberal economics’ – liberals are AGAINST the free market as the final arbiter of our society!)
And specifically: banking and financial market activity must be highly regulated and heavily reigned in. Glass Stiegal x2 thanks. its the only way to put the REAL TRADEABLES ECONOMY ahead of the paper shufflers and the financial bookies.
These Right Wingers don’t really know nuthin about economics it seems. No wonder the NZ economy under Bill and John just got owned by a negative outlook by S&P. And its gonna get worse in National’s 3rd year in 2011.
“Worked pretty well in Britain. Huge economic growth. Unions got what was coming to them for holding back the nation for so long, helped defeat the Soviet Union (I’m sure you see that as a tragedy), I don’t see any problems. And she got re-elected, again and again and again and again…”
It worked so well the communties devestated by her hand still haven’t recovered.
Choose money over people and you have no recourse to complain when they revolt. The poll tax riots being one case in point.
Thatch the snatch was gone from the UK political scene after a couple of dismal years in government, only to be saved by the Falkland’s conflict.
A much hated woman who will have half a nation, me included, dancing on her grave when Satan finally calls her home.
Helped defeat the ussr? Yeah, ‘cos if she can ignore her own starving people and freezing to death, she could easily take down a superpower. LOL
Yes, I remember Thatcher’s government well. I lived in London the whole of the time she was in power. While the Thatcher-friendly MSM acted as her cheerleaders, telling us all how much better off we were, the reality many of us experienced was so different. We watched as the homeless started filling up the streets in London and grew to epeidemic proportions (before the government found ways to push them into less visible spaces).
A night out in the West End meant stepping over people sleeping in the streets, and trying not to intrude too much on their little bit of private space. It meant seeing the bull-ring and areas under Waterloo and around the South Bank being filled up with kind of cardboard shanty towns.
It meant teaching students who were struggling just to survive, and finding it difficult to forge a dignified, employed way of living. And while Tatcher’s government kept getting voted back in power, the anger and opposition amongst most people I knew grew. What share of the vote did the Tories get?
.
reminds me of medieval Kings who ignored the plight of their peasant populations to send their soldiers and treasure to fight far away in the Holy Lands.
Not much has changed huh
Judging by how ill she looked on the news a while back, I’d best get some dancing practice in.
When she resigned (because even her own party, like the majority of the country came to despise her) it was a great time for the working class in particular, having suffered most at her hand (though many others were downtrodden by her sham trickledown policies).
I remember people cheering in the streets and many kept the newspaper front pages of her, teary eyed, departing from no10 as souvenirs in their front windows for ages.
It was like watching the munchkins from wizzard of oz celebrating when Dorothy killed the wicked witch.
Who could ever forget her raising interest rates in the middle of a recession?
The jobless were hung out to dry. Towns and cities were decimated and turned overnight into wastelands.
All the talk of nationlist pride after the argy war meant for nothing when the miners union were used as an excuse to import cheaper polish coal at the expense of British jobs.
The evening news used to show the tens of thousands of job losses on a nightly basis, spinning out totals like they were a one armed bandit fruit machine except the lemons and cherries were men, families and lives destroyed.
I, and many many others like me, will waltz her into history as the uncaring, evil face of big c conservatism.