Last Saturday John Key, Simon Power and Anne Tolley voted against an amendment to the Education Act that would have moved to a presumption that teachers who are before the Teachers’ Council Disciplinary Tribunal would have their names published and the power to suppress victims names would be enhanced.
Some recent cases according to stuff :-
May: A married male teacher was deregistered after an 18-month sexual relationship with a 16-year-old female pupil.
June: A married male teacher who had an intimate relationship with a year 8 girl he called his “first true love” was deregistered.
August: A male teacher was deregistered after having a sexual relationship with a depressed 16-year-old female pupil.
October: A female teacher deregistered in Britain was censured in New Zealand for inappropriate sexual conduct with a male pupil and allowing pupils to drink in her home while she was employed in New Zealand.
I’m not sure that publishing names would stop a lot of abusive teachers but if it saves a kid or two then it must be a good thing.
I just don’t understand why the Nats didn’t support it. And as for Act – they have certainly changed since Coddington led the charge against suppression orders. Though we saw that with Rodney’s defence of Garrett.
Of course teachers should be named and shamed – who are guilty. But I always find it interesting that despite 9 years of government you guys never “got around” to doing the same things you are now critical of National doing (or not doing)
In this case the issue was never brought to my attention. Is was brought to Tolley’s attention two years ago – she asked for my help to get it fixed, failed to draft a SoP in time and then refused to support the one I had drafted.
T
LLEY! What is it with her and protecting perps? 
And Monty, Trev wouldn’t try to remove screenings from creches and stuff either!
I’m slightly confused – are you saying teachers before the Teachers’ Council Disciplinary Tribunal should be named regardless of whether they’ve been convicted, or only AFTER they’ve been convicted?
Comment being moderated? What did I do?
It’s to protect the pupils involved.
It’s a mystery Ella
I would thought it was obvious!
Tolley is opposed to anything she hadn’t thought of first.
Is she the Marie Antoinette of NZ Politics ?. With Monty one of her most fawning courtiers
Aw, Lord Monty, our ever biting pet
Ella – can’t work out what put that comment into moderation.
On the point you made my view is that the process should be as open as possible right from the start with the proviso that the students should be protected. These cases take months, just about always result in the teacher being punished but in the interim gossip and innuendo circulates – often involving completely innocent people.
it is off topic and I have therefore deleted. Prob defamatory as well. Trevor
LOL
I remember a Lecturer – student affair where the dude got caught but not many people knew who it was, I couldn’t keep a straight face around any of the lecturers from that department and I could tell from the look on their faces that they knew why I was smirking. 
Do you think that there might be a better way of addressing the issue than moving an amendment while the House is under urgency.
Sure Swampy. Gave draft to Minister and officials, got feedback a month before it came up. Minister had SoP on Teachers’ Council in the house with much less notice the same day.
Bill of course was not urgent and shouldn’t have been taken under urgency but that is government’s responsibility not mine.
Any other procedural advice ?
If you believe that your view is correct Trevor then it follows that you believe Judges should not give name suppression in any circumstances. I like your thinking.
Keep up thinking like this and you may gain a fan. You would have to stop pedaling of course.
Don’t think I want you as a fan. But starting from presumption of openness works for me. Courts too. But there are lots of reasons for suppression orders especially for young victims.
I can understand name suppression to protect the victim but not in any other circumstance.
I detest name suppression because of a perceived position in society.
As an aside Freddy Mercury wrote a couple of songs about fat girls on bicycles. Given Freddies leanings I could never understand why “fat girls” was not alternated with mid aged men.
Regards
LOL
What Monty said in the very first post.
What I said @ 2.09
Trevor what you said at 2.09 stretches credibility. These issues have been around for far longer than you say – they were happening when my children now aged from 40 down to 31 were at school.
pdm the issue has been around but the system hasn’t. When I became Minister there was no requirement for teachers to be registered. From memory the Ministry had an administrative blacklist which schools could consult.
From what you say you put forward the legislation. Given the situation under debate – in which case it was flawed if it did not cover this issue.
You are correct and when nearly a decade later the technical problem is drawn to my attention I drafted an amendment to fix it. Your friends decided that they would prefer to keep offending teachers names secret rather than accept an opposition amendment. That is the whole point of this post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNIZofPB8ZM
Thanks for that Trevor
Yeah, I agree with what you say – absolutely the students should be the number one priority. I’d just want it to be pretty much 100% definite that the person’s name being released was guilty.
I’m with Ella – you would need to make sure the person being charged is guilty – otherwise really easy to blow up someones career based on nothing – I also think teachers up for de-registration should not be able to teach until the issue is sorted – but like all things, this is a tricky little area. I am all for openness and transparency – but with caution. You release names of those who are innocent and it will ruin a career and then what? No way of fixing that damage – innuendo alone has ruined peoples lives – its a small wee world we live in. I don’t have the answers – but I do think the most important thing is to protect the students – but there have been cases of teachers victimized by students and communities and thats not ok either.
Agreed Paul
Oh No
From Stuff
“A middle aged man on a bicycle is approaching young girls in Napier and making indecent comments to them, say police.
A number of complaints had been made about the man and police would like to hear from anyone who might have been approached by him or who could identify him, said Detective John McGregor of Napier CIB.
The man was described as European, aged between 30 and 50 years, possibly with grey, receding hair.”
Off subject I know but I couldn’t resist.
Please accept it as humour.
Or the cheap insult and petty slur it really is.
Fortunately Aliens you are wrong, as you often are.
Get a sense of humour. It is easily found even if don’t try.
Yeah, I don’t believe you, pentwig, especially as you’ve already had one go at Trevor, even if no-one else picked up on your “as an aside” jibe from earlier.
My humour is great. It’s the morons that bandy about cheap and nasty ‘jokes’ that need a better understanding of humour.
There’s a sense of humour and there’s being a prat. Looks like you’ve crossed that little line…
Agreed, Ella.
Lighten up up aliens, the second quip was a follow from my first reply, and the last one – well everyone knows loves his cycling.
Good grief!!
Nah, mate. Ella called it correctly.
Shame you have to stoop so low to score a hit on a well known and very much respected MP.
Pentwig your type of comment is one of the reasons many MPs don’t like to blog and in fact lots of sensible people don’t become MPs. It is just offensive. Normally it would have been deleted as such but because our moderation is light at this time of the year it was missed. You get a fair run here because most of your comments are on thread and not offensive albeit often innaccurate. If you do it again you will be banned.
It must be very sad to lose a sense of humour so close to Xmas.
If holding an opposing view is deemed to be inaccurate there goes the standard of debate.
Pentwig I don’t think sexual abuse of children is funny – not many sane people do.
And I enjoy debate and encourage a range of opinion on Red Alert – your problem is an ongoing poor grasp on facts.
Banned for lying. Trevor.
Trevor
If I caused you to take offense then I sincerely apologise as that was not my intent.
I agree that sexual abuse of children is not funny but after a little banter that preceded that copy and paste ( a description that does fit you to a T) I just thought it funny.
Once again I apologise for any offense you took.
Regards.