Archive for June, 2009
Monday, June 29th, 2009
The current struggle between school principals and Education Minister Anne Tolley over national standards has the hallmarks of a rushed and insuffiently funded process. No one can object to the nominal aim of national standards - which should enable parents to be better informed about their child’s level of achievement ...
Posted in Articles | Comments Off on National Education Tests, And Michael Jackson
Friday, June 26th, 2009
There was a quite telling difference of emphasis on Radio Waatea this morning. While Greens MP Sue Bradford was calling on the government to make a substantive response to the unemployment rate among Maori – nearly 45% of those on the unemployment benefit are Maori or Pacific Islanders - Maori ...
Posted in Articles | 11 Comments »
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
Remember how, when the US invaded Iraq in 2003, critics said it was all about oil? Next week, political events in Iraq – and the long simmering conflict between the central government in Baghdad and the local government in the region of Kurdistan – are due to come to ...
Posted in Articles | Comments Off on Iraq, And Its Foreign Oil Deals
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
Rodney Hide’s excuses for the lewd comment by his Act party colleague David Garrett – that he is new to Parliament, that he may be slow to realize that he is not still working on an oil rig etc etc. – are bizarre, and a bit desperate. Reportedly, Garrett made ...
Posted in Articles | 7 Comments »
Friday, June 19th, 2009
The selection of Peter Jackson to lead the ministerial review of the New Zealand Film Commission guarantees the review a prominence that no-one else in New Zealand could provide. Yet this appointment is not simply a public relations coup. As Arts Minister Chris Finlayson has pointed out, Jackson is the ...
Posted in Articles | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
Faced with the dying embers of the Richard Worth scandal at his press conference yesterday (audio & report, video), John Key reached for gasoline, not water. The press gallery had begun a simple enough line of enquiry – what HAD caused Key to lose trust in Worth? There were many ...
Posted in Articles | 4 Comments »
Friday, June 12th, 2009
Click to enlarge
One downside of Richard Worth’s exit from his ministerial post at Internal Affairs will be to further postpone any fix of the blatant contradictions in the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993. The case for change in this legislation has been eloquently made by Andrew Armitage, in ...
Posted in Articles | 8 Comments »
Tuesday, June 9th, 2009
Rodney Hide’s agenda for local government involves – as Scoop reported six months ago – the importation of an American model that has resulted in drastic cutbacks in the public services provided by local government, and the privatization of some current services as a result. Colorado and California are two ...
Posted in Articles | 24 Comments »
Thursday, June 4th, 2009
Today is the 20th anniversary of the massacre in Tiananmen Square. In the early morning hours of June 4th 1989, thousands of unarmed students and workers were shot down or crushed by Red Army troops and tanks sent in by the Communist Party to destroy a movement that had ...
Posted in Articles | Comments Off on The Tiananmen Massacre, and Richard Worth
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