Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

You don't really need to watch or read the news at the moment, at least not for the first couple of stories, because all we're really getting at the moment is a union campaign from the PSA and the CTU dressed up as news, with stories about how cuts to the civil service are going to bring the country to ruin.   #Newsalert, the country is already on the brink of ruin and the bloated civil service would have contributed towards some of the cost blowouts that this country has seen. Michael Woods has gone from Labour minister to Union representative. He's campaigning for TVNZ to stay exactly as it is, despite the fact that every single media organisation in this country and around the world has had to face facts and has to change the way it delivers news, it's had to change the way it operates, it's had to see that the way it delivers news is no longer relevant. But no, Michael Woods wants everything to stay exactly as it is.   He says, and I quote, ‘TVNZ isn't just some business, it's a vital part of our society. Kiwis need a strong TVNZ to tell Aotearoa's stories and hold power to account. We invite everybody who wants to build and protect a strong media landscape to support the campaign’. There was a petition to keep TVNZ, exactly as it is. And while I feel for my colleagues, they too know that the format in which news is delivered has to change.   And I could remind Michael Wood that his government, when he was a minister, wasn't so keen on power being held to account. And despite the promises of being an open and transparent regime, given how difficult it was to get information out of the government, given that journalists and news organisations had to resort to the Official Information Act every time they wanted a story, now that the poacher has turned gamekeeper, he's demanding that TVNZ stay exactly as it is, otherwise democracy will suffer. I simply do not buy that.   The unions are against any cuts to the public service and any cuts to the media, any cuts at all, for whatever reason. Even if it means that maintaining the status quo is going to ensure the demise of a particular organisation TVNZ stays exactly the way it is, it won't be around in 10 years. Nonetheless, they're against any cuts at all, for whatever reason. Michael Woods again, you could say as a minister, even when the civil service gave good advice it was ignored.   I mean the number of stories we have now that show bureaucrats whose job was to look at exactly the particular field that the government was making policy on advised against doing a course of action, that the government was intent on that say no, that's not a good idea, the cost overruns are horrendous, there isn't any kind of structure in place to deliver ... no, they just went ahead and ignored them. So even when the civil service was doing their job, the government ignored them. Why have them there?  There were all kinds of jobs and all kinds of workers who do need a union, I absolutely grant you that. There is no doubt that unions can do a good job negotiating pay and conditions for people who can't negotiate for themselves. Workers who experience low pay, who experience poor conditions, poor health and safety practices, there's absolutely no doubt that unions do a good job for them. But ask not what you can do for your union, what has your union done for you, if you are one of those who has belonged to a union over the years?   There's no doubt that those on low pay, who might be exploited through poor health and safety practices can probably get a union to do the negotiation for them. The union rep would be in a much stronger position than each individual worker trying to ensure they got fair pay and fair conditions. It would appear that not everybody, not every paid employee believes that unions work for them, because I assumed back in the day, 60s and 70s that you would have 90%, if I was asked, I would say probably 80 to 90% of New Zealand workers in paid employment were part of a union.   Not at all. It's never reached 50%. So historically, even though we've been one of the most heavily unionized countries in the world, at no point, according to Te Ara, the Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, did we hit over 50% of union membership. So, what does that tell you about the unions? That they are there for those who cannot negotiate for themselves, perhaps, but the majority of us believe we're able to negotiate our own working conditions.   If you have belonged to a union in the past, why did you leave? Did you believe you could do a better job yourself of negotiating paying conditions? Did you believe you were getting value for money from your union dues? If you're still a member of the union, what has the union done for you? Even in the 70s, when you had the freezing workers going on strike at the drop of a hat, it seemed that they weren't quite getting the message that they weren't up with the play, that they weren't quite on top of the way workplace relations are taking place. Generally, it's a working arrangement between an employer and employee. The employer cannot do business without the goodwill and the support of employees. They simply cannot. So, this whole idea of a them and us, and that it's an antagonistic relationship, I don't think exists in the real workplace. What is it about unions that makes them still relevant in the workplace today?   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yesterday saw the cancellation of New Zealand’s second longest running television shows: TVNZ’s Fair Go.  The consumer affairs show has been airing since 1977, featuring a roster of well-known hosts including Newstalk ZB’s Kerre Woodham and Kevin Milne.  Kevin Milne was the longest serving host on the show, appearing from 1983 until 2010.  He told Kerre that what disappoints him about TVNZ is that they could’ve cut back on the number of episodes instead of cancelling it altogether.  “It remains just as powerful if you’re putting out 16 programs a year or 16.”  Kevin said that he’s concerned that TVNZ hasn’t thought about just keeping the Fair Go flag flying for All New Zealanders by simply retaining a presence, however diminished.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Love a target, love a list, and yesterday, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon released a new list of to-dos, this time in the form of targets. And while some on the left have roundly criticized him for having the temerity to set targets, what on Earth have they got against realistic goals? I didn't hear them shouting and jeering when Jacinda Ardern announced that her government was going to build 100,000 houses in 10 years. If that's not a target, and that's not a goal, I don't know what is. But if ever there was a time for jeering and shouting, that would have been it. Because even as somebody who can't hammer a nail in straight, even Bob the Builder, a cartoon character, knew that building 100,000 houses in 10 years was an impossible and unachievable target. But there was no jeering and shouting then was there? When the target was set?   Anyway, Kiwibuild has come and gone, and a new government has announced its own targets. These ones infinitely more accessible, ambitious but accessible. Christopher Luxon was in full statesman mode yesterday, despite the hard work of frontline staff like police, nurses and teachers, he said New Zealand has gone backwards. Our government is bringing back public service targets to focus our public sector on driving better results for New Zealanders in health, education, law and order, work, housing and the environment. He reiterated the targets were not going to be easy to achieve, but he said we're not here to do what's easy, we're here to do what is needed to reduce crime, shorten healthcare wait times and improve educational achievement, no matter how difficult.   Now the targets were on very nicely set out graphs. You know, if I was marking his homework, it would definitely be an A-, perhaps I would have put it up to an A if under the ‘How will we keep track?’, the only thing I would have done would have been to say, now let's just see exactly how it's going to be delivered. How are you going to get that change? We understand why it's needed. How will we keep track? Well, that's just measuring the numbers. I wanted to know how it's going to be delivered. There's a little bit in there, but not nearly enough to satisfy my curiosity.   Nonetheless, the targets have been set 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker. 80% of students present for more than 90% of the term. 75% reduction of households and emergency housing, and so on. Other targets include those around greenhouse gas emissions. As the PM says, it is not going to be easy. What will it take to get BBQ man or Nature boy into paid employment? They were very happy, thank you very much, on the benefit and thought we were all schmucks for getting out of bed and going to work. When the borders were closed it became apparent that not only were there Kiwis who could not work, there were Kiwis who would not work. However, when you have a public service that's been instructed to go easy on those, drawing a benefit. Where on Earth is the impetus to go into paid employment?   Former WINZ boss Christine Rankin told Mike Hosking she absolutely sees value in setting targets.  “What the reality of this is, is a government that understands leadership and the fact that you have to tell people what you want them to do, and then you have to measure the hell out of it. And that's what they're doing. This can be done way under the time frame that they've put on it. The problem is with six years of a government that wanted people on a benefit, for what reason, I cannot work out, there are a lot of people who've been very comfortable for a long time and the benefit isn’t much, but there's also ways to supplement it, and that's never been looked at either for a long time.”  That was Christine Rankin talking to Mike Hosking, and that's quite true. I mean, I always think what a miserable existence it would be to be on a benefit, to have to try and scrape by. It would be soul destroying. That grinding poverty is soul-destroying. But many people not all, but for many people they supplement their income in other ways. The benefit is not the only income coming into a house. And I accept that targets aren't the be all and end all. There are ways and means to finesse targets, to massage figures, to make them work for you, so that when you report to your manager, to your chief executive, to your Minister, you can fudge the numbers a bit so that you look better. But what happens when you don't have them? The last six years happen, that's what. When all the important metrics by which we measure the national well-being fall. And I totally understand trying a different way.   We've tried going softly, softly, being nice, appealing to people's better natures by treating them with kindness and respect and hoping that we get the same in return. Hasn't worked. So, we tried, it didn't work. An unfortunate experiment, if you will.   So, let's try setting expectations, goals and targets, and let's see where we end up.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two researchers are arguing that the decision to cut longitudinal studies will worsen inequities and increase costs in the long term.  In the past two weeks, funding has ceased for two of New Zealand's foremost longitudinal studies.  The Ministry of Social Development did not renew the contract for the ‘Growing Up in New Zealand’ project at the end of February, the study that has tracked more than 6000 children since 2009.  Dr Polly Atatoa Carr, one of the researchers behind the Newsroom article, told Kerre Woodham that studies like ‘Growing Up in New Zealand’ provide rich data not only for academics, but for governments to make decisions around policy that impacts the population.  She said that the attendance data the government is after is an example of the kind of information that can be gathered longitudinally.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

First up, the changes to immigration.   Guess what? High-trust models don't work when it comes to work visas. A stunning revelation to start the week. Credit where it's due, Radio New Zealand have been on to the story. They applied for information around the new immigration visas under the Official Information Act and found out that even after Immigration New Zealand was told of concerns over lax checks and migrants buying jobs for up to $50K on the open market, it took Immigration New Zealand three months to take any kind of action. Some workers were arriving into New Zealand expecting to find the streets paved with gold. Instead, they found they had no job. Meanwhile, dodgy agents and immigration consultancies were making a fortune, millions is estimated, from selling accredited employer work visas to people who didn't have the skills, didn't have any English, didn't have a clue, just knew that they wanted out of where they were at and into New Zealand - and in they came. Our net migrations soared. The annual net migration gain in 2023 was about the size of Taranaki. An entire province. It was made-up of a net gain of 173,000 non-New Zealand citizens, and a net loss of 47,000 New Zealand citizens in 2023. Now, some of these new New Zealanders will bring skills and a positive attitude that New Zealand sorely needs. They've always done so. You know from the very first settlers all the way through. People who make the shift to a new country bring with them an attitude and a determination to succeed. But many of these new migrants have arrived with no English, minimal skills, and they will struggle. Minister of Immigration Erica Stanford says the changes to immigration visas are necessary because the high trust model wasn't working. (Which any fool could have told you I'd imagine.) And it brings New Zealand into line with the immigration policies of other countries. She told Mike Hosking she doesn't believe the government is acting too soon in restricting immigration, and it's not acting for the wrong reasons.  “We've taken a really close look at this and I think the reasonable responsible thing to do is to recalibrate our  immigration settings to meet what the market is doing. We saw last year an extra 20,000 people went on the job seeker benefit while we brought in 52,000 very low skilled migrants. Now those numbers just don't add up and if you look at the work Louise Upson's doing in making sure that there are benefit sanctions for people to ensure that they are looking for work. It's my responsibility as Immigration Minister to make sure that that work is available for Kiwis first and foremost.”  Well, absolutely. That was Erica Stanford on with Mike Hosking on the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning. He did make the point that Labour tried shutting the borders during Covid and relying on New Zealand labour to fill the gaps and that quickly became apparent that simply was not going to happen. Those who could work were working, and then there were those who simply could not or would not work. So, when it comes to the market at the moment - I mean remember the calls from desperate employers who were looking for somebody, anybody to take jobs around the country - can you now pick and choose when it comes to staff? Can you now pick and choose when it comes to people applying for jobs and filling the positions? I'm sure you'll remember the calls. There were people just screaming for anybody, anywhere to come to their particular town or city and do a job. They'd take anybody. Now, do employers have a bit more choice? They have a bit more wiggle room and a bit more leeway?  When you put out a situations-vacant, have you got people applying and now you have the luxury of choice? You're not as desperate as you once were. For those who are or have faced redundancy, has it been relatively easy to get into work with the skills you have, or are you finding you're competing with more than you imagined? We need skilled migrants. The whole Western world needs skilled migrants and I can't see that ending any time soon, but the last thing we want is to have people arrive in this country who have no idea where they are, they have no idea how to fit in, they have no prospect of enjoying any kind of life. Steve Braunias wrote a very, very moving insight into what it is like for migrants arriving here with no support, no English, no family. They can get jobs but it's an existence, it's not a life. ‘Life and Death in the Auckland Shadows’ was the title of the piece he wrote for the New Zealand Herald. It's bloody tragic. And we do not want people arriving who are condemned to lives as basically subsistent slaves. That's not what we're about.  So, two stories, really, when you arrive in this country, is it easy enough for you to get the job you were promised to, to be able to assimilate, to have the land of milk and honey you were promised? For employers, do you support the changes to the immigration visas? Do you have the luxury of choice now, but more leeway when it comes to employing staff? And for those looking for work, is it easy enough if you have skills to find jobs or are you struggling in the market at the moment?   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Police stats supplied to the Dairy and Business owners group showed that in 2023, 148,599 crimes were reported at retail locations.  Kotahi te Whakaaro brings together government, non-government, and iwi daily to review cases of young people involved with Police in the preceding 24 hours.  The approach is designed to prevent escalation into or through the youth justice system.  Senior Sergeant Craig Clark, New Zealand Police District Services Co-ordinator, told Kerre Woodham that they take a prevention first way of working, making sure they’re addressing the underlying issues to stop people from entering the system.  He said that sometimes government agencies need to step back and support community agencies to do the part they’re amazing at: engaging with people.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The government is restoring the ability to hold referenda on Māori wards as part of its coalition agreement with ACT and NZ First. It's highly unlikely that National would have acted alone, but as part of the Coalition agreement, as part of the horse trading, they committed to holding referenda on the Māori wards.   Local government Minister Simeon Brown announced the move yesterday, saying a bill will soon be introduced to allow communities to petition their counsel to hold binding polls on Māori ward decisions including those wards already established.    “Most New Zealanders want to have their say and this is what this is all about. It's about saying, well, if a Council wishes to have a Māori ward, then ultimately the public get to decide whether that happens or not. That's the government's position. That's what we’re legislating. The last government took it away and we're restoring it.”    So that was Simeon Brown talking to the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning. Naturally, Labour and Te Pati Māori have condemned the decision. Local Government New Zealand says it represents a complete overreach by central government, (you could also say the same for Three Waters really, couldn't you?), and has warned the coalition government against inflaming misinformation. Others have called the decision racist, a systemic attack on Māori.   But to my mind, there's a really, really easy way to get the result you want when it comes to retaining or ditching the Māori wards. Get out and vote. The 2022 local body elections it was reported that national voter turnout was a record low 36%. You know, there's a number of reasons for that. But 36% of people bothered to vote, and that's averaging it out over the country. Voter turnout in local body elections has declined in New Zealand over the past 25 years, so it was continuing a trend, this wasn't an anomaly. Fewer and fewer people are exercising their democratic right to vote.   So, you can use that. You can galvanise yourselves, you can get organised, and you can get the result you want. And don't give me this because I've had it before ... ‘Ohh, I'm not going to vote man, because the systems against us and it's just supporting an artificial patriarchal construct that goes against the natural rights of humans’, and all of that sort of tosh.   This is the system we have. And again, if you don't like it, the only way you're going to change it in a democratic society is by using the system to get what you want. Te Pati Māori has six seats in government, meaning they no longer need other parties to speak on their behalf in Parliament. They can stand up and speak for themselves because their supporters got out and voted, they threw out long standing Labour ministers from Māori seats.    And when it comes to the Māori wards, it's not just Māori who want them, there are Pākehā who want to see Māori represented through Māori wards. Some Maori don't want them. It's really reductionist to say that all Māori think the same way or Pākehā think the same way or Europeans think the same way, all New Zealanders think the same way. They don't. There is a diversity and breadth of views. There's a diversity and breadth of level of engagement with the political system.  So, if people, and that's all supporters, want to keep the Maori Wards, get out and vote. If you want them gone, get out and vote and you'll get the result you want. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the government had put “hundreds of millions [of dollars] more” onto the table for a “much more enhanced offer” to police last week. That offer was going out for voting by police in the next few days. Luxon took questions for an hour on Kerre Woodham’s Newstalk ZB show today. He said he disagreed that National had used law and order issues as a marketing tool during the election, only to stint on the police pay offer, saying it had now put a “very good” proposition on the table. That enhanced offer for police included a move back to paid overtime, as well as a lump sum payment to help compensate for back pay. It was the second time it had put more money into the police offer since taking over as government. He said National was serious about giving police what they needed to tackle crime, saying it was one of the main issues voters had raised with them. On public service cuts, Luxon said there had been a “massive increase” in staff numbers and costs in the core public sector. “We haven’t had the outcomes,” he said. His message to the public sector bosses was: “Go back through your back office, stop the dumb programmes that aren’t working, make sure we get the efficiencies in the back office and get rid of the wasteful spending.” On the hiring spree in the public sector in the last half of last year, he said that was “very disappointing” given both National and Labour had made it clear they wanted cuts. He said the increase in staff at the Ministry of Education to reform the curriculum was a “classic example”. He said the New Zealand curriculum was made up of “airy-fairy statements” and teachers were expected to try to interpret them – and that had led to different teaching across the country. He said the speed with which the cellphone ban had been implemented had shown things could be done quickly if wanted. He believed that had led to a drop in cyberbullying as well as removing distractions. Luxon also said he disagreed that the return of referendums on Māori wards was a return to a “bad past”, saying National had not agreed with the shift away from them. He said he believed it should be a matter of local democracy for local communities to be able to decide whether the wards were set up. Luxon said the issue of allowing a referendum on the Treaty of Waitangi - as David Seymour wants - was a different matter to the Māori wards. National has made it clear it will not support Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill beyond the first reading, and Luxon said that was because of the important place the Treaty had in New Zealand. He said National agreed with localism, and so had taken its stand on the Māori wards. Luxon spoke to Kerre Woodham in the Newstalk ZB studio. Photo / Jason Oxenham  On tax cuts and childcare rebates for households, Luxon said the so-called “squeezed middle” was still the government’s target for assistance. He pointed to the recent moves to introduce childcare rebates worth up to $75 a week for households and the plan to shift tax thresholds in the Budget. He said despite “challenging economics” there was space to ensure workers could keep more of their wages. ”It’s a question of what can we afford to do. And what we can afford to do right now is help defray early childhood costs.” He said tax cuts were also affordable. ”Rebuilding the economy is job number one, so we can reduce the cost of living.” He said bringing down inflation would help ease interest rates, as well as “making life cheaper for people”. One vaping, Luxon said it had been critical at getting smoking rates down among adults, but was a problem when it came to teenagers. He pointed to recent government moves to ban disposable vapes and boost penalties on those who sold vapes to under-18s, as well as introduce plain packaging rules. He said the government was still committed to reducing smoking rates, and had simply reverted to the old smoke-free legislation that had worked well. It had scrapped Labour’s plans for a ban on smoking and restrictions on outlets, saying National was concerned they would result in a black market and more retail crime. He didn’t believe such measures were needed, given the pre-existing rules had been effective. ”I think we could have communicated it a lot better, no doubt about it.” He would not say whether the government was planning to tax charitable entities - but said it was being looked at. “We’ve got a lot of appetite for it, Nicola [Willis] and I, and we’re getting advice.” Luxon said his verdict on being PM was that he was “having fun” but it was hard work. ”I like getting into the work, and we are working hard ... We’ve got a lot to do, but that’s exciting.” A farmer from central Hawke’s Bay asked about the end of funding for Taskforce Green, saying it had helped in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle. Luxon said the Budget was looming, so it would be a question for the government department charged with deciding whether programmes were delivering “bang for their buck”. On speed bumps and roadworks, Luxon said Transport Minister Simeon Brown was “very hot on road management and cone management” and trying to get a clear signal of whether such measures were worth it. “We’ve got some very good roads,” Luxon said, pointing to the new roads north of Auckland, saying they should be safe enough to be 110km/h. On the balance between convenience for motorists and safety, he said: “I’m not saying we don’t look after people and follow good health and safety practices, but we think we’ve gone a bit far the other way.” Prime Minister Christopher Luxon in the Newstalk ZB studio with Kerre Woodham. Photo / Jason Oxenham  Wrapping up, Luxon said he was pleased with the way the coalition government was operating. He said the government was “moving with incredible pace.” “And we have to move fast, I know it’s tough at the moment.” However, he said there were plans to grow the economy and get things moving. He’s signed off by choosing Beyonce’s Texas Hold ‘Em. “She’s provoking the country music industry. It’s fantastic.” The Newstalk ZB interview follows a week that Luxon kicked off by releasing the Government’s plan up until June 30 – a period that will include the Budget. Yesterday, the Government also announced a move to restore the possibility of calling a binding referendum on the creation of Māori wards on local councils – and it will require councils to hold a referendum on any recently created Māori wards in the next local body elections. In 2020, Labour had removed the ability for a local referendum to be conducted on Māori wards. The Government also announced steps to try to boost competition and tackle a shortage in building supplies after soaring costs. National has also started to more aggressively promote its upcoming Budget tax cuts promise, including a social media campaign by Finance Minister Nicola Willis to try to assure voters that tax cuts are still affordable, despite the deterioration in the economy. That comes as government departments firm up their plans for staff layoffs to try to cut their spending before the Budget, as the Government has ordered. The Government has promised savings will be re-invested in the front-line services, which Willis has flagged will be another priority for the Budget. Luxon has defended those public sector cuts, saying he wanted more “medical doctors, not spin doctors” and pointing to the sharp increase in public sector staff numbers over recent years. Ministry of Health staff were called in this week to hear the final details of its restructuring. WATCH ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Didn't Erica Stanford sound impressive talking to Mike on the Mike Hosking breakfast this morning? This is a woman who has clearly been working on her passion portfolio while in opposition, who has come into government ready to go.   I remember Chris Hipkins when he was in a couple of weeks ago saying we weren't really ready to come into government. What the hell were you doing for the past nine years? Seriously, you're being paid, surely you should be looking at your passion portfolios, you can put up your hand when you're in a party that's been decimated and it's running around looking for a purpose and you can say look, this is why I came into politics, this is what I want to do, and you start work on it. That's what Erica Stanford has done when National was decimated.   She clearly cares very, very much about education, and about the education of New Zealand children, and about the teaching profession.  And she wasn't out for petty point scoring. The only time she mentioned the last government, she gave them credit for putting secondary teachers on the two-year worked residency visas. But she does want to see New Zealand children be given the right to a world class education that previous generations enjoyed, and I would have to say took for granted. We assumed we could take our place in the world because we were well prepared to do so, and we assumed that would continue. It did not. And that's what happens when you let ideology get in the way of good practice.   The Education Review Office has found that the new history curriculum that was introduced into schools is being taught on an ad hoc, localised basis, that too many schools and teachers are spending time developing their course studies rather than actually teaching them, and many of them have been overwhelmed by the scale of the changes required.   ES: The important part here is, it’s really interesting in the history report, schools themselves were saying it’s incredibly time consuming to develop local curriculum. So, we have schools around the country with a very broad, high level curriculum that's done by the centre, they then have to create their own curriculum. So, inconsistent across the country, kids are being taught different things, there’s no consistency of what’s being taught.   ES: And you said earlier, I was listening to you, about our place in the world and how we started to trade and the first refrigerated ship that went out of, the SS Dunedin, I think, in 1882. That changed the way we traded with the world and changed our economy. We don’t teach that anymore because it’s not specified in the curriculum.  MH: Why not?  ES: Because we have shifted in the early 2000’s away from this idea of a centralized curriculum that lays out what kids need to know and when, to a devolved system where schools themselves end up having to create the content and thus saying themselves, “This is too much. We want to get on with the deep, with the magic of teaching, and bringing the content to life.” Because that's what teachers do so well. The, the curriculum is supposed to support them with the details, but since the early 2000’s, we have had this very vague waffly curriculum. Hence our decline amongst, you know, the world.  Erica Stanford explained it beautifully, and anybody involved in education knows that the changes that have occurred did not happen in the last five years, or even the last 10 years. It's been nearly 30 years of gradual decline.   But to come back to the point that, you know, teachers should be teaching, that is what they do. That's what they love. That's what they're good at. That's what ignites a passion for curiosity and knowing more among our children. How is it that they are the ones developing the curriculum within their schools when the number of full-time equivalents employed at the Ministry of Education ballooned by 55%?   The ministry employed 4,311 staff, 1,704 more than it did in June 2016. That was last year. So, 4,311 staff, 1,704 more than it did in June of 2016, and they used the explanation to say that the ministry had ballooned by 55%, as since 2017 it's taken on 550 extra education advisers and an additional 170 curriculum advisors and related staff. So that's a huge increase.   Nearly 1000 people involved in in writing the curriculum in advising on the curriculum. But wait, there's more. They also rely extensively on consultants for policy development. They tend to contract out for all the major curriculum development services, about 10 small education consultancy firms relied largely, if not entirely, on Ministry of Education contracts for their income.   So, you've got teachers saying, look, we would love to be teaching, but we're busy developing curriculum. You've got the Ministry of Education having staff ballooning by 55% with an extra 1,720 employed specifically on curriculum, plus ten small education consultancy firms hired to do the curriculum. The teachers should have been receiving guilt-edged curriculum papers by courier, able to add their own frills and flourishes to what was an established curriculum, given the number of people we were paying for to work on this. Utterly incredible.   Anyway, that was then, this is now. I could understand if the Ministry of Education had stripped its staff right back to a tiny core of brilliant people who were involved in policy development and analysis, and then the teachers were left to their own devices. But to have employed so many more staff members purely for curriculum. To contract out to consultancy firms on the curriculum and then say to teachers, hey, good luck. Good luck developing your own curriculum and then try and teach it, have time leftover to teach it. Unbelievable.   I loved learning about Aotearoa New Zealand. My history degree, I chose New Zealand history papers, but I was not in the majority and probably because by the time they get to uni most kids have chosen to learn about Tudor England. They have the option of learning about New Zealand history, or they did back then, but they chose to learn about Tudor England, which was like yeah great for fairy stories, but it doesn't tell you who you are or where you come from.   We really do need to know who we are as a society, as a country, how we came to be and there is rich, rich material in our past to make learning about Aotearoa New Zealand fascinating. But we have to know our place in the world. As the legendary Chuck D of the band Public Enemy once said, knowledge without context is confusion. If all we know is New Zealand and have no understanding of where we fit in, why we came to be, it's just a whole bunch of factoids. It doesn't mean anything.   So I'm all for learning. I'm all for learning about history. I'm all for learning about New Zealand's own rich, fabulous history. But tell me why the teacher should have to be writing the curriculum when nearly 1000 people and 10 consultancy firms were employed to do just that. Why should the teachers be doing it, taking them away from teaching, which is what they went into the profession to do, and I just wonder how many of them are going to be throwing up their hands, going “more change cool, that's just what we need right now.”   Learning about who we are and where we come from is vital. But it should not be done on an ad hoc localised basis and the sooner we get back to a curriculum that is nationwide, with room for a little bit of flexibility, for a few options here and there, the sooner we get back to giving our kids the world class education we had, the sooner New Zealand will be back on its feet. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Government is changing the Building Act to address a shortage of building supplies and long wait-times for new products to be approved.  That includes signing-off on products with a reputable overseas certification and recognising approval schemes used in countries like Australia.  Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says it will ease building costs and make our building products better.  Julien Leys, CEO of the New Zealand Building Industry Federation, told Kerre Woodham that it’s going to make a big change in the construction industry.  He said that while it isn’t building 100,000 new homes, it is helping those homes get built faster and more cost effectively.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.