John Banks’ deepest secret
This is the secret that John Banks wanted no one to know. He thought Don Brash was a “strange fella”.
John Key didn’t disagree.
John Banks
Furiously stuffing the cat back into the bag
Russell Brown at Public Address was the first reasonable size website to publish the audio and Youtube video of the teapot tapes. At the time he was all full of bravado coomenting:
He isn’t so sure now after taking the links down:
What is very interesting is that none of the mainstream media sites who made this an issue int eh forst place have had the balls to publish even links to the files. For all their talk about public interest you would have thought they would have done so now that Bradley Ambrose has released the file into the wild.
That would suggest that their legal advice is somewhat better than Alistair Thompson at Scoop who has also now published the audio and Youtube video. It seems though that Russell Brown may be furiously trying to stuff the cat back in the bag.
Teapot Tapes
The Teapot Tapes have been leaked onto the internet for all to download and share. I’m giving Storify a bit of a go to see how it works.
http://storify.com/whaleoil/teapot-tapes
Tea Tapes Published
The Teatapes have been published. A short time ago I was sent an email that had a Soundcloud link and a Youtube link (uploaded by 2Johns2Cups)Â to the tea tapes. They are easily found, but I will not link to them until the legal position of the tapes is clarified, at this point in time it is still an illegal recording and it is still subject to a Police investigation.
However, I have listened to them and now you can too if you are of a mind. You will now know that in stark contrast to the sensational media reporting of the tapes at the time that there is nothing “explosive” on the tapes at all.
TV3, Duncan Garner, Patrick Gower and the staff of the Herald on Sunday should hang their heads in shame for their News of the World style  tactics in publicising this and changing the focus of the election from issues into a sideshow perpetrated and manipulated by them for political gain.
Winston Peters has been proven to be a liar. Nothing on the tape even remotely suggests what he breathlessly intimated.
This whole episode shows the parlous state of some media outlets in NZ.
It is curious that the tape has been released on the same day as the Prime Minister’s first major speech of the year. Proving that this whole stitch-up has been a political act from beginning to end, shamelessly milked by media outlets desperate for sales and corrupt politicians desperate for votes.
Tagged: Bradley Ambrose • Duncan Garner • John Banks • John Key • News of the World • Patrick Gower • Soundcloud • teatapes • Winston Peters
Is Gareth our new Dick?
Is Gareth Morgan the new Dick Hubbard? Here he is, a self-made successful businessman who hasn’t spared the sanctimony when lecturing others about their business practices, who is especially sensitive when he gets held to account by the same standards he sets for others.
Gareth engaged in unusual acts of corporate philanthropy like fattening penguins up for killer whales and funding funerals of the cirrhotic homeless. He would criticise others in his industry for bad performance (despite his funds having a dicky stock ticker), and then complain that neutral fundwatchers wouldn’t accurately report his funds performance, despite acceptance by the rest of the funds industry on the reporting of their funds. He would champion his own righteousness and advocate higher taxes for wealthy people like him (yet not want to voluntarily pay more now that he’s cashing up his capital)
By comparison, Dick Hubbard once flew his 100 staff members to Samoa for a picnic, and would criticise business for not following a “triple bottom line” accounting model that measured charity and sustainability – a model he stopped when he found it unprofitable – though this didn’t bring any contrition for criticising businesses for not being charitable enough in the past. He chaired a Food Safety Authority that loaded compliance costs on his competitors.
Dick Hubbard, having stuffed his suitcases with cash and memories, then packed his bags for the ultimate ego trip – a tilt at politics running for Auckland City Mayor. His goofy persona gelled well with the public in 2004, and he beat John Banks for the job (though we note he was unelected as soon as the voters possibly could)
We wonder then, is Gareth about to take a tilt for Wellington City Mayor, or a possible Wellington Supercity Mayor should Fran Wilde and others get their way in putting this on the government agenda?
Goofy well known personality, successful in business, prone to ego trips, Â and most tellingly, charity when in the view of cameras and journos. We’d happily bet on Gareth seeking a political role in the future….
Profit for Education, Ask the Swedes, Ctd
It isn’t all about money, it is about priorities in spending in education:
The last government assumed that the main problem with English education was a lack of money, and funding almost trebled. Gove often mentions what happened next: our schools plummeted in the international league tables. They used to be fourth for science, now they’re 16th. They used to be eighth for maths, now they’re 28th. And yet our private schools remain the best of any major economy on the planet – one of the few things that Britain still does better than any other country. The challenge, which no British government has been able to solve, is how to spread the excellence.
This is precisely the argument that Labour touted here with ECE. They argued that we should spend even more money despite trebling the budget for ECE for negligible increased outcomes.
It took a group of determined parents to lure Barbara Bergstrom’s IES through the British bureaucratic labyrinth (even now, it can manage but not own the new school). The effort is a perfect example of David Cameron’s Big Society: politicians may balk at profits, but parents care only about the quality of education and don’t see why a deprived corner of Suffolk should not have the world’s best. It might just catch on. If Britain’s education sector were to emerge as an education industry, it is easy to see sink schools – our national shame – being eradicated within five years. The only obstacle is political squeamishness. As Sweden found, tolerating profit is the price you pay for helping the poor. The question is whether this is a price the Liberal Democrats are willing to pay.
Precisely. What is wrong with profit in education? If someone can turn a profit and provide a quality education to pupils in poorer areas then why not let them. It isn;t as if the state schools are doing a stunning job.
Hekia Parata and John Banks need to stay strong in the face of likely teacher union strife, break those unions if necessary and move toward providing the best education that money can buy our children by providing choice and competition tot he state sector.
Profit for Education, Ask the Swedes, Ctd
Continuing on from my earlier post looking at Swedish companies investing in UK education. The UK Education Minister bottled his decision for operating schools like a business but the parents of the local area rallied:
The Breckland parents wanted a new school – there is only one within a 10-mile radius of the proposed site – but felt unable to run it themselves. So they sought bids from providers all over the world, and were most impressed by IES. Understandably so: its chain is world-class, perhaps the closest Sweden has to England’s private schools. Its pupils were being entered for the International GCSE at a time when that exam was deemed too tough for English state school pupils. IES is a commercial company, and bid for the Breckland contract on the basis that it would be able to make a profit.
It is odd that the idea of for-profit education should have taken off in Sweden, which is usually seen as the most socialistic country in Europe. It happened in 1992, when the country’s Conservatives won the general election and passed a piece of legislation that even ministers thought would achieve little. The offer was this: the government would pay a fixed sum per pupil, and schools could open if they attracted enough children. When the bill passed through the Swedish parliament, it was eclipsed by a row about girls being denied carpentry lessons. No one imagined that ordinary people would have the resources, or inclination, to set up schools.
But a new breed of entrepreneurs emerged. One was a teacher named Barbara Bergstrom, who, with a partner, set up her own school in Stockholm. They did it on a shoestring, buying secondhand furniture and doing the cleaning themselves. The school offered a disciplinarian ethos (rare, at the time) and an international outlook. It was an attractive mix, word travelled, and it was oversubscribed. But there was a problem: Bergstrom believed in the profit motive, while her partner did not. They split. Today, the original school, Engelska Skolan Norr, is run by her former partner as a lone enterprise. Bergstrom’s IES chain, meanwhile, has 20 schools with 11,200 pupils and a waiting list of 50,000. This is the difference which the profit principle makes, when matched by a true entrepreneur.
Stunning difference in results. It is something the whole of Sweden has learned well:
In Sweden, all parties – apart from the former communists – now accept the principle. The profit motive is seen as the surest guarantor of social justice, ensuring new schools reach the neighbourhoods that need them most. In the last Swedish elections, the social democrats ran on the slogan “pupils should choose schools, not vice versa”. The idea of parents having the world’s best providers at their disposal is – to Swedes – the correct order of things. Yet in Britain, the cradle of capitalism, parents are almost powerless. Some resort to renting second houses in good catchment areas, others fake religious affiliation. Profit remains a dirty word and one which even a Tory Education Secretary dares not utter.
Let’s hope that Hekia Parata and John banks are not so timid.
Tagged: Barbara Bergstrom • Charter Schools • Education • Hekia Parata • IES Communications Group • John Banks
Key’s new cabinet
John Key has announced his cabinet changes.
Women are the big winners in the new line up with the promotion of Judith Collins to Justice, Hekia Parata to Education and Amy Adams becomes a minister with communications and information technology, internal affairs and associate for Canterbury earthquake recovery.
Judith Collins also has ACC and Ethnic Affairs. She will no doubt be disappointed to lose Veterans Affairs which Nathan Guy has picked up.
The teachers unions are going to be upset. They initially will have been pleased to see the back of Anne Tolley but Hekia Parata, assisted by John Banks should prove to be more than a match for those militant unions. I think some heads are going to get cracked in education.
The full list is available from the National party website.
UPDATE: National’s front bench looks very strong, now with three women. Judith Collins, Hekia Parata and Paula Bennett. I doubt Labour will be able to match that after their leadership battle tomorrow.
Whining about Charter Schools and MMP
The leftwing is doing their nut over Charter Schools. They are mad as hell and they are prepared to lie about it.
They seem to have only a couple of plays right now. The first is the totally lame “No Mandate” argument. They can’t seriously claim that they believe that for one minute. If Phil Goff had made it to PM with just 27% of the vote then using their logic there would have been no CGT, no removing of GST off fruit and veges and arguably they would have had a mandate to stop the asset sales.
The other argument is that the ACT party didn’t campaign on this policy. This is an out right lie, their policy precisely outlines the details, the only thing missing is the words “Charter Schools”:
- Increase the autonomy that local principals and staff have in running their school. Â Boards and principals should be able, for example, to set teacher remuneration at their discretion like any other employer, rather than having a rigid, seniority based pay scale;
- Further increase the subsidy for independent schools so that parents who choose independent schools for their children do not lose so much of their child’s share of education funding;
- Encourage choice in assessment systems, whether they be NCEA, Cambridge International Examination, International Baccalaureate, or other qualifications.
The last line of attack they keep using is that ACT sneaked back into parliament by rorting MMP. Well excuse me, this is the system they spent many, many hours campaigning to keep, this is the system that nine unions, including all the teacher unions all campaigned to retain. They really need to suck it up. John Banks won Epsom, end of story.
The government needed ACT and so we have a new policy to trial. This is how MMP is supposed to work.
Banksie has some work to do
via the tipline
Epsom seems to have gone to the pack. Banksie clearly has some work to do to clean up his patch.
With domestic violence and dognapping incidents, dogs with name suppression, a meth lab on Victoria Avenue, a brothel in Ascot Avenue…and now rampant rooting at Remuera Rackets!
This anonymous letter has been received by members of Remuera Rackets Club in Auckland!
From volley to serve you have to admire this perve. He certainly seems to be running one up a few of the ladies that is for sure.
