Government To Plough On With Racially Divisive Bill
Monday 19th Jun 2000
Donna Awatere Huata
Media Release -- Education
ACT Education Spokesman Donna Awatere Huata has slammed a Select Committee Report into the Government’s Education
Amendment Bill saying it’s simply a vehicle for the Government to ram through the ‘racially divisive’ Bill.
Mrs Huata said Government members ignored the pleas of submitters not to abolish bulk funding or reintroduce zoning.
“Those members heard the pleas, particularly of Maori and low income families who are seeing their chance of quality
education ripped away by Trevor Mallard,” she said.
“Mr Mallard’s socialist experiment in education is all about dragging every school down to the lowest common
denominator. His Bill is designed to snap the stems of ‘tall poppy schools’ who have worked to set new standards of
excellence. Bulk funding has nourished their growth,” she said.
“He is doing the same to Maori and low income children, who are shining above their piers because they have been able to
escape mediocrity and failure in their local school, by forcing them back into zones,” she said.
“The Government’s arrogance and ‘Wellington knows best’ attitude has again won the day over the voices of the people.
Just like ACC, the Government has refused to listen to reason and is simply intent on pursuing it’s left-wing ideology,”
she said.
“Bulk funding and choice are the way of the future in education. It is a dark day for children in our schools that the
Government’s ‘politics of envy’ is being visited on them,” said Mrs Huata. ENDS
For more information visit ACT online at http://www.act.org.nz or contact the ACT Parliamentary Office at
act@parliament.govt.nz.