The Letter Monday 21 February 2005

The government is relieved that parliament has recessed. Ministers were sideswiped one day when Stephen Franks asked whether Tame Iti would be prosecuted for presenting a gun at the Waitangi Tribunal. ACT almost didn't ask the question as the incident had been seen by the nation on TV and the government would be prepared. George Hawkins' complete inability to answer was a surprise.

The politics of the Chamber are a bit like those of sharks feeding, blood causes a frenzy. MPs have gone for Hawkins every day. Revelations that the nation's top students have failed NCEA scholarship have seen ministers in disarray. The children of the Wellington elite sit scholarship and when you upset them you really are in trouble.

Ken Shirley has demonstrated he knows far more than the minister about the "culture of extravagance" in the Te Wananga O Aotearoa. Mallard despite claiming to have been "concerned" for 5 years has funded the Wananga over half a billion dollars. How did it happen? Go to http://www.act.org.nz/wananga.

The government, National and most commentators are accepting the line that NCEA is here to stay, that the scholarship fiasco is a teething problem and NCEA levels 1, 2, 3 and 4 have gone well. In parliament ACT alone says "the failure of NCEA is semantic".

The public knows there's something wrong with scholarship exams when only 9 out of 641 students who sat scholarship biology passed, while 30 of the 50 students who sat Maori received scholarship passes. What is not being reported is that the inconsistency between subjects also occurred across all NCEA levels and all years. Two years ago 72% of students passed Level 2 standard 90380 a literacy and numeracy requirement for university entrance while last year just 43% passed.

Professor Warwick Elley from Waikato University has done a statistical analysis of the NCEA results every year. His conclusion is variations of results across every level and year are so great their validity is questionable. See "Facts and fallacies about standards-based assessment" available on http://www.act.org.nz/kelley. As all parties except ACT support NCEA, parliament is reluctant to consider the reality that a generation of students have been the victims of an educational experiment gone horribly wrong.

Helen Clark whose first instinct is to find a scapegoat has blamed officials. Officials however this time may not oblige. The Letter has been told that despite Mallard's claims no one told him of teachers' concerns with scholarship, officials were warning as far back as the National Government that a scholarship based on the NCEA could not work. The Letter doesn't dismiss the possibility of Mallard having to resign.

Don Brash has not said a word in parliament for two weeks. His top strategist Murray McCully has been in the building but not in his seat in the house this year. We are also told he has not been attending caucus. That is serious. English has operated solo making NCEA his issue not National's. When parties want to run an issue, the technique is to have an MP front it, the leader add some comment to make it a "party" issue and at least one other MP to ride shot gun. In contrast Rodney Hide has backed Ken Shirley's attack on the Wananga and ACT MPs have asked supportive questions. It appears Brash has lost control of his caucus.

He is clearly not leading it. If Brash had been working with English on the NCEA campaign it would have been a much more effective attack. Senior National MPs do not appear to realise that this is an election year. If they continue to undermine Brash the electoral consequences will be devastating.

Last week the Finance and Expenditure select committee heard evidence on the Budget Policy Statement. Clark's claim of record growth compared to the "failed policies of the past" are untrue. Page 13 of the Budget Policy Statement clearly states "over the past five years, with annual growth averaging 3.7% per annum" and then on page 18 "between early 1993, at about the time when a structural change in New Zealand's trend growth started, to now, growth averaged 3.7% per annum".

Even though the five years pre-Labour included the Asian meltdown and Labour's five years saw the best terms of trade for fifty years, growth has not increased. The Treasury is predicting a "slowdown resulting in almost a halving of the growth rate to 2.4% for the year to March 2006".

The Business Roundtable produced a brilliant analysis of government policy pointing out that real government spending is set to rise 18.4% over the next three years. "This is a huge increase." The cost of each job under the Working For Families package is $84,000. The Roundtable paper is required reading for anyone who thinks Cullen is doing a good job. Go to http://www.nzbr.org.nz.

Also tabled at the select committee were treasury documents on the economic impact of tax cuts that concluded "A tax scale of 15% to $95,000 and 21% above, which achieves many of the objectives of a proportional tax without any losses (i.e. without sacrificing lighter tax at low incomes), at a revenue cost of $5 billion (10%). In NZ the marginal $5 billion taxed from the top 20% of taxpayers may cost about half to one percentage point of growth per year." Go to http://www.act.org.nz/treasury.

The Roundtable quote economist Tyler Cowen "Had America grown one percentage point less per year, between 1870 and 1990, the America of 1990 would be no richer than the Mexico of 1990".

OUR POLL

Last week we asked you "Should parliament give Peters bill a first reading?" 82% said yes. This week "Do you have any faith in NCEA?" We will send the results to the Minister of Education. Go to http://www.act.org.nz/poll.

ENDS

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