by Catherine Delahunty
The ACT Party recently held a conference in Bunnythorpe, a small hamlet in the Manawatu, where Heather Roy outlined some of their key policies around education. These ideas are an expansion of the ACT and National Party Coalition Agreement and are very logical if you like the idea of privatisation of the education system. For poor people with a great need for an equitable public education system it is bad news.
The bad news also includes a relentless repetition of ACT’s key myths around “parental choice” through more private schools and possibly that failed idea, a voucher system which pays for those choices. Liz Gordon from Quality Public Education Coalition has written an interesting critique of the “Bunnythorpe Address” and makes it clear that the ACT party certainly has a consistent ideology. They want to “liberate” schools from “over powering and needless bureaucracy” which sounds a little like Rodney’s’ local government agenda. Heather Roy also sees no particular reason for the state to actually provide education. After all it is business opportunity waiting to be developed and public schools are seen as fostering mediocrity.
I realise I live in a parallel universe. A couple of weeks ago I went to a decile one public school to hand out books to every child in the school. These children come from mainly refugee and Pacifica whänau. The resources in the school were plain and basic but the spirit was the opposite of mediocre. The teachers were taking every opportunity to reinforce learning in the most proactive way I have ever seen. The children’s excitement over receiving their books was palpable and their respect for visitors was delightful. The parents who attended the event clearly felt at home and committed to the school.
Quality public education like that offered by this Wellington school needs to be available everywhere, and not just for pockets of children with well-resourced parents. Schools can be community centres of learning and they are not businesses. But the bad news is that ACT is part of the Government and we do not know far National will go in implementing their ideology. Giving $35 million to private schools in the Budget was not reassuring. We need to name and value great public schools as well demand more for all children through equity not privatisation.
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare | Parliament | Society & Culture by Catherine Delahunty on Fri, July 31st, 2009
Tags: Catherine Delahunty, Education
More posts by Catherine Delahunty | more about Catherine Delahunty
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
>>a little like Rodney’s’ local government agenda.
Did you know the consultation in Auckland for a supplier of a ticketing card is more expensive that the cost of the entire Snapper Card system in Wellington? And that the Wellington system didn’t cost the ratepayer anything?
This is the titanic waste you get when you put politicians and bureaucrats in the way.
>>and not just for pockets of children with well-resourced parents
But you said the resources at that school were plain and basic?
You identify the key points: good teachers and committed parents. So let the parents choose, not some bureaucrat.
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http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/communities/the-wellingtonian/2700069/Bus-driver-auctions-off-Snapper-protest-T-shirt
Snapper works well for some… possibly not a good example though.
The first stage of the takeover of the US democracy was the destruction of the public education system. There is plenty of guilt, the teacher’s unions as well as successive right-wing governments and irrational public funding arrangements all share in the debacle, but the result is a standard of ignorance that is breathtaking in the OECD. Something about which the US unequivocally can proclaim “we’re number one”.
I have scant patience with privatization of schools, health-insurance, rail-lines and other essential services and natural monopolies. The market works well in many places… but it does not work for everything and force-fitting a market model where it does not belong hurts the society and its people.
Vouchers are IMHO a form of force-fitting.
Any expectation that the vouchers will be sufficient funding for the schools and will not be supplemented by the better-off parents, thus creating exclusive zones and schools, is naive.
The principle requirement I make is that the children of the poor and the children of the wealthy should have an equal opportunity to learn throughout their public school years. That means nutritional assistance as well as educational in some cases. It means kids who don’t have to have after-school jobs to help the family make ends meet.
You get what you pay for BP, as a society we can short the children of the poor quite nicely and this will be good for about 4-7 years of savings and then the more stratified society that automatically results will come up against the problems of democracy requiring an educated and well-informed electorate to function, and it will cease to function.
I have seen this happen over a long time in the USA. It is a waste of good people, and a bad bargain to accept.
BJ
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The primary advantage of the market is that it seperates the regulators from the providers. The strongest evidence of the success of the market approach and the failure of the state ownership approach can be seen in the safety, fuel efficiency and air pollution of public transport over the last fifty years. While the private sector sourced vehicles that provide the bulk of our public transport have been regulated to very high standards for these three critical performance criterea the public sector infrastructure that these private vehicles operate on have barely been regulated at all with most safety standards only having the legal status of “guidelines”. Fortunately this is one area where America’s litigation fever has kept government in line. The Scandinavian and German cultures have ethics that prevent politicians from treating private and public safety differently or resorting to playing the blame game with the victims of short term political point scoring. If it wasn’t for the toughening of frontal impact standards in Japan in the early 90s and the near doubling of fuel prices since 1999 Labour’s refusal to implement any of the Road Safety 2010 Strategy would have seen the Pm from that period incarcerated as one of New Zealand’s worst mass murderers.
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“Force-fitting” sounds the perfect description of the manner in which this NActional government is achieving its aims.
‘Might’ might be right, but only until those being forced, exert their own.
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I am with Bj, I too have very little time for privatizing everything.
I mean where does ACT draw the line? Why not privatize the police force, then you can buy yourself protection(and a little wire tapping on the side).
Could we take that idea one step further and privatize an army to invade a country if it happens to be repugnant to it’s investors (never mind about the opinions of the majority).
Schools, health services, railways, water, power and social services are better in the public domain as they would be natural monopoly industries.
New Zealanders have shown that they do prefer a basic commons to serve the whole of society.
Imagine water being privatized and controlled by one corporation? What next? air?
The ACT party are a very dangerous bunch of extremists on the fringe of the lunatic right. They don’t even have 5% support of the NZ public, their founding fathers had to infiltrate other parties (Labour) under false pretences because they knew damned well that their policies wouldn’t cut the mustard out in the open.
So they formed ACT.
On their own , have they done as well as the Labour party or the Greens?
I rest my case!!!!!!
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>>have they done as well as the Labour party or the Greens?
On that basis, the Greens should give up because 93% of the country don’t vote for them.
The masses will never vote for more personal responsibility and independent decision making. They like being sheep.
Fair enough.
Doesn’t mean they are sensible.
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Democracy seems to create bad education systems BJ. Look a good education system should have a weighted emphasis on Science, Math and Engineering, followed by Civics and social studies and finally Arts.
Ask yourself if the NZ education system follows the above model. This is the problem with a “top down” system. Centralized education systems always behave in a top down fashion. Wellington decides how to teach, what to teach, when to teach, total control BJ.
Wellington should set and measure standards. Each child should have funding(Note this funding shouldn’t be uniform) and we should provide many different types of education for all these different types of children. The one size fits all approach always leads to mediocracy, hell democracy seems to lead to mediocracy.
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Explain to me why education is a natural monopoly?
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Turnip
Parse the sentence again. Schools are an essential service, they don’t have to be a natural monopoly.
BJ
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You have a point Turnip… at least it appears so at first blush. I think it is more complicated though.
Democracies APPEAR to create bad education systems. At least they have done so ever since the advent of television and “pop culture”. It may be the combination of democracy and television that do it. Certainly a fertile area for psycho-social research. I happen to regard television as a tool of the devil when it comes to child development. No family with kids should have one…
http://tinyurl.com/klx67v
http://cursor.org/stories/television_and_violence.htm
However, in a culture where both mom and dad work full time. the extended family has been abandoned for the nuclear family, and the fear of lawsuits, crime and strangers has made it difficult to release your kids to play outside by themselves, it is a necessity.
Were the schools in our democracies so bad 50 years ago? Hardly. Yet the US democracy was over a 100 years old then. Surely if it is axiomatic that democracy breeds bad schools there could have been no such thing as “american ingenuity”.
If I were an “evil dictator” here and the technical means existed, there would be NO television outside of school controlled programming, for kids under the age of 12. None at all for kids under the age of 5. This genie is out of the bottle now. I don’t think we can stuff him back in.
However, none of that actually gives us a reason to “privatize” schools. It basically gives us the annoying truth that we have made a mistake in terms of our society’s growth and health.
Not the only mistake. We also have created a situation in which the teachers are not respected. The fact that we in the USA needed to have teachers unions in the past had to do with abuses of the teacher’s rights by the municipalities that employ them.
Teaching itself doesn’t have an “upward” career path. A very few teachers can become principals. In the USA there are massive overheads associated with school districts which employ a large number of people with teaching credentials but no students.
In the USA we funded the schools out of local resources, based on local resources, often out of property taxes (known as rates here in NZ). The drawing of a school district (which determined the schools portion of the rates you paid and what schools your children attended) became an art form rivaling the drawing of congressional districts. The infamous gerrymander has a mate.
So MANY interrelated problems that I don’t think that simply privatizing will solve any of them. They simply change the outcomes to be more wealth based. They let me give my kids some advantages by paying money. Like private health insurance, this leads to a bad result over the society as a whole.
respectfully
BJ
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Teachers, in my opinion, should be nurtured by their employers, given a great deal of discretion when it comes to what they teach and how they do it, encouraged to teach to their strengths and to have a vibrant life outside of the school so that they have something valuable to offer their students. It’s far more important to have an energised, community involved, experienced teacher in the classroom with the students, than it is to have a prescriptive Minister-ordained programme. I don’t mean free-for-all, but that’s where I would like to see the emphasis lie.
Bj – television is a nasty blight on the lives of our children .. and they would never vote to get rid of it, it’s so entertaining and valuable in curious ways. It’s funny, for a start, and curious, has injokes, mythology, moving comic strips, cutting edge stuff, views from others their own age etc, etc…
It’s all about using that knife safely. It’s sharp, causes cuts (you could even lose a thumb) but does it cut through stuff great! Hate to be stuck with a wooden one!
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- “A couple of weeks ago I went to a decile one public school…The resources in the school were plain and basic but the spirit was the opposite of mediocre.”
Surely you must realise that that’s not the point. Of course there are some decent state schools. The real question is what about all the rubbish ones run by the state on a compulsory, monopoly basis: the ones few parents would select if they were permitted any say in the education of their own children.
Rich parents can and do move house to ensure they are in the catchment areas for the better state schools. But what of all the others who can’t afford to do that; forced instead to send their children to the local state sink school.
Plus, who on earth would want the state dictating what children are taught in school? (people with a specific agenda they wish to force on others, presumably.)
- “we do not know far National will go in implementing their ideology”
What should we make of someone who describes freedom and individual choice as an “ideology.” And what should we make of someone who is arrogant enough to actually believe she knows better than us what is best for our own children?
Funnily enough, all National and ACT have to do is cite the example of that poster-child of statism, Sweden, which has had a successful voucher system since 1992.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/3717744.stm
By the way, what was the name of the state school you visited? We can look it up on the net and see if your misty-eyed depiction of it is in any way accurate or truthful.
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aaatchoo..the ‘prove it’ squad’s after ya Fly; vacuous hey?
Well after a tour of the world’s news, Bunnythorpe looks good.
Perhaps they would submit to an Act Govt so the rest of us can see how the practice scars….works i mean
Refugees will be accepted (if they have 10 million)
It’s not venal – it’s common Greed your Majesty.
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Kevyn – as for the regulators & suppliers being separated in ‘the market’ – give me break – most regulators are either still employed as consultants or are ex-employees of the very companies being regulated & most have a vested interest in light regulation & favouring the profit of the companies being regulated rather than any kind of balance or fairness ‘in the market’. Phew ! what cheek.
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As it stands parents do have a choice as to whether they send their children to private schools or public schools and I would like it to stay that way—-with improvements to public schools of course.
100% public would be a monopoly and 100% private would go a similar way.
Public schools are very important as it gives kids from more disadvantaged backgrounds a good start in life.
Yes there are rubbish state schools but that is not necessarily the fault of the state. A school is only as good as the teachers in it and if they don’t measure up out they go!!!!
Richard Prebble tried to argue that NZ Railways were inefficient because it was state run, but forgot to mention the armed forces——Had he really “been thinking????”
It’s a flawed argument more like:–
ACT wants to abolish public schools for the sake of giving their cronies more tax breaks at the expense of our kids future. Not providing more efficient ‘competitive’ education.
Kids of exceptional talent don’t necessarily come from rich families (as we all know) and to deny those people a future would be a crime and would create crime.
Talking about TV I don’y have one, 95% of of is rubbish.
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I find it disconcerting than total expenditures on the Iraq War have topped $670,000,000,000.00 and that education is still considered a tertiary priority, and being argued as a candidate for privatization.
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Drakula,
- “As it stands parents do have a choice as to whether they send their children to private schools or public schools”
Let them eat cake, you mean?
If parents are allowed to spend the money allocated to them by the state for the education of their child, then they will indeed have this choice.
- “100% public would be a monopoly and 100% private would go a similar way.”
Given that the market would always be open to new entrants, what mechanism do you envisage whereby private schooling would, or could, somehow become a monopoly?
- “Public schools are very important as it gives kids from more disadvantaged backgrounds a good start in life.”
Access to good education can have that effect, but why should it matter if it is provided by a state school or a private school? What we’re talking about is, in effect, giving every child a scholarship.
- “Yes there are rubbish state schools but that is not necessarily the fault of the state. A school is only as good as the teachers in it and if they don’t measure up out they go!!!!”
It is the absence of competition which is the fault here, and the reason why bad schools continue to blight children’s futures year after year.
But if you’re right, and bad teachers are indeed dismissed as quickly as they deserve, then presumably that practise will continue in a private system; so this is not an objection.
- “ACT wants to abolish public schools for the sake of giving their cronies more tax breaks at the expense of our kids future. Not providing more efficient ‘competitive’ education.”
As opposed to the Labour party rewarding its cronies/paymasters in the teaching unions, you mean?
Can you name some of these ACT cronies? Or is it just something you made up?
And what would the effect of “tax breaks” be, in your opinion? (hint: in a competitive environment, the result will not be higher profits.) In fact, “tax breaks” are largely a feature of non-profit organisations, and it is likely that many private schools would indeed be not-for-profit operations.
TClendaniel,
I don’t understand your point. You just posted a non sequitur.
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It is the absence of competition which is the fault here
I’m not sure that conclusion is demonstrated, but a well regulated market system (and the Swedes appear to have hammered at the problems with what has been done before) might serve and deserves more consideration than we often give it.
In this country there needs to be another issue dealt with, and that is access to the internet and to computers. This is going to have to be evened out.
That said I am willing to consider this and encourage the party to reconsider, that this is not necessarily a failed idea, but perhaps has been a failed implementation. Certainly the regulations around the process as implemented in Sweden seem to address the weaknesses found in the previous attempts to do this here.
I am NOT certain that this will work in a country that has not embraced the social justice meme as Sweden has, and I have severe reservations at seeing ACT associated with it, but the idea itself is not (I think) as ridiculous as Frog writes.
I reckon that it could make for a MORE egalitarian result for less advantaged communities, particularly with the “no top up” requirements.
respectfully
BJ
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“What should we make of someone who describes freedom and individual choice as an “ideology.” ”
Come off it – you can’t seriously be describing National’s policies as just being about “freedom and individual choice” – like them or loathe them, they have an ideological basis.
I’m inclined to go with BJ on the TV thing – but it’s more than that – you won’t have good educational outcomes in a dumbed-down society no matter how good the schools are. The impact of TV, newspapers, politicians and just about everything else on kids and their parents doesn’t send a message that knowledge, critical thinking and cooperation is valued and the way to get ahead.
“a good education system should have a weighted emphasis on Science, Math and Engineering, followed by Civics and social studies and finally Arts.”
Are languages and communication down at the back in the Arts?
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Oh please “that failed idea, a voucher system” care to tell all of the parties in the Swedish Parliament that (only the ex.communists now oppose it)?
In Sweden, anyone can set up a school, it can be commercially run or charitably run, and the funding follows the student, and it is a roaring success to everyone – but those who want a single model for education, and the vested interests in centralised control of pay (unions).
For decades now we have watched the model of centrally funded state education fail miserably to provide adequately for many children whose parents can’t afford to live near the places where the better schools are, whilst politicians throw funding at their favourite constituencies and trends, it continues to deliver largely mediocre schools in low decile areas, and rather good ones in the high decile areas.
The simple point is that while everyone wants good education for children, the people who want it the most are parents – and vouchers or paying directly empowers them to decide. YOU don’t know best, neither with the best will of the world can bureaucratically and politically driven funding. This is Hayek’s conceit of socialism, that a small bunch of people can know what’s best for millions, can plan and tailor services to meet the vastly diverse needs of people than can never ever know enough about.
Education can be enormously varied for children, with different models from Montessori to Rudolf Steiner to religious etc. Letting those models exist and flourish according to what parents choose will only enhance education.
Sadly the status quo strangles good teachers in a system that means that ALL get pay increases whether they are good (like the ones described in this post) or not. The excuse that you can’t have performance based for teachers is the excuse of any monopoly that doesn’t want to face up to its failings.
You can have your braindead ideological arguments based on sweet f.a. empirical evidence or you can go to Sweden and see the results – yes Sweden, that bastion of ultra free market capitalism and a tiny state.
What is fundamentally wrong with letting anyone set up a school, and letting parents choose whether or not to send their kids there. Vouchers are just a way to ensure universal access.
Or are parents too stupid to be able to choose schools, just another example of the Greens’ brutal vision of “sameness”, decreed by their beloved state, with everyone forced to pay whether it suits their children or not, one vision of education, churning out kids who all learn the same things, the same way?
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Nonsense Libertyscott
churning out kids who all learn the same things, the same way
You’ve not been in a school since you left..school.. have you.
You fear mediocrity and homogenity, but that’s not what happens in schools where real children are, only in those ones that are found in your head.
I challenge you to teach a class full of children for a year and have them coming out at the end, all knowing the same thing.
Not
going
to
happen.
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oops to the italics slip up and po marie
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So why deny a diversity of schools, where the funding follows the children according the what the parents choose?
Yes I fear mediocrity, I trust you’ll tell me that all state schools have excellent teachers who use the best techniques to inspire and get the best out of the kids they teach, and get rewarded based on results.
Which is, of course, why so many parents are willing to pay twice and send their kids to integrated or independent schools.
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Liberty
As much as I did (for the most part) agree with the idea that there is a case to be made, it is just as true that there has been fnck-all choice available to parents for most of history, and educational outcomes up through the 1950′s were pretty good.
At the same time, it is also certainly NOT the case that the schools in the USA were “centrally funded”. Most were community funded and the largest part of funding in that country is still the local “rates”.
At the same time those paragons of “centrally funded” schools Germany, Japan and Russia have turned out a large number of well educated students.
Vouchers were tried (albeit WITHOUT the Swedish restrictions) and failed miserably. The recollection of that failure and the damage done by it, are apparently fresh in the minds of some. In the USA the “private schools” advocates are largely in the religious-creationist camp, and the threat there is that the teaching of science will be irreparably damaged for generations. So there are some deep suspicions about the motives of those who would privatize.
I have all those reservations and I still agree that it is reasonable to regard the prior experience as failed implementation and to see if we can’t get it right.
However, I don’t think blanket assertions about the evils of centrally organized schools are born out by the quality of education of the typical products of those schools.
Even in the US, the quality of schooling did not falter until sometime in the 70′s and I watched the changes as the last of the “pre-television” classes were replaced by the TV addicted from birth generations. Which dates me for certain, but I wondered at the change at the time and it was only much later that I realized that the difference between how I grew up and how a child of this generation grows up is massively influenced by TV and the absence/distraction of parents.
Don’t overstate your case. I am following the premise, I allow it may be useful to try it, but I don’t think it will solve all the problems.
BJ
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Libertyscott asks:
So why deny a diversity of schools..
I don’t. There is a great diversity of schools in NZ, including home schooling.
I trust you’ll tell me that all state schools have excellent teachers who use the best techniques to inspire and get the best out of the kids they teach, and get rewarded based on results.
You hardly need me in this discussion then, given that you are arguing my case for me. There is a range of teachers, with a range of abilities, teaching a range of programmes with a range of styles across the state schools. I thought you would appreciate the diversity. I’m guessing that in many cases you would not appreciate or recognise the abilities of many of those teachers and the skills they employ working with children from imperfect backgrounds.
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BJ
Yes so some may set up schools to teach creationism, the same people who bring up their kids with the same philosophy. Like parents who raise kids as Muslims, Catholics, atheists, environmentalists, communists, libertarians, thieves, beneficiaries etc. What do you want to do about that? Why should it be the state’s business?
I certainly don’t think of it as a panacea to all of the problems of education. Parents abandoning responsibility for their children is a big part of it, using TV as a babysitter for example.
The braindead dumbed down culture is nevertheless still promoted by the likes of the Greens who use scaremongering and fear instead of science around everything from nuclear energy to cellphone towers to genetic engineering. It is a deliberate strategy to maximise the danger from all of these with a religious fervour, so please don’t even pretend the Greens are some impartial believers in objective science rather than neo-Orwellian “organic good, GE bad” “solar power good, nuclear power bad” cult. The same is seen in public policy where solutions are almost always about government intervention.
Given parents choice of schools is simply fair and reasonable and part of the solution, and making parents choose is about returning some responsibility for thinking about their kids’ education.
Greenfly: Appreciate the diversity from the brilliant to the mediocre? Why accept the mediocre. Why do you say I wouldn’t appreciate teachers used to help children from what you say are “imperfect backgrounds”, or is this some sort of cheap stereotype that anybody who believes in laissez-faire capitalism wants to eat the poor or believes in eugenics? Please. Central planners do not have a monopoly of wisdom, or even particularly good incentives to get it right.
I expect parents to make decisions about schools they appreciate. I can’t do it for them anymore than you, or some politician or bureaucrat. Vouchers is one way (fees is another) to return that power to the people who, by and large, care more about the kids than anyone else. Why do you think you know better?
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Libertyscott
Have you visited a state school recently? Have you talked with a teacher?
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I have a close relative and a friend who is a teacher (both in NZ). Have you visited Sweden lately, talked to a teacher from there?
I did spend five years in a state school, I saw teachers who inspired, to teachers who earned money by just turning up and being inert. I have middle class friends who would typically otherwise vote Labour who send their kids to integrated schools because they want to avoid the philosophy of their local state schools (good job both parents work and can afford it or in Greenspeak “well-resourced”). Why should they pay twice to get the education they want for their kids when the state fails to deliver it?
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Liberty asks:
Why should they pay twice to get the education they want for their kids when the state fails to deliver it?
Why shouldn’t they pay the price required for the education they believe their children deserve?
Why don’t they supplement their children’s learning at home, if they want higher standards for them?
Why not pay a tutor to lift the performance of their children?
Why not invest in programmes for the computer that will raise the level of their children’s learning?
There are so many ways to add to the schooling that the State offers. Why throw out the baby with the bath water? Perhaps your middle class friends need to take matters into their own hands.
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Libertyscott says (impolitely):
The braindead dumbed down culture is nevertheless still promoted by the likes of the Greens who use scaremongering and fear instead of science around everything from nuclear energy to cellphone towers to genetic engineering…
How wrong you are Mr Liberty.The ongoing AGW debate that runs on this Green blog is a very good example of Greens exhibiting a keen knowledge of science to describe their views. For a brain-dead, dumbed-down version of the discussion, try Kiwiblog. You’ll not be dissapointed.
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Greenfly:
1. Indeed, so they should, so why are they taxed to pay for education elsewhere and don’t get the same money flowing to the integrated school as would flow to the state school if they went there?
2. They do supplement their children’s learning at home, besides which why the hell is it your business? They aren’t your kids.
3. Indeed, why not pay a tutor? Oh yes they pay enough tax to prop up other families and their kids, oh well. Why don’t those parents pay the price required for the education they want for their kids? Oh they don’t have to. I see.
Indeed why don’t you let them take matters into their own hands instead of advocating taking more money from them so that the big central planner does it?
And indeed, if you think parents should pay for their kids education, why aren’t you supporting Libertarianz?
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Mr Liberty
My argument is that the State education is an excellent catch-all base that serves our society well.Those wishing to supplement that are free to do so in a number of ways. If they choose to destroy the base state system in order tofurther their own ends, I call them selfish and short-sighted.
You say:
besides which why the hell is it your business? They aren’t your kids.
Are the kids you are discussing, yours? If not, why the hell is it your business?
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“The braindead dumbed down culture is nevertheless still promoted by the likes of the Greens who use scaremongering and fear instead of science around everything from nuclear energy to cellphone towers to genetic engineering. It is a deliberate strategy to maximise the danger from all of these with a religious fervour…”
Come off it. Aversion to, for example, nuclear power stems from an awareness of potential hazards (accidents at Three Mile Island, Windscale and Chernobyl et al) and difficulties of dealing with nuclear waste. You can disageee and argue that benefits outweigh problems, but trying to pretend its all scaremongering is just silly.
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Greenfly. Impolite? So how about these press releases:
http://www.greens.org.nz/node/19409 Sue Kedgley scaremongering about cellphone towers. She funnily enough doesn’t lobby against AM radio transmitter towers which are many many times more powerful and have operated for many decades
http://www.greens.org.nz/node/15029 “nuclear power which is inherently dangerous, unsustainable and expensive” or “Nuclear power comes in large units that would destabilise the electricity grid” Could that be less scientific?
http://www.greens.org.nz/node/11935 “organic food is safer and better for you because it is completely natural” despite evidence that says there is next to no benefit.
http://www.greens.org.nz/node/12213 where safe food is not GE food, even though there is no credible evidence that GE food has any ill effects compared to conventionally or organic food.
These are fringe views, and the language and rhetoric around most of it is “doom and gloom”, predicting “disaster” and threats to health if the scaremongering around them isn’t followed. Scientific? Oh please.
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I just cannot see how allowing even encouraging diversity can be bad and as for fairness paying tax and not getting either the education system you choose – I am advocating that the cost of state education be imputed to wherever a parent chooses to have their child eductaed and they can then choose to supplement the cost of greater – as a fairer system than you have to have it from us in the manner we dictate or go buy it elsewhere even though you have already paid. Nature demonstrates the advantages of both diversity and specialisation and I note that the generalists survive when the specialists may die off in adverse conditions – I am happy to give you Greens the choice you should do likewise.
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Libertyscott
“Show me the science”, you plead..
For the latest issue and it’s scientific backing, look here.
http://blog.greens.org.nz/2009/08/04/can-we-do-40-yes-we-can/
Your claims that Green Party policies around the issues of;
cell phone towers, nuclear power, organic food and genetic modification of organisms,
are not science based is laughable,
Har, har, har. I laugh at your blunt attack.
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freethinker
Do you honestly believe there is no diversity in the education available to New Zealand children?
Do you want a list of the possibilities? Surely you’ve thought it through.
Home schooling (and all of the diversity that that offers – practically unlimited)
Religious schooling (choose your religion – Catholic, Brethren, you name it)
Wharekura/ Bi-lingual schools
Steiner schools
Montessori
Kohanga reo nests
(shall I go on?)
Within each school there is a range of teaching/learning choices;
a new/different teacher each year and the diversity that brings
Supplementary programmes, like ‘boy’s own’ groups, extension classes of all manner of types..
and so on and so on.
Where’s the monotony in that? The homogenity you seem to dread?
Why do you begrudge paying for such range, variety and choice?
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Greenfly: Sorry, a major fail.
What’s the evidence that cell phone towers have any ill health effects? None.
What’s the evidence that nuclear power (outside Chernobyl) has had any ill health effects on humans? None (noticed how life expectancy in Japan and France is so much less than? Oh right).
What’s the evidence that GE food is harmful to health more than organic food? none.
Childlike scaremongering on a grand scale. A friend was involved in rebutting the cellphone tower nonsense in Australia, did the EMR readings and told the group campaigning against them that the TV transmitter towers emitted far more non-ionising EMR than cellphone towers, but people “didn’t want to lose the telly”.
Oh and on climate change? Name one single health/environment benefit to NZ from it reducing CO2 emissions. Hmmm nicely evaded that one, because it is zero. The cost of NZ being a “global leader” in economic terms is fairly high (and you know nothing will be achieved unless China, Russia, India, USA, Brazil all take substantial steps, and several of those are uninterested). The schoolyard economics in that report are laughable, but this thread should not be about that debate.
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Greenfly: The problem with the diversity you talk about is that it is a very uneven field. Parents (everyone) pays taxes for children to get an education in the state sector. However, anyone wanting the diverse education you talk about have to pay again for it – and funnily enough the taxes that would have paid for the kids to go to the state sector don’t get redirected to the independent schools (partly to the integrated schools). Why is that fair? That is the fundamental problem – parents are forced to pay for education that they wouldn’t choose for their children. Parents on low to middle incomes can’t afford the diversity you talk about because you’ve already taxed them for state education and they can’t pay twice, only the wealthy can afford to pay twice.
Your philosophy is clear from your earlier post. For you it ISN’T about parents choosing education for their kids, it is about worshipping the state system which should be sustained regardless of demand or willingness to pay. It’s the beautiful Green Party policy of violence with a velvet glove.
How are people “choosing to destroy the base state system” because it doesn’t meet their needs? Why should it be sustained by parents who don’t want to use it? That’s why it looks like worshipping the state system – keep it going because the government runs it funded beautifully through the silent violence of the tax system.
You might call parents who want the best for the children and don’t want to pay twice for it “selfish and short sighted”, I guess much like workers who go on strike for more money. You just like a world of sacrifice for the greater good don’t you? Greater good defined by you of course – can’t just leave peaceful people alone with their money? Why should education not simply be about what parents want for their children?
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“What’s the evidence that nuclear power (outside Chernobyl) has had any ill health effects on humans?”
Massively increased leukemia rates down the coast from Windscale. Though it was hard to test following the worst incident as the goverment kept it secret for a couple of decades. As I recall there was no evidence of the impacts of the major leak at Three Mile Island because the authorities made damn sure that nobody did the appropriate tests (on animals or humans).
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What’s the evidence that nuclear power (outside Chernobyl) has had any ill health effects on humans? None (noticed how life expectancy in Japan and France is so much less than? Oh right).
Hmmm.. there are any number of problems with this assertion, the first one being that the problems most of us are concerned with are longer term than you care about.
What hasn’t happened YET is that North Korea, France, UK, US, Russia, Pakistan, India, China, Iran and Israel haven’t bombed anyone… yet. Which is the first issue. The byproducts/waste are often formed into bomb material. This is possible, and in the long run the odds are certainly greater than zero. The evidence that it can happen and what the consequences are was presented at the end of the war with Japan.
What hasn’t happened YET is that a storage facility, buried 1000 years (or more) ago, has leaked its toxic contents into the water or atmosphere. Given the current state of the technology and the waste products, this is also a distinctly real scenario as well.
Greens here are supportive of certain types of plants (Thorium and Accelerator driven) , but not necessarily for NZ itself. We don’t reckon we need them. We can put “tidal” turbines in the Cook Strait and wind turbines on the Western hills and get more power than we know how to use.
BJ
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Oh and on climate change? Name one single health/environment benefit to NZ from it reducing CO2 emissions.
Nice that you separate our actions from the global activity required to persuade those other nations to cooperate.
The health/environment benefit is of course, the prevention of the planet warming. Not an immediate benefit of course, but not unsubstantial to preserve things like Te Papa and the CBD.
The thing is that this benefit only comes from COOPERATIVE action. Anathema to right-thinking libertarians. However, the word cooperate means that we have to participate too. Not mucking about with the questions of how our INDIVIDUAL actions affect the future independent of everyone else’s contributions.
I think you mistake Green positions for the positions you THINK Greens take on things… and/or the positions that some Greens take independently of the party itself.
respectfully
BJ
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“What hasn’t happened YET is that a storage facility, buried 1000 years (or more) ago, has leaked its toxic contents into the water or atmosphere. ”
I wouldn’t be too sure of asserting this. Had it happened in say, Russia or China, do you think anybody would be telling us? Or even checking to make sure the waste is secure?
Unless, it’s an extreme case, or you do particular types of testing, health effects from nuclear leaks may not show up clearly in societies where cancer rates etc. are pretty high anyway.
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Sam: Indeed, there are serious questions about how countries without transparently accountable governments manage these issues. Fair point. My key point is nuclear power can be safe, the only issue is whether it is economically efficient, which means it not being subsidised or protected from litigation in the event of any disaster. My point is that it isn’t this wholesale catastrophe that it is painted out to be, it is in fact an option that has been widely adopted in many countries.
BJ: No, New Zealand shutting down completely will not prevent the planet warming. Indeed, the counterfactual (do nothing unless there is equal agreement by the main contributors to CO2 emissions) will also not make things worse, nor will it make any change in the likelihood of the major CO2 emitters to commit to change. NZ is almost entirely ignored. It is a choice whether to be at the bleeding edge of the issue, or to be one of those who follow on behind.
Co-operation is not an anathema to libertarians, indeed it is embraced, it doesn’t involve the initiation of force. I have long supported government measures that reduce CO2 emissions by NOT subsidising activities that emit, or by not taxing those that do not. In other words, taking steps that do no harm, not silly interventions like increasing the price of new (and used) cars through fuel efficiency standards that mean people hold onto old less efficient cars for longer because they can’t afford it.
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Talkback radio callers are suggesting that the job of Finance Minister should be privatised out to someone who can do the job and Bill ‘Double Dipton’ English relieved of his post!
Gotta love the good folk of New Zealand and their straight-shootin’ ways!
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Libertyscott said:
taking steps that do no harm
Brilliant! Share with us what those steps are Liberty – this is exciting!
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Bill and John must be scared since they’ve pretty quickly backtracked on their initial positions and now Bill is even planning to pay back the part of his allowance that increased when he became a Minister.
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Valis
Yes they are! I’m in Bill’s Heartland and there is loathing.
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Liberty
If you think getting a bunch of people to all agree to do something difficult is difficult, try it when some of them say, “My bit doesn’t matter so you big guys have to do all the work”.
How difficult it is for you to turn your mind to this point. People cooperating IS government, and coercion exits because some people don’t think that being part of the group entails a responsibility to act with it, and the group won’t (can’t as it is human nature we are talking about) pick up the load unless all share the burden.
Unlike you apparently, I don’t believe in freeloading off the work of others. As you are advocating we do as a nation.
You should be ashamed. I am not optimistic about that either.
BJ
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bjchip,
- “People cooperating IS government, and coercion exists because some people don’t think that being part of the group entails a responsibility to act with it, and the group won’t (can’t as it is human nature we are talking about) pick up the load unless all share the burden.”
No, people cooperating is Capitalism: where people voluntarily and peacefully trade with each other for mutual benefit.
By contrast, what you are describing is an authoritarian wet dream. You think that just because you refer to the mob as “The Government” it some justifies violence and theft.
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Wat ACT cronies, well lets just say all the members of the BRT for a start.
All I am saying is that parents have a choice.
Incedentally I am reading (nearly finished) a book “Street Without a Name” by Kapka Kassabova who grew up in Sofia, Bulgaria before 1989 when the Soviet block collapsed.
She then went to Britain when Margarete Thatcher was at the helm, but regardless of all the iniquities of Soviet communism she said that in the sciences Soviet education was of a lot higher standard than Britain.
Interesting comment!!!
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Greenfly: Here are a few. Cease all subsidies to businesses that emit CO2. Eliminate company tax for businesses engaging in non CO2 emitting activities (e.g. hydro generation companies). Eliminate explicit and implicit subsidies in the electricity sector for lines. Cease additional welfare payments for those who breed whilst on welfare – the state should not be subsidising increasing population. Cease ratepayer funding of roads and non-electrified public transport, recovering all such costs from user charges and fares (many public transport users would either not travel, walk or cycle, all of which is preferable to them travelling by public transport). Privatise Solid Energy (it doesn’t generate much of a return on capital so either it will scale back significantly or close anyway). Eliminate vehicles are part of public sector pay packages. Sell Air NZ (if any routes falter then so be it). Eliminate price regulation that keeps prices for electricity and telecommunications irrationally low in rural and provincial areas, when the full costs of providing services to remote areas should be born by those who live there. Operate roads as commercial companies, charging according to demand and supply (congestion charging), to drastically cut urban congestion, reducing overall trips and improving the viability of commercial public transport. In short, get rid of market interventions or failures to apply market principles that cheapen the supply and increase demand for certain services.
BJ: I’ve co-operated with hundreds of people and it hasn’t involved force. I am sure you have to. Why must it? Either you think the others are free riders or you don’t believe you can convince them of the validity of it? If they are free riders, find ways to exclude them or put up with it. If you can’t convince them, then maybe you’re wrong?
I shouldn’t be ashamed. What utter nonsense. I am not suggesting freeloading, I am suggesting not being martyrs if significant others don’t come to the party. I don’t want to sacrifice NZ for nothing (which it is, if any major power fails to play). The truth is without there being agreement by NZ’s major trading partners and competitors, NZ acting unilaterally will lose (at least if all act together, and it is all proven wrong, then NZ wont be at a relative disadvantage).
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A country cannot “put up with” freeloaders. This is human nature. As soon as its citizens learn that some people are getting away with voluntary non-compliance with some uncomfortable measure (like paying their portion of tax) and gaining advantage thereby, the system collapses.
You’d have to be very naive or extremely idealistic to ignore this characteristic of humans.
We have been over this before enough times. You weren’t part of the discussions with BP but we do not assert that we must act unilaterally except as I noted, possibly cautiously leading in the context of international cooperation and agreement. No green expects the country to martyr itself, you are stipulating a straw man. This is a CONTINUAL meme coming form the right. That we want to act unilaterally. Kindly take notice that this is NOT the position that we are taking?
Not being able to convince people doesn’t mean we are wrong Liberty.
Not when the disinformation is so well distributed and paid for.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/sep/19/ethicalliving.g2
It just means that our children will suffer and some of them will very likely die to protect the profits of some people who will, being long dead, not care a bit.
How this is, this 90% certainty in the science, presented to the planet by the press and others? “The science is not settled”, and neither was the science of tobacco smoke “settled” until people finally took the ba5tard5 to court. Medical science got so good that some of them lived long enough to do that. What is being done to the planet is far FAR worse than an addictive drug being peddled for profit. Individuals after all, have a choice about whether they smoke or not. The information stream was however muddied for far too long.
By professionals.
The wealthy in the USA maintain their own advantages by professional and well directed propaganda streams aimed at the middle class. When the CEO’s of the country make a third of the total income, and the tax take is dropping while they rake in bonuses and the average guy is facing unemployment… the one-sided advantages are clear
None of us however, have the choice of living on a planet where CO2 emissions are curbed. We HAVE to get cooperation in this or we ALL will be in deep trouble. No matter what individual choices we make. That cooperation can be enforced by tariffs if an agreement is reached.
Agreement cannot be reached however, as long as liars prosper…. and they prosper as long as agreement cannot be reached.
Libertarianism depends on people being able to know the truth. Their information has to be complete and correct, and they must be capable through education of understanding and analyzing it properly.
Any impediment in that information flow or their understanding of it makes the requirement for their agreement an impossible goal. I think you will agree that the information flow is, if nothing else, imperfect, and the even if it weren’t the information in the stream (even the true science) is now almost impossibly complex for most people.
Part of this is presentation and Gareth Morgan did extremely welk by writing as he did in “Poles Apart”.
But the model you use fails on this point, as well as on the point about human nature.
BJ
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Liberty
You have some good ideas secreted away in that list. You have no fear, it seems, of profits from core services wafting away overseas.
I’m curious: in your Libertarian view, was it okay for the owner of those 8 pig-dogs to be in possession of so many dangerous animals? Was she free to do as she pleased in terms of the animals she kept?
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No, people cooperating is Capitalism: where people voluntarily and peacefully trade with each other for mutual benefit.
Therein lies one of the lies you tell yourself. Capitalism is not cooperation. It functions best when there is cooperation, as cooperation is required to set up the framework for competition. It is not pure competition either, the rules must be fair and enforceable.
Government is how we humans manage to deal with larger social organizations than our primitive minds can cope with, and larger social organizations are required to ensure our survival in the presence of other large social organizations.
Whether willingly or not, we cooperate in the larger social organization. The means we use to manage that are variously formed “governments” which may be democratic, autocratic, plutocratic or “other”.
All I perceive here is a desire to return to smaller and more primitive organizations that are more comfortable to human capabilities.
Which may explain the failure of libertarian ideals to actually succeed in any noticeable way in governing nations.
BJ
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“No, people cooperating is Capitalism: where people voluntarily and peacefully trade with each other for mutual benefit.”
Except for the workers, who take the miserable jobs on offer or starve. Haiti is a good example of free-market capitalism.
“Operate roads as commercial companies, charging according to demand and supply (congestion charging), to drastically cut urban congestion,”
I quite like a lot of the suggestions in this para, it might lead to complete economic collapse, but that wouldn’t necesssarily be a bad thing. However, this sentence makes no sense – why would a commercial company charge more for customers using crowded roads? A company would have an interest in getting as many cars on the road as possible, the price for using a crowded road could be discounted, while higher charges could be applied to ‘elite’ roads – faster, less stress and priced at a premium.
Country roads may be financially unviable and are likely to be closed down or hocked off to users, which would eventually put a lot of farmers out of business. Probably knock out a fair bit of our provincial tourist trade as well.
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“My key point is nuclear power can be safe, the only issue is whether it is economically efficient, which means it not being subsidised or protected from litigation in the event of any disaster. ”
Nuclear power seems to go hand in glove with taxpayer subsidies and protection. Providing sufficient funds up front to guarantee the cost of storing waste safely and securely for the next couple of thousand years in the event of bankruptcy is going to make many companies think twice about going into commercial nuclear power generation.
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BJ: There are freeloaders everywhere in a free market system, for example everyone who shops in a mall, uses the bathrooms, is a freeloader. Cyclists and pedestrians are effectively freeloaders for roads. There are enormous positive externalities people get from the behaviour of others, whether it be entertainment, environment, or simply hearing, smelling or seeing something that you enjoy. So much of life that people enjoy or benefit from is free because those providing it either gain from others enjoying it free, even if it is simply goodwill.
Fine, let’s not be unilateral, so that means NOT intervening now in any way that is economically inefficient unless all major states commit to doing so.
Hmm George Monbiot, yes a great authority he is, more vile “if you don’t believe in climate change you’re like a Nazi denying the holocaust language”. Smearing of one side, as if left wing lobby groups don’t set up innocuous groups that are front for wider agendas. Big bad corporations contributing a fraction of the total funds for free market or conservative think tanks somehow run the agenda, because the likes of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth exist for the greater good. The left has been masterful for decades in setting up front groups to push a wider so-called “progressive agenda”, which funnily enough always requires more government, and happens to coincide with similar views on economics, defence and foreign policy.
“Our children will suffer and very likely die” what nonsense. How? They are more likely to die if you strangle wealth creation and waste wealth on economically inefficient pet ideas like the loss making rail lines.
Yes there should be debate and information, you make a useful point that there are those who have every interest in opposing the idea that humanity is seriously exacerbating global warming. However, there are those who have every interest to promote it as well – THAT vested interest is always painted as a bunch of well mannered, generous people who are always giving to humanity – vs the evil selfish ones who want to make a profit. There are liars on both sides of this debate, my favourite is the constant Green Party spin that rail freight is more environmentally friendly than road freight, despite the most recent study debunking it in 2 out of 3 specific case studies.
Greenfly: Thank you. I don’t care if people who profit from services are foreigners no. International boundaries are as irrelevant as it would be if I lived in Dunedin and bought services from a company owned by Aucklanders. I can never understand the xenophobia about foreign investment. If you want the profits, buy the company yourself. I don’t know the pig-dog case, but generically if someone owns animals they can do as they wish, as long as they don’t hurt other people, property or treat the animals sadistically or cruelly.
Sam: Haiti is not a good example of free market capitalism. Can you see a government that robustly defends individual rights, private property rights and enforces contracts, without favour or corruption? Hardly. Free markets require governments to arbitrate between the rights of individuals through criminal law, property law, contract law and torts.
The same reason a company charges more for hotels and flights when they are busiest. Yield management. The highest throughput for any roads is NOT heavy congestion, it is the maximum freeflow – so traffic moves freely though not at speed limit speed. It is the same economics used elsewhere in the transport sector. Country roads have high fixed costs but low marginal costs, so may be very cheap to use if there is also a property access charge for those who need them.
In short, you can’t be sure of what happens, but we are sure the status quo leads to very perverse results – and fails most major cities miserably.
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“Haiti is not a good example of free market capitalism. Can you see a government that robustly defends individual rights, private property rights and enforces contracts, without favour or corruption?”
Fair point. I should have said “a realistic example of free market capitalism”. The perfect enlightened government you suggest only exists in fairy tales (and Plato’s imagination).
“The same reason a company charges more for hotels and flights when they are busiest. Yield management. ”
Yes – but they also charge much more for a bigger hotel room or aircraft seat. It all depends on how much more you can charge for a ‘premium’ road or lane.
“The highest throughput for any roads is NOT heavy congestion, it is the maximum freeflow”
That could be right – so I’d guess it’s economic to run road capacity slightly under peak so that you run full as often as possible. Not going to make employers happy when workers ring up saying “Sorry, can’t get to work because the road was full”.
“Country roads have high fixed costs but low marginal costs, so may be very cheap to use if there is also a property access charge for those who need them.”
So cheap for tourists, expensive for farmers than? And much more expensive for farmers who don’t live in a tourist area.
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Myths around parental choice?
What is wrong with parents having more choice about where they send their children?
Over the last 25 years Kohanga Reo has flourished. It is not owned by the government however it is funded by the government. What is wrong with the government funding other non- governmental providers? Kohanga is a classic example of the diversity of education choices available by funding private providers. Does the Green Party not support Kohanga?
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What’s wrong with Nga Kohanga Reo, Mr Boscawen? Kohanga are good models of the State assisting where groups with valid kaupapa would struggle to meet their aims unassisted.
There is a great deal of difference between the resources held by the parents who send their tamariki to Kohanga and those who send their children to many of the private schools that I’m assuming you have in mind.
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