Rumours about such a significant proposal should not be swirling around in the media without a confirmation or denial from the Ministry. School boards and parents should be formally notified if this change is really on the table.

Prior to the election the National Party gave no signal that the Ministry would be taking over this role. It wasn’t mentioned in their policy.

The Government’s rhetoric around education is extremely contradictory at the moment. One minute National says parents need more choice via charter schools and the next it’s taking away choice from communities by removing the power of boards of trustees to appoint their own principal.

Giving local communities a degree of control over their school was central to the Tomorrow’s Schools reforms. I haven’t seen any evidence that the hiring of principals is too difficult a task for schools. It is more likely that the Government wants to make principals answer directly to them rather than the kids and parents in their local community.

National seem to be making up policy which suits their mistrust of schools and helps to impose their unpopular policies. Principals have been a fantastic voice for children in the recent debate over national standards. They are experts who know what they are talking about. Silencing principals is Nationals way of shutting down that important debate.

The Government has no mandate to undermine boards of trustees powers and to continue to operate in a contradictory and hostile manner towards the education sector.

It is time for National so show principals, teachers, parents and children some respect, and listen to their important contribution of ideas that really would improve our education system.

I was also delighted because the appointment represented the fulfilment of a lot of my work in Parliament this term. My Human Rights (Disability Commissioner) Amendment Bill to establish the position of Disability Commissioner was due to be debated in Parliament when the Government announced they would adopt my proposal and create the position.

In recognition of the importance of appointing someone to the post as soon as possible, Paul was appointed on a fixed term contract before the law was officially changed to create his position. The Government has now introduced legislation to establish the permanent position.

Or has it?

It won’t be debated until the next term of Parliament, because the House has now risen for the year, but the Human Rights Amendment Bill has been tabled in the House so we can examine and prepare for it in the next term.

At first glance, I’m surprised and a little perturbed to find that the Bill does much more than just establish the position of Disability Commissioner. The Government seems to have taken the need for legislation to establish the role of Disability Commissioner as an opportunity to review and the whole Human Rights Commission (HRC).

The Bill would make quite major changes to the structure of the HRC and the roles of the Commissioners. Instead of having dedicated Race Relations, Equal Opportunity, and Disability Commissioners, they will all be Human Rights Commissioners, with particular “portfolio” responsibility for different areas. While the Bill stipulates that there must be a Commissioner appointed to lead the work in the three priority areas of Race Relations, Equal Opportunities, and Disability Issues, it actually allows for one Commissioner to lead work in more than one of these “priority areas”. So there would be no guarantee that the Commissioner working on Disability Issues would actually be doing so full time.

It’s even possible that Commissioners wouldn’t be appointed because of their specialist knowledge in these areas, but appointed as Human Rights Commissioners first, and then assigned to one of these portfolios. If that were the case that would run completely counter to the strong push from the disability sector that the Disability Commissioner should have lived experience of disability and a proven track record as a disability advocate.

Obviously this rings some pretty loud alarm bells for me! Other parts of the legislation – like those more clearly spelling out the HRC’s role in promoting and monitoring New Zealand’s international human rights record – might be perfectly reasonable and necessary changes to enable the HRC to operate efficiently. I intend to talk to people within the Human Rights and Disability sectors to find out what they think over the coming weeks and months.

What concerns me is that these changes haven’t been sold by the Government as a major review of the HRC, even though that is what they are. The press releases from both the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Disability Issues following the tabling of the legislation merrily celebrated the creation of the new Commissioner with responsibility for Disability Issues, mentioning the wider changes almost as an aside. Both also emphasised that the Bill would enable a full time Disability Rights Commissioner, despite the fact that as drafted, it does not guarantee that the Commissioner wouldn’t have another portfolio as well.

This is at best careless and at worst misleading. If we are going to have a wholesale review of the HRC, then let’s have it out in the open! And if we’re going to establish the full time position of Disability Commissioner, then let’s do that, not do something like that that doesn’t quite meet the description.

I will be following the development of this legislation in the next term of Parliament very carefully, and suggest anyone with an interest in Human Rights, Race Relations, Equal Opportunities, and Disability Issues does the same!

Everyone is scratching their heads over this entirely predictable result and attributing it to hours worked, likelihood of time off for pregnancy and/or the taboo around the discussion of pay. The EEO office rightly advises women to be informed about pay rates and to call for transparency, but let’s get real about the workplace and access to information. It’s very hard to know whether you have equal pay or pay equity unless the pay scales are made public. It’s very hard to discuss who is paid what in a contract dominated environment.

There is an even bigger taboo than discussing your salary or wage which is the naming of sexism as a cause of the gender pay gap. I don’t think individual women should have to prove that they are discriminated against in order to change the systemic discrimination which the study demonstrates, but I do think we need to start somewhere.

That’s why I launched my Equal Pay Amendment Bill that prompted the whole Alasdair Thompson melt down, and a petition with the CTU to show we need law changes.

Women graduates, like many other women, are not getting a fair go, and my Bill and petition are part of the campaign to move this issue towards solutions. Women (or indeed men) who support pay equality in their workplace can download the petition and sign it here!

The EMA is in tune with the Minister of Women’s Affairs who said in response to the poll that women needed career guidance to address this “thing called unconscious bias”. I am picking up a pattern here. Unequal pay is women’s fault due to our lack of confidence and ambition rather than being due to the bias of employers with strange ideas about women’s value and productivity!

Hekia Parata also said that one of the reasons for gender pay inequity was because “women are still the only child bearers”. Very true Hekia, women are still child bearers and this is not likely to change dramatically in the future. But it doesn’t mean women should get paid less!

I met with the Minister of  Women’s Affairs and the Minister of Labour a couple of weeks ago. They won’t support my Equal Pay Amendment Bill because they reckon the law is fine and any one can ring up a Labour Department Inspector and take a case. I asked women workers about this and they told me the following:

1. Labour Inspectors are rare – there about 12 in NZ
2. Labour Inspectors don’t deal with systemic issues and have no training in gender pay equity
3. Women cannot ask a Labour Inspector for help if they don’t have any grounds to ask this and they have no access to workplace pay data to even establish grounds for concern.

So the current law is not working and the Government are not prepared to change it. The Minister shows a bit more interest in the Pay Equity Bill proposed by Judy McGregor but I am not holding my breath for this proposal either.

I am holding some forums on equal pay issues and the first one is in Auckland this Thursday August 4 at the Trades hall at 7pm.

Watch this Green website for more events because we won’t be giving up on this issue until we get some progress!

If Alasdair Thompson has really had the epiphany he proclaims after a day to cogitate on the reaction to his outrageous comments, then perhaps he might like to reconsider the EMA’s position on Catherine Delahunty’s Equal Pay Amendment Bill.

Thompson’s inability to provide evidence to substantiate his bizarre claims about the reasons for the gender pay gap shows that more evidence is required to identify its real causes.

Requiring employers to compile and report statistics about pay levels by gender is hardly going to result in significant compliance costs.  It’s really only a few minutes work for one staff member each time there are changes in employee pay rates and on each reporting date.

Thompson’s bizarre statements and behaviour yesterday are likely to have helped the Greens’ campaign to close the gender pay gap.  And, hey, unlike in the corporate world, we didn’t have to pay him anything to do it!

1. Thompson stands by the claim that women should be paid less than men because they take off more time because of their periods. He doesn’t apologise for it, just says he sorry if he caused offence (ie claytons apology).

2. When asked what his evidence is, he says that “the woman” who does the books at the EMA tells him that female EMA employees take more time off than male employees of the EMA, and anecdotally employers tell him the same.

So his “evidence” is totally shonky. But it gets worse.

3. When asked if this extra time off that women allegedly take is due to their periods, he storms off.

So not only is his evidence shonky that women take more time off, he can’t link it to his claim that it is due to menstruation.

4. Thompson says that he opposes the Greens amendment to the Equal Pay Act on the grounds that it would be a bureaucratic nightmare to record the genders of all staff.

Then proceeds to tell us that his own organisation, the EMA, records the genders of all its staff, hence how he gathered his evidence.

5. He tells us that employees wouldn’t want their pay and conditions revealed as part of the process of addressing pay equity, then proceeds to reveal quite alot of personal information about one of his employees.

6. When he doesn’t like the questions he bullies the interviewer and physically stands over her.

I challenge the Board of the EMA to view this video and tell us that this is the guy they want to represent them and other employers in New Zealand.

For the past two years I have been a proud supporter of activities at Miramar South School, presenting books to students and attending their special events and prize givings. I have been so impressed by the atmosphere even though the buildings do need an upgrade.

A school however is more than the paint job on the hall and this school is a remarkable and spirited mix of cultures. The teaching staff are a dedicated group of people who believe their students are entitled to the best that a quality public education system can offer. Their approach is reflected by the students who appear to have a high level of motivation to participate in all school activities. These children, from places like Somalia, Afghanistan and across the Pacific, as well as Maori, are well supported by the parents who are always present in numbers at the school events. There are a few Pakeha families involved in this school and they are having the rich experience of being a cultural minority in an environment that fosters respect for everybody.

The school works well with the local community, a recent example being the senior students’ camp which required major fund rising as parents and the school have no extra cash. The school worked with local youth workers who participated in the camp, providing energy and role models to the 12 year olds who are about to move into a bigger world.

Miramar South School is open about their experience of “white flight” but utterly reject the notion that they offer a lesser quality of education or that their students are more disruptive than higher decile schools. According to staff who have worked in others schools the percentage of children with behavioural issues is no different to that experienced in higher decile schools.

My observations are purely anecdotal, but I keep going back to events at the school because of the warmth, energy and passion for learning that I observe. I recently attended a school camp “thank you’ event held for those of us who had helped make it happen. A young girl came up to me utterly unprompted just to say “thank you for your support”. Whatever happens with the merger let’s not pretend low decile means low quality. These children represent a new cultural demographic and this school is bringing out the best in them.

Te Kahui Mana Ririki spokesperson Anton Blank has made no romantic claims that pre European tangata whenua culture was always peaceful, but he is promoting some aspects of the history which might be helpful to Maori parents looking for a positive and uniquely Maori view of child rising.

Paul Moon today dismissed this initiative on the grounds that infanticide had occurred under some circumstances.  Te Kahui Mana Ririki is championing a recall of a gentle and loving tradition in whanau towards children which was impacted by the history of the last 170 years.

I would love Paul Moon to discuss the European child raising tradition we come from and to acknowledge that many Pakeha children of my generation remember the strap and the slap, in school and at home. Our tradition was once focused around “spare the rod and spoil the child” and it was extraordinary to see the abuse including death threats Sue Bradford received when championing legal changes that would protect children from legal beatings.

The Professor might like to do a study of the violent tradition in boys schools from the Victorian era until the 1970’s and the role of the graduates of those schools in empire building and colonisation.

The place of the child in our culture remains marginal with resources being focused on privileged children and the children of beneficiaries experiencing deprivation.

Violence towards all children is abhorrent and there is a great need to invest in parental education which is culturally effective.

The Green party applauds the initiative for reaching out to Maori parents.

Academics might like to consider who benefits from their knee jerk critiques when a child protection groups are being innovative in their outreach to parents in interests of children.

COGS is the mainstay of thousands of community organisations around the nation. The decision to make larger grants to a smaller number of organisations amounts to a cut for many others. It is easy to understand the rationale for increasing amounts to vital groups but that shouldn’t mean smaller groups get less. There is a bigger picture to consider.

Right now, innumerable groups are struggling because of the recession and extra pressure on their services and activities. The few big philanthropic funders have reduced their reach because they are also stretched. Some funders have closed down altogether, and some are targeting particular groups with three year large grants.

The sector has long called for increased funding and there year funding, but in this context, lotteries grants and COGS have a vital role to play as the core reliable funding for many smaller groups. COGS in particular has been the mainstay of the administration and some wages funding for groups of volunteers who may have just one paid coordinator. These groups – working in the areas of disability, health, mental health, children and family support – need small COGS grants to survive.

The accountability requirements for funding create huge pressures on these groups and take up a great deal of staff time. Unhealthy competition for scarce funds also bedevils the community and voluntary sector.

The Greens successfully bid for increases to COGS funding in 2008, and the last thing we want is a narrowing of the access to it.

Cutting access to COGS will be a disaster for many groups. In an era when foodbanks are running out of food and many families are stressed by unemployment or under employment, we are need the community sector to back up our most vulnerable people. Where will the groups get their core funding from now?

Many aspects of the National Standards have angered parents and teachers, but at heart, they fail the simple test of helping our children get the best possible education.

In their current form, the National Standards have the potential to hurt our children. To be labelled a failure from the beginning of your school career is not a recipe for self-confidence. It runs contrary to our instinctive knowledge that encouragement and support works better than being measured and labelled at an early age.

The National Standards focus only on literacy and numeracy. In doing so, they have already undermined the status of other important subjects like science and the arts. Anecdotal evidence suggests teaching and support jobs in these areas have already started to go, and if we are not careful we will end up with a deficit of skilled science and arts professionals to work with schools, which will weaken the whole public education system.

But most of all I am now being told stories of children feeling like failures and parents experiencing high levels of bewilderment. A parent told me last week that their child had “failed” to meet the National Standard for literacy, but was then placed in an accelerated learning class in recognition of their capabilities. How confusing is that?

This story highlights the contradictions between the reductionist approach to learning via arbitrary standards, and the existing New Zealand Curriculum, which is far more holistic and comprehensive and is still being rolled out. Many teachers and principals have told me that the National Standards imperative is interfering with the roll-out of the curriculum in their schools.

Everyone is in favour of clear and honest reporting to parents about their children’s progress, but schools already have robust methods of providing this. What would be decidedly unhelpful would be league tables of “achievement” against arbitrary and flawed standards being printed in newspapers, as currently happens with NCEA results at secondary level.

If you want to read up on the first year of this debacle the, this survey – published by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research in 2010 – has some fascinating graphs which show that many Boards of Trustees don’t understand National Standards and most (whether they support them or not) don’t think they will raise student achievement.

Hang on – wasn’t that the point in the first place?

Principals and teachers are also highly dubious of National Standards, as are the 37,000 New Zealanders who signed the NZEI petition expressing concerns about the standards last year.

The wheels are falling off the National Standards juggernaut. Might be time for Education Minister Anne Tolley to admit defeat.

It was apparent that his 6 month journey with this portfolio has included some transformative moments, as documented in TVNZ’s Make the Politician Work. He has been open about the fact that he did not seek the Special Education portfolio, but that it has turned out to be a wonderful learning experience.

It was good to hear a Minister express strong support for inclusion and a recognition that schools should be 100 percent inclusive, not 50 percent inclusive as they are at the moment. He also said that the voice of the child was not always heard and when decisions were being made for them re inclusivity, which is a welcome message.

So I give him credit for taking on these understandings and being passionate about them. Some awesome people are available to educate the population and politicians if we are open to this.

However, the honeymoon was over for me when we started discussing the role of support staff, and my view that support staff do complex work and deserve far more than the minimum wage. Rodney didn’t agree. He thinks the teachers and workers “are saints”, but like all saints the implication is that they should work for love, not money. He has no plan to pay them more to raise their status or recognise their contribution at an economic level.

There was one piece of good specific news from the officials. It will be compulsory to learn about Special Education issues as part of all teacher training from the start of the next academic year! The Greens have been calling for compulsory Special Eduation training for all teachers for a long time, so it’s great to see this finally happen. If we’re to reach the goal of 100 percent inclusive schools, then we need 100 percent of our teachers trained and prepared!

We also had an interesting exchange over the alignment between the Special Education policy and the UN Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. I asked Rodney Hide if the work was aligned to which he replied “probably”.

Credit where credit is due but “probably” isn’t really ok with me.

Rodney Hide is on a journey which is likely to end at the election, so the families and disability communities and activists will have to start again with whoever is the next Minsiter. This is a slow process and it’s why I don’t agree with Rodney that person to person attitude change is the main strategy to build a just education system for all children. The ideology of “one at a time” and “one to one” is random. A commitment to structural change moves us all towards 100 percent fairness for all!

There were powerful presentations from people active in early childhood issues, the compulsory sector and the tertiary sector. Everyone was united in their deep concern for the public education system and clear about the threats to it from the current Government.

The common themes at all levels were Government under-investment, a shared experience of disrespect for expert opinion on education, and the sense of a deliberate privitisation agenda making inroads into the public system.

There were excellent presentations on the contextual issues created by growing inequality around the country from Major Campbell Roberts of the Salvation Army and Mike O’Brien from the Alternative Welfare Working Group. These presentations clarified the links between basic issues in schools and wider issues in communities such as lack of food for children, inadequate housing, and the impact of prevailing economic conditions on our social wellbeing.

We also heard from American academic Chris Lubienski about the growth of Charter Schools and lottery education, particularly in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. This “disaster capitalism” opportunism is a warning as Christchurch faces a major rebuild under a right-wing Government.

There were also excellent sessions on the risk of losing some Pasifika languages and restorative justice in high schools, not to mention the mess created by the rushed imposition of the National Standards policy.

I was grateful for the opportunity to talk with people about Green education policy and my Real Education Project. It was a great gathering of dedicated academics and activists in education – well done QPEC for your leadership. The QPEC website will be a site of continuing analysis and activity, so watch that space!

It was an honour to be asked by Autism New Zealand to host the event, which was well attended by MPs from across the political spectrum.

The keynote speaker was Lachlan McKay – a young man with ASD who is also International Ambassador in Aotearoa-New Zealand for the Council for a World Parliament of Religions, and an Executive Member of the Wellington Inter-faith Council.

Lachlan McKay delivering his keynote speech

In his speech, Lachlan gave us a clear analysis of the need to support people with Autism Spectrum Disorders so that that they can fulfil their potential. Many brilliant people – from Bill Gates to the person in the office next to you – have experienced ASD. The call “don’t judge us until you know us” is a powerful and valuable statement. Lachlan reminded us that all over the world, we are wasting the potential of people with ASD.

Lachlan and I both spoke about a sad incident in Christchurch where Arie Smith, a young man with ASD who responded to the trauma of the earthquake by exercising his hobby of collecting light fittings, was apprehended and allegedly beaten up as a looter. The pictures on the internet certainly suggest a violent assault.

Arie Smith’s case highlights the need for understanding by all of us (particularly people with powers of arrest) that people with ASD might behave in a way we don’t recognise. It is vital that authority figures are alert to this, when 40,000 citizens live with ASD and are entitled to their human rights.

In a recession, with the threat of welfare cutbacks and increased work-testing for people with disabilities, people with autism are getting worried. I have already had people who find staying employed due to their autism very tough coming and expressing great fear about the future.

In this context we will need Autism New Zealand and other groups a to keep autism awareness in front of decision-makers at all times. This breakfast was a good start.

Me and Lachlan after his speech

Chief Judge of the 2010 awards Christine Dann  and her team of supporting judges awarded first place to the utterly deserving Warners Bros for their interference in both the political system and the rights of workers.

The accomplice award was given to John Key and his Government for their complicity in the sorry debacle around The Hobbit which included a $100 million subsidy to keep Warners happy.

Equally serious was the law change designed by Warners which removes the choice of film workers to be an employee with employee rights. Contractors are of course easier to divide and rule in terms of pay and conditions.

Sir Peter Jackson received the “quisling” award for his facilitation of overseas interests at the expense of New Zealand workers. A giant Bugs Bunny received the award on behalf of Warners waving a carrot and crying “That’s All Folks” in true Hollywood style.

Runners up BUPA (a UK rest home consortium) and Imperial Tobacco were not represented but at the event but were seen as  well deserving of their status, BUPA for treatment of the elderly and staff and Imperial Tobacco for their unethical use of fake  community groups in their endless promoting of this killer product.

At the Roger Awards we had the chance to catch up with some of this country’s finest critics of multinational exploitation and free trade including Murray Horton from CAFCA who lead the Roger Awards process, Professor Jane Kelsey, John Minto, Sue Bradford, Joce Jesson, Maire Leadbetter  and many more.

Murray Horton is starting his nation wide tour on overseas ownership of our country tonight. He has a unique style and a depth of knowledge on this vital issue so catch him him if you can. I am hosting him in Thames this Friday night where overseas mining companies continue to be unwelcome and unnecessary.

The Roger Awards are a national icon and reminds us that the legacy of  Roger Douglas and the ideology of the free market needs constant and resolute challenge!

The issue of what to do with persistent bullies sounds simple: kick them out! But it’s not as simple as it sounds. We need more places for children with behavioural issues in centres where skilled people can help them and their families without victims of bullying remaining at risk. Something that has improved since my days at school is that we now have peer mediation and anti-bullying awareness programmes, but clearly these programmes are not enough to stop really serious violence in schools.

Is it getting worse? Thirty years ago violence and abuse was normalised as “boys will be boys” and pack fighting and individual torment took place in many schools. It’s hard to assess the impact of adult violence, violence in mass media and increased social inequality on levels of bullying. In the old days we had more fear of teachers and fear of authority and abusive behaviour was covered up in some schools. Now issues get named but naming is not always resolving.

I admire the young people from SAVE (Students against Violence Everywhere) for the great work they are doing. It’s hard to blame schools for not fixing social problems and its wrong to keep exposing victims to perpetrators. In the end we cannot expel young people in trouble from our families or communities even if they are removed from schools. They are mirroring a profound problem they see in their world.

When I visited the schools and alternatives schools carrying out my “What is A Real Education?” project, bullying was a big concern for students. It is time to hold up the mirror to adults and ask “What are we doing to actively reduce the normalising of violent behaviour?”

That’s why I have complained to the Department of Internal Affairs and the Office of Film and Literature Classification about a freely available magazine called Vice which shows young women tied up with ropes looking fragile and vulnerable.

It’s not going to stop violence but, nor is it silent collusion. What else can we do to help young people value non-violence? And where are the help and resources for damaged young people so they cannot damage other children? A letter from the Minister of Education to the Boards of Trustees isn’t enough.

In Porirua the Mayor (my tour guide Nick Leggett) is 31 years old and the Deputy Mayor Liz Kelly is tangata whenua. A quick glance at local government statistics will show how unusual this is. Porirua City Council is an active partner with some great initiatives such as three I visited: Trash Palace, Pacific Health Services, and Pataka Gallery.

Trash Palace is adding 30 years to the life of the Porirua landfill, employing a range of people with illnesses and disabilities, and educating the next generation about resource recovery. Their Manager Elizabeth Caluzzi (‘Queen Elizabeth’) is a wonderful advocate for the multiple benefits of valuing ‘trash’, and valuing people.

'Queen Elizabeth' at Trash Palace

Pacific Health Services trustees with Porirua Mayor Nick Leggett

Pacific Health Services is facing cuts from the PHO, which is false economy as they have the people and the skills to reach a vulnerable population and inspire then to be healthy. I don’t believe the hospital model can achieve the same success they have.

The Pataka Gallery is a world class art gallery and as well as a lively and valuable community venue.

Its no wonder Porirua has won several ‘International Liveable Communities’ awards. It’s not like they’ve got no issues but at least their Council and communities are talking the same language about community-led development.

In Nelson, I spoke with the large community of practitioners working on disability support who make up the New Zealand Disability Support Network, at their first ever national conference. Their challenge to the politicians is clear. They want a coherent plan to ensure the New Zealand Disability Strategy is properly resourced and implemented. I couldn’t agree more.

I also met with Penny Molnar, a community development leader and nurse who is part of the great work at Victory Village. Victory Village is an example of how to combine a Health Centre and a Primary School to build a stronger community. Their innovative practice has been recorded in a very interesting report called Paths of Victory and a national forum is being held at Victory Village in April.

These two days reminded me that despite cuts and catastrophes we have some exceptional strength in the flaxroots and the grassroots and we need to back them up with both resources and respect.

This year, our hearts and thoughts start and finish with women in Christchurch. I spent the weekend door-knocking on the streets of Aranui, Wainoni and New Brighton which are all low-income areas hit hard by the earthquake.

About a third of the houses I visited were empty, but I spoke with a number of women who were staying on despite still having no electricity, no running water and no easily accessible toilets. I hope they all have at least one of those basic services by now.

I was moved by many stories but particularly by the struggles of women struggling to feed and care for children under these dire conditions. It turned cold and rained and there were many holes in their houses. A grandmother told me that her 8-year-old grandson hadn’t left her side in two weeks because – like many children – he is traumatised and afraid.

All the women I met were working hard to survive and look after each other. I call them all “working women” but I also take my hat off to the fantastic women volunteering with the men in relief centres of all kinds. They are working to meet need like they have never worked before.

This day also reminds us about the status of women in the job market. The lack of gender pay equity is a mark of shame on this nation. At lunchtime, I signed a pledge to work towards pay equity with the Pay Equity Challenge Coalition.

The minimum wage is far too low and badly affects women workers. The Welfare Working Group Report is not just an attack on beneficiaries, it is a multifaceted attack on lower income working women: the more draconian the benefit system and the more desperate the people, the easier it is to keep wages low. Between the recession, free market capitalist ideology from the Government, and the earthquake,we now face ridiculously huge challenges and women as usual are on the front line.

We want more than a place on a Board. Much as I would like to see more women on these boards I am yet to see the evidence that says these women become advocates for change for lower-income women.

We want more than the vision outlined by Julia Gillard when she spoke in our Parliament about ANZAC solidarity in war, sport and free trade with no mention of women’s or children’s issues.

We want our communities, especially Christchurch, to recover in a manner that upholds the dignity, the needs and the rights of all working women. Because if we achieve that goal humanity across this country will thrive!

The woman starts to cry as she tries to tell us how frightened she is at night in the dark street and now her neighbours have gone. I hope the power is on now for her, I pray that Work and Income and Red Cross will give her some hardship money. Because her carpets smell and her car is dead.

A man rings a Green Party member and says his street has no water, no power and no portaloos for several blocks, the e-map of the distribution of toilets shows he’s right. He says people are cooking on single gas rings and sharing what they can but food is a problem. He is cycling for water for his neighbours who are too old to get out. I ring the Council and they give me a job number for his street to get on a priority list for toilets. I will check out how that is going today.

The RAC s (Recovery Assistance Centres) are being established to help with emergency grants from Red Cross and Work and Income, housing issues and Council issues. They are a great idea but when we door knocked in the next street people didn’t know they were there.

People are told to check for information on the internet which is irrelevant. The people we met either had no power or had never had the internet. This is the reality of inequality and the digital divide.
 
We encouraged people to ask for the emergency money because their costs have been huge already. Every little thing in Christchurch is harder from the extra petrol to get wherever you’re going by circuitous routes to the cost of batteries for torches and food when most supermarkets aren’t open.

In the neighbourhoods of Aranui and New Brighton fantastic community groups, Maori wardens  and volunteers are providing food, water, and all kinds of goods. But there are people too afraid or unable to leave their homes.

Some Green women have been gathering cooked food and delivering it to vulnerable people identified by the Student Army and their own door knocking. Nikki Berry and Jacinta O’Reilly are working to support many vulnerable households in this practical way. I was at Nikki’s house when a lovely couple dropped off 40 cup cakes to add to the hot dinners being provided. But how long can they keep doing this?

The humanitarian effort on the ground will be needed for a very long time. It needs to be led by the strongly networked groups like Aranui Community Trust and the marae and Pacific community networks. We need to back these people because they are part of the vulnerable communities.

The market will not provide in Christchurch. It never has provided for the well being of these families. But the community voluntary sector can and will.

I am thrilled that my Bill contributed to this moment, and pleased that the Government has supported the immediate creation of the position even though the appointment will eventually require a change to the Human Rights Act.

The position will be a 0.8 position until the law is changed but it’s great to see the process is underway. No other Commissioner, even with the best of intentions, can speak for the disability community as a part time job.

This is a small step for the one in five people who experience disability at some time in their lives. I continue to support those who call for a whole Disability Commission, and long-term I hope we will get there. In the meantime, however, having a dedicated Commissioner is a great a start.

If the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the New Zealand Disability Strategy are to be realised in practical terms, we need a champion at national level.

The hard working NGOs in the disability sector and the individuals affected by a disabling society have a long list of changes needed, so the new champion is will have a busy job. I am proud to have played a part in the long campaign to get a champion for disability justice appointed.

This position was predictable, but less well known is her stance on education. Julia is the leader who imposed the Australian version of National Standards on Australian schools against the wishes of the teachers’ unions.

On a school visit, John Key admitted to Julia Gillard that we’re having a few problems with our “trial” of National Standards. If only it was a trial! In fact, it’s been rolled out to all schools, but he was right to admit that it’s not going well – many of our teachers and principals have rejected the standards outright.

The Australian education system is not the model we should follow in the race to educational inequity. Their record on public education is tainted by privatisation and underfunding. The Finnish education system is far more successful and innovative and is based on rewarding teachers and uplifting the status of public education. While there are some key differences between New Zealand and Finland – like the fact that there’s very little immigration in Finland – we could learn a lot from the Finnish system. However, I doubt the National Government is interested in anything that challenges its present orthodoxy.

The National Standards are in trouble because they were not a response to a key need identified by students, parents, teachers or academics. They were part of a new Government wanting to deliver on a particular election commitment. By ACT’s standards they are limited response to the call for vouchers and total privatisation in education. But it’s far easier to slowly weaken the public sector and set up the steps towards league tables and performance pay than announce your passion for the private system.

Of course, the signals have been clear since Budget 2009, which granted an extra $35 million to private schools. The present fondness for Cambridge exams over NCEA, and moves towards public private partnerships in schools are more evidence of this trend.

Last year National Standards were the major debacle in education, and the pitched battle over them created the sense of a Government that would not listen to teachers. Now with the resignation of the Ministry of Education’s senior official working on National Standards the cracks are widening. Will the Government acknowledge the need for a review of the mess, or will they plough on further to in the educational race to nowhere?