Edulection.

2011 Election Policy

2011-11-02T20:22:00.002+13:00

If Lord Google has, for some reason, directed you to this site for the 2011 election, I suggest you head over to this page - interest.co.nz have done a great job at side-by-side policy comparisons for the 2011 election.

More Election Forums

2008-10-07T06:00:00.000+13:00

Thanks to one of our readers we have information on three more election forums coming up in the next two weeks. Details are below but if you have any information on election forums please let us know by emailing us.

We also want to run a section called "why I will vote for..." where supporters of particular parties explain their reasons for voting for their particular party. To do this we'd like a wide selection of party supporters - particularly supporters of National, ACT, NZ First, Progressive, United Future or the Maori Party but we'll absolutely take submissions on Labour, the Greens and other parties as well. If you're interested in writing one of these posts we have just three guidelines -

Please keep it to the issues, we try and avoid the mudslinging that turns so many people off politics
Keep it below 1000 words
All facts and policies must be referenced

If you're interested, please email us and let us know. We will run all submissions that comply with the above guidelines.

Oxfam NZ Election Forums Coming Up...

Tackling Climate Poverty will be on Monday, October the 13th from 6 -7 pm in Auckland. Confirmed speakers are Nick Smith of National, Jeanette Fitzsimons of the Greens, Kath McCabe of ACT and Minister David Parker of Labour. It will be held at the Auckland University of Technology, Wellesley Street East, Lecture room WA 220, WA building.
Make Trade Fair will be on Tuesday, October the 14th from 5:30– 6:30pm in Wellington. Confirmed speakers are Minister Phil Goff of Labour, Tim Groser of National and Ken Graham of the Greens. The venue is Lecture Room GBLT2, Government Buildings, Pipitea Campus, 15 Lambton Quay, Victoria University.
Ending Global Poverty and Building a Safer World will be on Tuesday, October 21 from7 - 8pm in Auckland. It will be moderated by Bill Ralston and confirmed speakers are Minister Phil Goff of Labour, Keith Locke for the Greens and Kath McCabe of ACT with a National speaker to be confirmed. The venue is lecture room WA 220, WA building AUT, Wellesley Street East.

Thanks to Kay Jones for the heads up. Holly and I are working on posts to go up this week so stay tuned.

Polling Booth

2008-10-05T11:48:00.005+13:00

You may have noticed Edulection has been quiet of late - unfortunately life gets in the way and as each post takes a lot of research and therefore time, it's hard to keep up the volume we really need to get enough topics covered.

That's where you come in. Time is running out until the election and there are many, many issues that desperately need covering here. To do this we need your help. A post can realistically be written in 5 or 6 hours - which can be spread over as long as you'd like. If you really want to learn about a particular issue and we don't have it here, consider writing for us. Whenever we write a post we learn so much more than what we post here. We are becoming really quite educated on many topics through doing our research and that means we will be voting in a more educated, balanced way.

Coming up, we can expect Labour to start releasing their policy and as time drags on that's likely to be quite an avalanche. Ideally we'd like to be posting daily in the last couple of weeks which means there is plenty of time for you to write an article. If you're interested please email us and let us know what you'd like to write about.

Coming up this week there is a forum on lesbian affairs being held by the Auckland Lesbian Business Association featuring representatives from Labour, National and the Greens. It's this Wednesday, 8 October at the Purple Bar on the corner of Pitt St and K Rd, Auckland. Doors open at 6 with the forum starting at 6.30pm sharp. For more info check out this page.

There will also be a debate at the Auckland University campus on Monday 13 October starting at 6pm and featuring Judith Tizard of Labour, Nikki Kaye of National, Aaron Galey-Young of United Future, Denise Roche of Greens and Oliver Woods of RAM. For more info check out the event's Facebook page.

Also please don't forget that Wednesday 8 October is the last day you can enrol to vote. If you haven't enrolled (or you're not sure if you are enrolled) just head over to the elections website and get yourself sorted out!

If you know of any upcoming events, please email us and let us know.

You'll notice that our regular EdulectionElection poll is up - once again we invite you to tell us who you plan to vote for. If you're reading this in RSS, please come visit the site and have your say.

With luck we'll have some posts this week. Again, please consider writing a post for us. We know you're probably busy but if you're here you probably care about the issues and there's a chance you care about educating people about them. Everyone has things that are especially important to them that they'd like to let others know about and I'm shamelessly begging for your help.

Finally if you have a question you'd like to put directly to Helen Clark or John Key then the video below explains exactly how you can do that.

Primary Education

2008-09-14T06:00:00.002+12:00

Primary school education is the next set of policy to look at in our education series (you can find our first post, on early childhood education here).

In New Zealand, primary school education is compulsory from year 1 (age 5) to year 8 (age 12). For many New Zealanders, the state of the school system is a serious concern. Subjects such as grammar have fallen by the wayside. It is felt by many that, while rote learning of grammar rules isn’t the most interesting thing in the world, it is crucial that our children have that knowledge if they want to be able to string a coherent sentence together later in life. (Kerr, 1999)

This lack of solid grammar rules being taught in schools is not a new one. Emeritus Professor Wallie Clark of the University of Canterbury, in 1994, wrote that grammar has been neglected in our schools for the last 30 years (The Press, 1994, cited in Kerr, 1999). If this is true, then we now have a whole generation, or more, of teachers in our schools who were never taught the rules of grammar themselves.

To bring this back to our politicians, Kerr also quotes two previous New Zealand education ministers.

"Wyatt Creech [of National] told the Post Primary Teachers' Association (PPTA) principals conference in 1996: 'The fact is that New Zealand has a world class education system – other country’s [sic] envy us'. And, almost as if to underline the problems with literacy, Nick Smith [also of National] proudly announced the results of the literacy taskforce earlier this year, emphasising that it was the work of a group 'compromising [sic] mostly principals and teachers'." (Kerr, 1999)

If even our education ministers can’t use proper grammar – or the proper words – then we clearly are in trouble.

As for other subjects, a 1997 IEA (Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement) tested more than half a million children in 26 countries and found that our standard 2 and 3 (year 4 and 5) children were ‘well below’ the average among the countries tested. And it listed our form 1 and 2 (year 7 and 8) children as ‘mediocre at best’ (New Zealand Education Review, 1997). A 2003 IEA study showed that there has been a ‘significant improvement’ in maths and science in New Zealand since 1995.

I should point out that these deficiencies in our education system are not the fault of our teachers. I believe we have a very high standard of teachers in New Zealand and the real problem lies in the curriculum they are being told to teach.

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find anything more recent than the articles I have referenced above. Well, nothing that isn’t government biased anyway. However, in my research it certainly does seem like our politicians have realised there is a problem. So let’s look at what each party is planning to do for primary school education.

Despite the election date being announced, Labour still don’t have their 2008 policies up. So we’ll look at what they have promised and achieved in the past. (And I’ll update once they announce their policies)

Labour realised prior to the 2005 election that things like in-depth grammar had been missing from our school curriculum for so long that our teachers themselves had missed out on learning it when they were at school. They promised to fix that problem by making it a compulsory part of teacher-training programmes.

They also promised to:

Create stringent entry and exit criteria for teacher trainees, ensuring that only those with the attributes necessary for teaching can get in to training courses and only those who come out with a high degree of competence in beginning teaching will have their qualification awarded.
Ensure teacher education is provided by people who are actively involved in research, so graduates emerge with a thorough knowledge and understanding of current pedagogy, curriculum and theories of teaching and learning.
Focus initial teacher training on subject and year-level areas of greatest need and provide incentives to train in shortage areas, not in areas that are already over supplied.
Employ around 1,300 extra primary teachers in Year 1 classes over the next three years to ensure that by 2008 there are no more than 15 students in a class.
Carry out further research on the effect of class size on learning outcomes in other junior school years.
Continue to implement existing teacher supply and hard-to-staff initiatives such as the Teach NZ scholarships and the Teach NZ promotional campaign, relocation and return-to-teaching grants, and the appointment of recruitment brokers.
Introduce paid sabbaticals for teachers for full implementation by 2010.

Despite recognising that our future teachers had not received a thorough grounding in grammar themselves, Labour made no promises to re-insert a thorough learning of grammar back into the curriculum.

Their curriculum promises were:

Extend the highly successful numeracy and literacy initiatives to reinforce the significant gains in the foundation skills of young students.
Encourage multi-language learning from intermediate school level, to ensure students have more opportunities in an ever more globalised world.
Explore the possibility of second language learning for primary aged children, including fostering teaching and learning of Pasifika languages.
Work to encourage thematic learning rather than presenting curriculum barriers that fragment learning.

National want to increase the level of sport and physical activity in schools. They do not want to reduce any other learning to accomodate this increase in PE (physical education) hours required of schools, instead they want to encourage better PE by ensuring all schools have access to high quality sports equipment and encourage students to participate in organised sports outside of school hours. They also want schools’ sports equipment to be available to students during the lunch hour so that children are encouraged to get plenty of exercise at lunchtime.

In terms of the curriculum, National plan to:

Set national standards in reading, writing and numeracy. The standards will describe all the things children should be able to do by a particular age or year at school. They will be defined by benchmarks in a range of tests.
Require primary schools to use assessment programmes that compare the progress of their students with other students across the country. Schools will choose from a range of tests, but there won't be national exams.
Give parents the right to see all assessment information, and to get regular reports about their child's progress towards national standards. Schools will also have to report each year on the whole school's performance against national standards.

This seems to be the extent of Nationals primary school education policy, or at least the extent of the policy they have released so far. However, the plan to set national standards in reading, writing and numeracy shows that they have recognised that there is a problem with our current curriculum and they want to work to address that problem. It will be interesting to see if they go into more detail about what they think the national standards should be.

New Zealand First do not have any specific primary school education policy that I can find. I will update if some becomes available.

The Green Party recognise the importance of Te Reo Maori to the New Zealand culture. They want to increase the number of Te Reo teachers in schools and offer incentives for future Te Reo teachers.

They also want to further improve the ratio of teachers to children in classrooms and support pay parity for early childhood, primary and secondary teachers based on level of responsibility and qualification.

Other Green Party policy for primary schools include:

Provide adequate staff and resources to Reading Recovery Programmes, Group Special Education and to the Teachers of Learning and Behaviour Programme to address pupil difficulties and underachievement as early as possible and work with families (and any relevant social agencies) to attempt to alleviate the problems.
Work with schools, parents and communities to identify ways to ensure that no student misses out on education through absenteeism or suspensions, and that absentee learners are promptly contacted and appropriate services are provided.
Research, develop and increase the number of alternative programmes for absentee and suspended learners, such as the Otago Youth Wellness Trust, In-school Suspension Programmes.
Ensure learners have the right to not wear a uniform without penalty from the school, and are able to choose their own hairstyle and jewellery, subject to safety requirements.
Support the retention of rural and small schools and review school transport funding to provide better and safer transport services for rural learners.

The Maori Party want all education to be freely available in both English and Maori and for there to be Maori knowledge programmes available in all schools. They do not want this to be available just for Maori children (as it currently is in many schools), but for all children.

United Future do not agree with National’s plan to standardise testing. They disagree because they feel it would encourage teachers to teach the test rather than teaching everything that a student should learn. They also do not think that the current primary school assessment is in need of an overhaul so see the implementation of standardised testing as unnecessary.

United Future will:

Support the widespread use of Asttle (Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning) and ongoing development of tools like Asttle.
Support the regular use in primary school of diagnostic pre-testing for literacy and numeracy as the basis for teaching, and support this information being made available to parents.
Increase access to Reading Recovery.
Set a minimum number of hours are established for the teaching of literacy and numeracy.
Endorse intentions to drop the teacher/pupil ration for Year 1 Students to 1:15, and recommend that Years 2 and 3 be progressively dropped to 1:22 and Years 4-8 progressively dropped to 1:25.

Act's primary school education policy seems to lie in their scholarships for every child policy.

Under this policy Act plans that schools will treat each student as a customer rather than just a student. This means teachers and principals are more likely to bend over backwards to help a student, because they don’t want to lose that student’s business. With the scholarship policy each student will have a certain amount of money allocated to them each year by the government, whichever school they go to will receive that money. So, a principal will not want a student to leave – because then they will be taking their allocated money with them and giving it to another school.

Act also wants to replace the Ministry of Education with an Education Authority. Beyond likening their proposed Education Authority to the Reserve Bank, they do not explain what it will actually be.

Kerr, Roger. 1999. 'What Parents Should Know About Education'. Educ112 course readings. Victoria University Press.
New Zealand Education Review. 1997. Educ112 course readings. Victoria University Press.

Election Announced!

2008-09-12T15:19:00.003+12:00

Helen Clark has finally called the election and the date is November 8.

First of all you should head on over to elections.govt.nz and make sure you're enrolled to vote.

Then you should check out the posts we've already published and get educated on the 2008 New Zealand general election. We've already covered plenty of subjects: Anti-Smacking Bill, Civil Unions, Climate Change, Conservation, Early Childhood Education, Energy, Herceptin, Illegal Drugs, Nuclear-Free Status and Trains and Rail and we have plenty more to come! In the works we have posts on Internet & Technology, Violent Crime, Immigration, Primary Education and Secondary Education.

If you'd like to contribute to the Edulection project you can email us here and let us know what you'd like to write about or, if you just want to keep up to date with what we're reporting on you can subscribe to our RSS.

Finally, if you haven't done so this week, vote in our poll and tell us who you plan to vote for in this year's general election on November 8!

Thanks for reading and don't forget to tell your friends - if you know Kiwi's overseas who don't know who they're voting for this is a great place for them to get up-to-date on the current election issues in a fair and balanced way without having to sort through all the namecalling that goes on in the Beehive these days.

Climate Change

2008-09-10T06:00:00.002+12:00

I've been battling with how to tackle this subject for a week or so now - it's so big and it's the kind of thing that divides people. Whoever you are, you're likely to have some sort of an opinion on it. You might believe that climate change is very real or you might believe there's not a word of truth in it. Either way it's worth paying attention to.

If you think it's very real you probably already know and accept that it's going to hit you in your pocket. The upcoming Emissions Trading Scheme is likely to hit every New Zealander via food and amenity prices and the price of fuel. The line the Government is taking (via the Kyoto Protocol) is that we've polluted the planet for too long and it's time to make that harder for people to do. The most effective way to do that is to make things that pollute cost more.

I could go into the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and what that means the simple fact is it's a huge piece of legislation so I won't. Instead I'll point you to this article which explains what the ETS is and how it works. If you can't be bothered reading through it then what you need to know is that the ETS is a part of our obligation under the Kyoto Protocol, is aimed at reducing carbon emissions (and therefore limiting climate change as much as possible) to 1990 levels by making anything that produces one of 6 main emission gasses (carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and sulphur hexafluoride (SF6)) more expensive to produce (and therefore more expensive to buy).

For this post I'm going to look at three things: where each party stands on the ETS currently before parliament, any changes they wish to make to the document and finally if they recognise climate change as a problem at all.

Once again, Labour's lack of current policy stands in our way, however, the ETS is a very current issue and Labour are busy trying to pass legislation before Parliament breaks up for the election. While Labour's Emission Trading Scheme has been criticised by many, it's set to become law. The biggest problems with Labour's ETS is the way it's structured. Currently, transport accounts for 16.4% of emissions while farming and agriculture accounts for 49.4%. But as it stands, transport will be phased into the ETS in 2011 and agriculture in 2013, a move which environmentalists have scorned.

Labour's ETS includes a one-off cash rebate (of about $112) for households facing increases in electricity bills in 2010 and the establishment of an 'energy efficiency' fund from next year to help people insulate their homes.

National want to honour New Zealand's commitment to the Kyoto Protocol, but they have many concerns about Labour's 'hasty' effort to implement an ETS. In particular they highlight;

That the Government will profit by between $6 billion and $22 billion from the tendering of emissions permits.
Lack of clear analysis on exactly how much the scheme will reduce emissions.
Lack or transparency about the real cost of the scheme on households. National believe there are many hidden costs within the scheme that will hit households financially.
The large number of significant and last-minute changes that neither the select committee nor submitters have been given an opportunity to analyse.

It is important to remember that National's primary goal is to increase wealth within New Zealand. In the Environment Policy launch on Waiheke Island, John Key said -

"I want to be quite open today about the reality that if National leads the next Government we won’t always please every environmental group all the time. That’s because, unashamedly, National will seek to balance environmental goals with our other goals of increasing New Zealand’s economic prosperity and providing more opportunities to Kiwis from all walks of life."

He further believes that good environmental policy and good environmental policy is something that often goes hand-in-hand - something which could be argued against by asking if that were true, would we really be facing the issues we're facing today?

National's promises to make changes to the ETS within 9 months of taking office, aiming for "50 by 50" - 50% reduction in New Zealand’s carbon-equivalent net emissions, as compared to 1990 levels, by 2050. These changes will be "led by" the following principles -

The ETS must strike a balance between New Zealand’s environmental and economic interests. It should not attempt to make New Zealand a world leader on climate change.
The ETS should be fiscally neutral rather than providing billions of dollars in windfall gains to the government accounts at the expense of businesses and consumers.
The ETS should be as closely aligned as possible to the planned Australian Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, with, where possible, common compliance regimes and tradability. National wants to closely co-operate with Australia as we develop our respective schemes.
The ETS should encourage the use of technologies that improve efficiency and reduce emissions intensity, rather than encourage an exodus of industries and their skilled staff to other countries.
The ETS needs to recognise the importance of small and medium enterprise to New Zealand and not discriminate against them in allocating emission permits.
The ETS should have the flexibility to respond to progress in international negotiations rather than setting a rigid schedule. This way, industry obligations can be kept in line with those of foreign competitors.

From the introduction to New Zealand First's Environmental Policy -

"New Zealand First is a party of sensible environmentalists. We have a genuine concern for the environment and its preservation, but we are not captured by the extremist fringe of the environmental movement."

New Zealand First support Labour's ETS and are key players in getting the legislation passed but they are not by any means leaders or environmentalists. They will only go ahead with implementing Kyoto standards if they are "in harmony with [the goals] of our major trading partners". In this area it's worth keeping in mind that New Zealand First are huge supporters of the US-New Zealand trade agreement and the US are the only country that has not signed the Kyoto Protocol.

As you may imagine the Green Party have strong views on Climate Change and are one of the only parties to have a dedicated policy document on the issue. The Greens have spent considerable effort negotiating with Labour on the ETS and only decided to support the policy after public consultation (you can check out the YouTube video of their press conferences on the issue here and here (for before their decision) and here and here and here (for the announcement of their decision))

Essentially the Greens would like to see us move forward and reduce our carbon levels and expose the New Zealand economy to the world price for carbon. For everyday New Zealanders that means that things are going to become more expensive. It's worth remembering however that, as National pointed out, a lot of money will be generated for the government through this scheme and the Greens plan to invest that money in creating new industries for the West Coast of the South Island (who are currently quite dependant on the coal industry), helping low-income households cope with the raised costs of living, funding energy efficiency (insulation) in homes, renewable energy and transport programmes and partially shielding important but vulnerable industries from the full force of the cost of the scheme.

The Greens are particularly aware of the emissions produced by the agriculture sector but show that the beef and lamb sectors have not increased their carbon production past 1990 levels. The Greens do not want to punish individual farmers either, more they would push the cost onto processing companies such as Fonterra. It's worth remembering however that this will only result in an even higher cost of dairy at the supermarket.

Undoubtably, the Maori Party believe in climate change, so much so that the will not support the ETS. Tariana Turia explains this stand by saying:

"We remain strong in our belief that, fundamentally, the ETS is still just an Emissions Trading Scheme, when what is required is an Emissions Reduction Programme [...] A 2% reduction in emissions over ten years is simply fiddling while Rome burns. The time for scheming is over. Now is the time for a programme of action, [...] A real Emissions Reduction Programme will require significant changes in our lifestyle, but the alternative, of doing almost nothing, will be a lot worse."

The Maori Party are also strongly against the staggering that Labour have given to the transport and agriculture industries calling it "pay the polluters" and pointing out that it should be "polluter pays".

In a nutshell United Future accept that climate change is happening and believe something needs to be done about it. Like the Greens, United Future have a dedicated climate change policy which explains their stand and their goals. As briefly as possible, they would like to balance environmental and economic effects, promote both public and private initiatives (such as working with the banks to finance home insulation and retro-fitting), encourage the disposal of old, inefficient cars and encourage biofuel use.

Two unique and innovative parts of United Future's policy are outlined below -

Require all flats and rental properties to be advertised as to whether or not they are insulated. in order to help tenants make an informed choice and will incentivise landlords to improve the insulation and energy efficiency of their properties. Anyone who's been stuck in a dank, dark flat in Winter (especially if it was awesome when they moved in during the warmer months) might agree that this could be an fantastic little piece of legislation.
Require all new Government vehicle fleet purchases be hybrid vehicles where possible.

United Future do not want to cause extra costs to be put onto the agricultural sector, more they want to encourage research and development by both the Government and Fonterra aiming to reduce methane emissions from the industry. For those costs the farmers must bear, United Future supports a scheme whereby the cost of carbon can be offset by planting trees on the farm (particularly around waterways) instead.

Act are the only party that outright do not believe in climate change. Rodney Hide has been quoted as saying -

"The data and the hypothesis do not hold together. Al Gore is a phoney and a fraud on this issue and the emissions trading scheme is a worldwide scam and a swindle."

Policy 18 (of 20) on climate change states:

"There’s no doubt the climate is changing. Indeed, it’s been changing for millennia. What’s in doubt is the anthropogenic effect. That is, the level that humans contribute to this change in climate through emissions of carbon, etc."

The only things Act plan to do in the climate change arena are "adopt saner policies", although what these are exactly is unknown. They also state that a lower carbon tax is better than carbon trading.

If you wish to understand more about the effects and issues around the ETS I'd recommend you take a look at some of these articles:

Early Childhood Education

2008-09-03T06:00:00.007+12:00

Education is always a topical election issue. Tertiary policy in particular is a big one, because people starting tertiary education are also starting to vote – and student voters are highly prized by most political parties. However, there is a lot more to education policy than just student allowances, student loans and free education for the masses. Education is too big a topic to cover all in one go, so we are going to look at the various areas of education over the next few weeks, starting with early childhood education and working our way up.

So, to begin, early childhood education.

In New Zealand early childhood education (younger than 5 years old) is not compulsory. Parents can choose to send their children to an early childhood education centre, or they can choose not to. Some primary schools require an early childhood education before they allow entrance into their own school, but most do not have this requirement.

Labour do not have their 2008 policies up on their website yet. In prior policy they have placed a huge amount of importance on education, including early childhood education, so it is a fair assumption that they will again.

One of their biggest early childhood achievements of the last term has been implementing the 20 Hours Free scheme. This scheme gives 20 hours of free teacher-led early childhood education to all qualifying children, per week. It seems relatively easy for a child to qualify – they just have to be between the ages of 3 and 4 years old and attending a teacher-led early childhood education centre. It is worth mentioning that parents may still be asked to make voluntary donations to the early childhood education centre. The donations are strictly voluntary – the centre cannot demand extra payment (although I’m sure some put a huge amount of pressure on).

Here is what Labour have achieved so far for early childhood education (taken from their website). It basically breaks down to:

Increased government funding for early childhood education by 140% since 1999.
Set the requirement for all early childhood education centres that offer teacher-led services to have at least one qualified teacher on staff.
Provided grants to encourage more people to train as early childhood educators.
Identified the areas around the country where more early childhood education centres are needed.
Created the 20 Hours Free scheme.

I will update with Labour’s 2008 policy once it is announced.

National care about education, including early childhood education, and have made it a big priority in their 2008 policy. They want to retain everything Labour have put in place over the last few years, and to build on and improve that foundation.

A National-led Government will (from their website):

Improve the choice and quality of early childhood education (although they don’t mention how they are going to do this)
Retain Labour’s 20 Hours Free scheme
Make the 20 Hours Free scheme more flexible and improve its availability by including playcentres and kohanga reo as eligible early education centres, removing the 6-hours a day limit and including 5 year olds as eligible
Maintain all other current early childhood subsidies and fee controls
Increase the adult/child ratio in early childhood education centres from 1:5 to 1:4
By 2012 they will require that at least 50% of teachers in each teacher-led early childhood education centres for children under 2 years old, are qualified teachers
Allow English-speaking foreign teachers to become qualified in New Zealand after completing a 6-week course
Allow Montessori, Steiner and Playcentre qualifications count towards the early childhood education degree

Like National and Labour, New Zealand First consider early childhood education to be very important. They have thrown a lot of acronyms around, but don’t explain exactly what the services these acronyms stand for will be. (My favourite is HIPPY – it’s about homeschooling children - which makes me wonder, are New Zealand First trying to tell us something, or is it just a coincidence?)

Their early childhood education policies are (straight from their website):

initiate Family Start Programmes across the country aimed at those children at greatest risk of less than optimal development
make available "Home Instructional Programme for Pre-schoolers and Youngsters" (HIPPY) programmes to all families with low levels of educational capital
develop Parents as First Teacher (PAFT) programmes across the country
extend the 0800 advice line services
combine all parent-caregiver support programmes under the umbrella of a single agency
increase the discretionary grants available to communities for building or upgrading early childhood facilities in order to increase participation rates
explore the possibilities of enabling early childhood centres to be funded more than six hours per day and for weekend sessions
develop a set of principles defining which languages will be supported and to what degree

While they don’t mention Labour’s 20 Hours Free scheme directly, they do say that they want to look at the idea of more than six hours per day of funding per child which I assume means improving on the current scheme, which provides 6 free hours per day. They leave themselves a nice get-out-of-jail-free card by saying ‘explore the possibility’.

I really like that New Zealand First are promising to increase the discretionary grants for building and upgrading early childhood facilities. There are some communities that would really benefit from that increased funding.

The Greens consider education a top priority. Unfortunately they seem to be so focussed on tertiary education that they don’t have very many policies on anything before that.

They do want to improve resources for not-for-profit early childhood centres. And they want pay-parity for early childhood teachers, primary teachers and secondary teachers.

Other than that nothing is mentioned.

The Maori party have no mention of early childhood education in their policy. I will update this when I find out more.

United Future heavily emphasises parental involvement in a child's early childhood education. They want to encourage parent-led centres and to include these in the 20-hours free scheme. United Future agree with the other major Parties that New Zealand needs more qualified early childhood teachers, but they do not agree with the proposed requirement that all adults in teacher-led centres be qualified early childhood teachers. They prefer the idea that support staff, not actively involved in teaching, do not have to be qualified teachers.

United Future are the only party to propose an increase in funding to identify children with special needs at this level. Currently learning disabilities are not generally recognised in children until they fail to keep up with their peers later on. If these needs were recognised in more children sooner they would be able to get the help they need before entering the primary school system.

Act don’t have anything about early childhood education in their policy. Looking through some old press releases and reports from them, they were in favour of the 20 Hours Free scheme. They also want to implement scholarships for every child, so that they can go to whatever school they want – regardless of cost. I’m a bit confused as to what exactly they mean by this. If they are providing this for every child, the essentially they are actually just fully-funding education in New Zealand. I’m not sure why they call it a scholarship. Anyway, I assume they include early childhood education in this – although it doesn’t specifically say.

Civil Unions

2008-08-30T06:00:00.001+12:00

Civil Unions provide a way to become legally commited to a partner, the same way marriage does. They became legal in New Zealand in April 2005, after the Civil Union Act was passed into law in December 2004. This meant that couples could apply for legal recognition of their relationship, regardless of the gender or sexual orientation of the parties involved.

Legally, only people of the opposite sex may marry, but this restriction does not apply to civil unions (about 1/5th of civil unions in New Zealand are for heterosexual, or 'straight', couples.). Couples who were married before civil unions became legal are also able to change their marriage to a civil union - and opposite-sex couples who want to change their civil union to marriage are also able to do so (this is not available to same-sex couples, though).

While many viewed New Zealand's Civil Union legislation as a positive step forward for the rights of same-sex couples, some believe that it is not enough, and that marriage should be made available to all. Still others have argued for the abolition of marriage entirely, with civil unions as the only legally recognised option available for all.

The issue of Civil unions may no longer be as important as it was in the 2005 election, but it's still worth caring about. Whether or not you are planning to become legally committed to someone, being aware of the law and of the human rights surrounding your ability to do so continue to be important.

In the 2002 General Election manifesto, the Labour Party promised to introduce civil unions. After their re-election, they spent 18 months getting the legislation drafted, and the Bills written. After three readings of the Civil Union bill, the Act was passed into law at the end of 2004.

Labour MP's voted with their consciences on the Civil Union Bill. They were 45/6 in favour.

Currently, the familiar problem of Labour and up-to-date policy statements applies. However, given their active push to bring Civil Unions into law, you can be pretty sure they like the Act, and intend to keep it.

In 2004, National MP's voted with their consciences on the Civil Union Bill. They were 3/24 against.

Prior to the 2005 election, National stated that if they were elected, they would alter the Civil Union Act to make unions available only to same-sex couples. As they didn't win the election, there were no changes.

Currently, National have made no statement available regarding their stance on civil unions. There is no official word on whether they still intend to make the change.

In 2004, NZ First allowed a conscience vote on the Civil Union Bill, with 1/12 against. Prior to this, NZ First had called for a referendum on Civil Unions. While very little can be found on the NZ First party website about this issue, Winston Peters referred to it in the final debate as:

"simply a 'sop' to the gay community, but one which ultimately treated them as second-class citizens because it denied them the right to marry."

In the lead-up to the 2005 election, NZ First's policy was to hold a referendum on repealing the Civil Union Bill.

Currently, NZ First's website does not contain any reference to civil unions in their policies, including within the Family, Youth and Social policy, where it would be most likely.

The Green Party have had a policy on Sexual Orientation since 1999. They actively worked on the Bill and were very much in favour of it passing into law.

The Greens opposed the call for a referendum in 2004, stating:

"It is not appropriate to invite New Zealanders to directly vote on whether or not a minority should be entitled to their human rights and equal treatment before the law."

Greens were the only party have policy favouring the the Civil Union Bill, and to vote accordingly. They contributed 9 votes in favour.

Currently, the Green Party include a mention of Civil Unions in their policy on Sexual Orientation, where they say:

"We support the extension of all legal partnership arrangements and rights to same-sex couples."

The Maori Party had one vote to contribute, and it was cast against the bill.

However, Tariana Turia wrote an interesting article about Understanding Difference, shortly after the Bill was passed.

"The concerns that I had around this Bill were not to do with sexual orientation, with sexuality, with sexual preference. It is my firm belief that we must embrace all members of our whanau, of our communities and promote respect as a central value in all of our relationships."

The Maori Party website does not show any current policy, however this particular phrase from their Sexual Orientation policy release (2005) should be noted:

"Values such as manaakitanga, whakapapa and whanaungatanga ask that all peoples be embraced, included and regarded, that their differences be acknowledged and respected, and that the relationships and connections between all peoples be recognised and affirmed."

Very little can be found on the United Party's website about their position on the Civil Union Bill. However, statements made during the readings of the bill are clear. This is what Murray Smith, a United Future MP, said during the final reading:

"This is not a human rights issue. The issue of same-sex marriage is not a human right. It is not a human right to have one’s relationship recognised by the State."

United allowed a conscience vote on the the Civil Union Bill, however all 8 MP's were opposed.

Prior to the 2005 election, United's policy was to amend the law so as to protect gay couples' rights to share and inherit property and be buried together, but remove equal status with marriage. They also proposed a bill to define marriage as between man and woman.

In the lead-up to the 2008 election, neither their Family nor their Gender Affairs policy mention civil unions at all. There is no official word on whether they still intend to make amendments to the Act if they are elected into power.

Act allowed a conscience vote on the the Civil Union Bill. They were 5/4 in favour.

In 2006, Rodney Hide wrote in a blog post about civil unions and marriage that:

"There's now more choice, that must be a good thing."

In the lead-up to the 2008 election, there is no current statement available regarding their stance on civil unions. This is not surprising, as there do not appear to be policy statements about this issue prior to the 2005 election either.

If you're curious as to who voted which way for the final reading of the bill, you can see the results on the CommoNZ Parliamentary Database.

Hot Topic: Anti-Smacking Bill

2008-08-28T06:00:00.000+12:00

New Zealand has a ridiculously high child abuse rate. While the most highlighted case in the New Zealand media is undoubtedly that of the Kahui twins, evidence suggests that in the first 5 years of this decade, 35 children died of maltreatment. That's an average of 7 children dying each year from being abused and it doesn't take into account the ones who have been abused but managed to survive.

Further, when UNICEF surveyed OECD countries about their child abuse statistics it found that New Zealand came 25th out of 27 countries - behind only Mexico and the United States.

The so-called "Anti-Smacking Bill" is actually a substitution of section 59 of the Crimes Act. This section reads as follows:

Parental control
(1) Every parent of a child and every person in the place of a parent of the child is justified in using force if the force used is reasonable in the circumstances and is for the purpose of—

(a) preventing or minimising harm to the child or another person; or

(b) preventing the child from engaging or continuing to engage in conduct that amounts to a criminal offence; or

(c) preventing the child from engaging or continuing to engage in offensive or disruptive behaviour; or

(d) performing the normal daily tasks that are incidental to good care and parenting.

(2) Nothing in subsection (1) or in any rule of common law justifies the use of force for the purpose of correction.
(3) Subsection (2) prevails over subsection (1).
(4) To avoid doubt, it is affirmed that the Police have the discretion not to prosecute complaints against a parent of a child or person in the place of a parent of a child in relation to an offence involving the use of force against a child, where the offence is considered to be so inconsequential that there is no public interest in proceeding with a prosecution.

The thing that really got under people's skin about this act was subsection 2. Particularly the words "Nothing [...] justifies the use of force for the purpose of correction" To put this another way - if a child is trying to cross a busy street during rush hour and the parent smacks him or her with reasonable force (i.e. a smack on the bum, not a punch to the face) in order to stop the child from being run over then they are covered by subsection (1)(d). The child can also be smacked for trying to walk out of Pak'n'Save with a packet of M&M's under subsection (1)(b). However, if a child comes home late from school because they found a pond with tadpoles that they wanted to look at, the parent isn't able to use force to punish that child under subsection (2).

Contrary to popular opinion, it does not make smacking illegal, merely removes the defense of "reasonable force" for cases of child abuse. However, as a friend of mine pointed out last night, a death is still a crime even without the amendment, as is murder and if a child is in hospital it is clearly assault. However when it was introduced there was concern about the ability to plead 'reasonable force' when a parent was charged with murder, manslaughter or assault against a child.

The bill was put forward by Sue Bradford who is a member of the Greens. Only seven MPs voted against it.

The big issue surrounding the bill now come from the Kiwi Party - a new entry to the Edulection arena. The Kiwi Party want a referendum on the 'Anti-Smacking Bill' and it's been confirmed they have enough signatures on their petition to get one. So, with that in mind, a year after it became law, it's now up to you to decide if you want to keep it.

What you think about this topic is much more valuable than what the main political parties think about it because you are the one who will decide in the referendum whether it stays or goes. It's on this website because it's still a political debate.

You still need to know that this bill originated with the Greens, that it needed significant change for it to be passed at all (section 4 was included in order to get the main political parties to agree to it) and is still ambiguous and, some would argue, entirely pointless.

For the record: Independent MPs who voted against the repeal are Gordon Copeland and Phillip Field. They are joined by ACT's Rodney Hide and Heather Roy, NZ First's Ron Mark, Pita Paraone and Winston Peters and Judy Turner from United Future.

For more coverage of the bill have a look at Scoop.

Energy

2008-08-26T06:00:00.000+12:00

The debate about energy generation is a very important one in the New Zealand political scene. With the climate change debate an increasingly important subject and the South Island hydro-lakes almost constantly at a dangerously low level and causing three energy crises in the last decade, you can see why.

The biggest issue in regards to energy generation in New Zealand is, perhaps, deciding what kind of energy is the best choice for future investment. Energy generation can come from a very wide set of sources and, while some type of renewable energy is obviously the target, renewable energy comes many forms. I'm not going to go into all those with you because it's not the point of this blog, but Contact Energy have a very handy resource which goes into the positives and negatives of hydro, gas, coal, wind, geothermal, solar, biomass and tidal/wave energy generation. Certainly if climate change and energy generation is an important issue for you I'd highly recommend you take a look at the guide to get an overview about the various options.

The next issue to consider is the much more controversial one of the Resource Management Act. The RMA is something that many admire. It's something for New Zealand to be proud of simply because it took the concept of sustainability and put it into law for the first time. It really is a piece of legislation that was well ahead of it's time, however, issues surrounding the extensive consultations required under the RMA mean that new energy plants can be severely delayed which only exacerbate the current energy crises we face on a now-regular basis.

So, looking at the issues of sustainability, emissions and the RMA, what does each of the main political parties have to say about energy production and distribution?

Once again, Labour's policy is dated from 2005. Edulection frustration at Labour notwithstanding, this is how Labour stood on Energy in 2005.

In 2005 Labour pledged to introduce a Carbon Tax. They have tried to introduce it, however, have faced major opposition. Right now New Zealand has no Carbon Tax and the emissions Trading Scheme currently proposed is highly controversial because, until 2013, it puts 90% of the cost onto small-time producers such as households, road users and small to medium businesses, rather than those who actually make the bulk of emissions - big industry and farming. This carbon tax is important to Energy because it has been so delayed (the target date in 2005 was April 2007) so have many decisions about new energy generation. The ETS is due to go before parliament very soon but as I said earlier, it's highly controversial. Very few groups are actually happy with it.

In 2005, Labour also pledged to "use the Electricity Commission to monitor supply and demand of electricity and ensure that there is enough backup generation even in dry years". While we haven't actually had power outages, we are encouraged to save electricity every year due to the lack of water in our hydro-lakes. Labour also pledged to keep electricity costs down - particularly for low-users, explore new renewable energy options, and ensure new buildings meet energy efficiency requirements.

National have made a big song and dance about their policies lately. The core of their principles is that they are worried about the stability of the economy when we are being asked on a regular basis to conserve power. National believe that the biggest slower in the process is the RMA and they have pledged to 'streamline' the RMA in the first 30 days of being in office, making it easier to gain consents for new power generation operations. When it comes down to how the energy will be generated, National has left it quite open. Their Energy Policy states National will:

Accept that gas will be part of the mix needed for secure supply. Overturn the Government’s ban on new base-load thermal power stations.
Introduce an emissions trading scheme within nine months of taking office. We expect our ETS will result in no new coal stations unless carbon capture technology is proven.
Support the 90% renewables target but not let it get in the way of security of supply.

One awesome thing about National's policy that is really worth noting is the promise of a $1000 grant to households installing solar-water heating and a simplification of the resource consents involved. They also plan to remove a lot of the bureaucracy around the power supply market to make it more affordable and plan to start looking for more gas fields in order to continue using gas as a baseline power generation method.

NZ First want to guarantee security of supply by achieving greater investment in the industry in order to produce more electricity by "providing incentives for ongoing investment" - what those incentives are is not explained.

NZ First are also "consider[ing] a range of incentives for reducing demand in times of reduced supply". Again, who these incentives are for and what they are is not mentioned. They also want to facilitate energy efficiencies by looking at new technologies as they become available (although there are no specific energy types identified) and to ensure that energy is supplied at a fair and reasonable price.

While NZ First wants more investment they don't want the prices pushed up with it and so they have no plans to sell off government-owned assets in the electricity market. They also want to examine the "fixed line charge" - anyone who pays a power bill probably knows how it's done - you get a daily charge of around $0.85 and a 'per unit' charge on top of that. Well NZ First want to ensure that $0.85 is fairly distributed. NZ First also support an amended RMA to speed up the consents process.

the Green Party are yet to release an energy policy for 2008. The short story of their 2005 policy is that they wanted to redesign the Electricity Commission into the Sustainable Energy Commission who would be responsible for all regulations on all fuels. This opens the door for investigating the role of renewable energy for public transport, other essential transport services, air and marine transport, and our main industries and introducing a carbon charge on fossil fuels. The Greens' planned to use the revenue from this carbon charge to reduce income tax on the bottom band, for everyone. Price wise the Greens support investigating 'progressive pricing', whereby the more energy you use, the more you pay, above a certain base level. Like National, the Greens support a programme to install solar water heating panels on government and private buildings although are not specific on this point. They also would like to investigate the potential of woody biomass, biofuels, and energy from waves, tides and currents.

The Maori Party's 3 policy statements do not include reference to energy or electricity generation. However, I have sent party co-leader Pita Sharples a message via Facebook. If I get a reply I'll post it here.

United Future like our energy the way it is. They just want to make it a little more reliable and a little cheaper. They believe in strong investment in the development of new sustainable energy options and upgrading the national grid. The energy policy is particularly weak, however, in actually making a commitment to any energy options or pushing sustainable energy options. One particular sentence that really worries me about the document is this:

"The best generation is that which is the most reliable and can be consistently delivered at the lowest cost within full compliance with New Zealand's high environmental standards."

When I read that I see loopholes. New technology should be renewable in order to avoid further hidden costs that will eventually come in because of the Emission Trading Scheme. I'm not entirely convinced that this is what United Future's policy is looking at.

Act has a 20-point plan. In this plan I found 4 of these points that relate directly to this issue:

6) Resource Management Reform the Resource Management Act (has worked in the US (Houston)). Benefit: Good projects start and finish sooner.

13) Privatisation Sell state businesses where private firms can serve customers better (has worked practically everywhere except Cuba, North Korea, Myanmar). Benefit: Happier customers. Lower prices. More product variety and choice.
14) Infrastructure Build better networks (e.g. roads, water, electricity). Replace users charges with tolls which reward off-peak use (has worked well in countries such as Australia, Norway (Oslo), US, Singapore, France. Benefit: Smoothing demand reduces bottleneck. No need to pay for more capacity. Better service for less money
18) Climate Change Adopt saner policies. Low carbon tax better than carbon trading (has worked in countries such as the US, Canada (British Columbia), Australia). Benefit: Don't hurt Kiwi families needlessly. (nations that cause 75% of emissions must lead)

That's actually as in depth as they go.

I'll leave it to you to make your choice as to who has the most sane policy here. As parties update their policy I'll update this page.

YouTubing the Election

2008-08-18T06:00:00.002+12:00

These days political parties use social networking sites such as Facebook and other sites such as YouTube as a way of reaching voters. As such we're going to point you in the direction of YouTube and Facebook sites to see what the parties have to say themselves.

Labour has a YouTube channel, it took a long time to find and it's only got 5 (very old) videos. I'm not going to post a video from it purely because nothing is even remotely relevant to the political situation today. For shame.

Helen Clark can be found on Facebook however and currently has 2,025 supporters.

National has taken to social networking like a fish to water. In the video below John Key discusses the recent 'dirty tricks' with the recording at a National conference, various policies including tax cuts and infrastructure and the all-important Facebook. You can check out their YouTube channel too.

Facebook also has a page on John Key and he currently has 5,263 supporters.

No YouTube channel for New Zealand First but then again it's hardly New Zealand First's target market. Winston Peters also doesn't have an official Facebook Page.

The Greens have used their YouTube channel to push the issues they care about, the ad below highlights what the Greens consider important.

The Greens are totally up on Facebook. Jeanette Fitzsimons has her own page (with 118 friends), as does co-leader Russel Norman (146 supporters) and the party also has a page, with 679 fans.

The Maori Party are pretty media savvy. Here's Pita Sharples telling you about his website and his Facebook (which you can see here, he has 77 friends)... you can check out their channel here.

No YouTube channel for United Future either but Peter Dunne has a Facebook presence

Act don't have a YouTube channel or Facebook presence but I did discover this rather amusing announcement of Roger Douglas's return to politics.

Oh, and for reference, Edulection doesn't have a YouTube account but we do have a Facebook one. Go join and show your support for becoming educated on the election!

Conservation

2008-08-16T06:00:00.000+12:00

While we at Edulection aren't the only ones to collect information on where all the major political parties stand, we are the only one to bring you a wide selection of topics.

Obviously there are organisations which care about various issues. One such organisation is the Royal Forest and Bird Society. They put together a great PDF which you can access here that brings together information on what the major political parties think on a wide range of topics related to conservation.

The twenty questions below were put to Labour, National, New Zealand First, Greens, Maori and United Future. Go to Forest and Bird's very informative Envirovote section to see how they answered.

Introduced pests, such as deer, thar, chamois and wild pigs, inflict significant damage to our natural environment, yet some among the hunting lobby want the law changed to see them “managed” as a “resource.” Will you uphold existing legislation and policy that supports control of these species and allows continued access for hunters to the conservation estate?
Introduced pests are not controlled over a large proportion of the conservation estate, and threaten native species such as kiwi. Will your party commit to expanding regular pest control to at least 30% of the conservation estate within three years (focusing on key areas of most urgent concern: Kaimai-Mamaku, Ruahine, Waitutu, Puketi-Omahutu)?
Pest-free offshore islands provide vital havens for some of our most critically endangered species. Will you commit to funding pest eradication on the Auckland Islands?
The Department of Conservation is responsible for protecting a land area covering nearly 30% of New Zealand’s land mass that is habitat for much of our unique biodiversity, yet is not adequately resourced to carry out this guardianship role. Will you adequately resource DOC so it can fulfil its core biodiversity protection responsibilities?
Forest & Bird has advocated for a network of conservation parks to protect our vulnerable South Island high country. Does your party support the creation of further high country parks, including the nomination of the Ashburton lakes as a World Heritage Site?
South Island high country lakes and their surrounds form some of New Zealand’s most iconic landscapes. Recently lakeside pastoral leases were excluded from tenure review because of their special scenic values. Will you also support similar protection for properties with special conservation and biodiversity values?
The Mokihinui River Valley on the West Coast is clad in pristine native forest, including rimu, kahikatea and beech, and is important habitat for native birds, including kiwi. However, the valley would be flooded if a proposal by power company Meridian to build an 80-metre-high dam across the river valley goes ahead. Will your party stop the proposal to dam the Mokihinui River?
Canterbury is already suffering environmental damage due to intensification of agriculture, especially dairy farming. However the Central Plains Water Scheme is progressing before major strategic studies on the region’s water use can be completed. Will your party withdraw the Central Plains Water Scheme requiring authority and call a moratorium on all other major water takes till the studies are completed?
The outstanding conservation and recreational values of our braided rivers, and the many endangered plants and animals they support, merit protection. Is your party committed to reversing the decline of the indigenous biodiversity of our braided rivers?
Hector’s dolphins are in decline and under serious threat, most significantly from set nets. Does your party support a ban on set nets throughout the dolphins’ range?
Maui’s dolphins are the world’s rarest marine dolphin, with just 111 individuals remaining. Do you support the establishment of the marine mammal sanctuary proposed by Forest & Bird to protect Maui’s dolphins from risk of extinction?
The practice of shark finning – cutting fins off sharks and throwing away their bodies – is contributing to the decline of shark populations and is banned in many countries. Does your party support a requirement for fishers to land whole sharks, rather than take only the fins, to discourage this practice?
Significant numbers of the endangered New Zealand sea lion are killed each year as by-catch in the southern squid fishery. Does your party support extending the marine mammal sanctuary around the main breeding colony on the Auckland Islands to waters up to 500m deep to provide more adequate protection?
Nearly a third of New Zealand’s land mass is protected in the conservation estate, but just 0.3% of our coastal waters and EEZ are protected. Will your party commit to establishing a comprehensive network of no-take marine reserves covering at least 10% of the EEZ by 2010?
of New Zealand’s fisheries are over-fished and/or cause damage to marine environments, yet current law does not allow the Minister of Fisheries to take a cautious approach to setting catch limits when fish stocks are in decline. Do you support amendments to the Fisheries Act that would ensure that fisheries management takes a precautionary approach towards environmental sustainability?
The Upper Waimangaroa Valley north of Westport contains untouched and spectacular landscapes that are home to many endangered and threatened species. Will your party protect this important conservation area from threat of mining by directing State-owned Solid Energy to exclude the upper Waimangaroa Valley from mining?
The proposed emissions trading scheme and afforestation grant scheme don’t include incentives to protect areas of native vegetation (and may even encourage its destruction).Do you support a scheme which would also recognise the carbon-storing value of native vegetation?
New Zealand is one of the least efficient users of electricity in the OECD, which contributes to demand for environmentally damaging electricity generation, such as new hydro
schemes. Will your party require electricity companies to invest in energy efficiency before they can invest in increasing generation?
Developed countries, including New Zealand, agreed at the Bali meeting to greenhouse gas reductions of 25-40%. However, within New Zealand we have yet to commit to a target within this range. Does your party support a 30% reduction target by 2020?
The Resource Management Act provides a legal framework for communities to be involved in protection of biodiversity in their area. Often they must fulfil this responsibility against opposition from well-resourced developers. Will your party commit to increasing the funds available to assist communities in their RMA advocacy?

If you happen to be in Wellington on the 18th of September (I arrive on the 19th - I'm gutted) Forest and Bird are holding a pre-election conservation forum where you can put your conservation questions to the parties. It will be held at Victoria University, on the 18th Sept from 6.30- 8.30pm. For more information, head here.

Herceptin

2008-08-14T06:00:00.006+12:00

If you try to keep an eye on the news you've probably heard the word Herceptin. You might be aware that it's a drug used for treating cancer - you might even know that it's especially for breast cancer. Perhaps you've learnt that recently, Pharmac (the state-owned drug buying company) turned down an appeal by former breast cancer sufferers to extend the state funding of Herceptin from 9 weeks to 12 months and that this has made many breast cancer sufferers (and their families) very upset.

Not being a cancer sufferer myself I don't know much about cancer treatment and Herceptin itself so I went on a bit of a fact-finding mission. Herceptin is a biological treatment. Essentially this means that it uses natural substances to get the body to attack the cancer cells in certain breast cancer types. Only about 15-25% of breast cancer sufferers will respond to Herceptin treatment as they have to have a particular kind of breast cancer (HER2 positive)

The biggest debate in New Zealand right now is whether to fund a full 12-month course of Herceptin for eligible patients or to stay with the current 9-week course. Looking at the facts: -

Pharmac (the New Zealand drug funding agency) has opted, twice, to only fund the 9-week course.
The cost of a 9-week course per patient is $13,000 making a total annual cost of ~$6 million.
The cost of a 12-onth course per patient is $71,000 making a total annual cost of ~$25 million.
There is evidence to suggest that, rather than being the wonder drug it has been touted to be, Herceptin is only really effective in about 13% of patients.
Further, there is no evidence to suggest that a 12-month course is any more effective than a 9-week course.
Herceptin also carries a pretty heavy side effect - it seriously weakens the patients heart.

The reason it's such a big deal right now is because cancer is an emotional issue. Faced with the prospect of death - whether it's your own or a close family member's - people panic. 12 months seems like a better idea than 9 weeks so why not have the full treatment option. Further, New Zealand is one of only three OECD countries to not fund the full 12-month treatment - the other two being Turkey and Mexico. Ultimately much of the focus of the media around this issue has been focused on cost. The scientific evidence points to there being no difference between the two treatment options except that the heart problems are reduced with the 9-week course due to the fact that it's (obviously) shorter.

So, now that you've got the background on the issue, what path do the top seven political parties want Pharmac to take?

Labour
Are supporting Pharmac's decision with the Health Minister David Cunliffe saying that he can't lawfully direct Pharmac to fund anything.

National
Support the 12-month course. They criticise Pharmac for withholding the 12-month scheme blaming the health budget.

NZ First
Support the 12-month course. Winston Peters has labelled the move "a disgrace which is denying New Zealand women an internationally standard treatment"

Green
Support Pharmac (and therefore the 9-week course) saying "politicians do not have the clinical expertise to make decisions about which drugs to fund. However much we might wish to interfere, we must leave it to the experts to decide."

Maori
There's no information on the Maori Party's reaction to the Pharmac decision however they welcomed the High Court decision to reconsider the extra funding on the basis that the consultation should be transparent.

United Future
United Future has no official, published stand on this issue.

Act
Support the 12 month course. Again, they blame lack of money in the health budget.

RELATED LINKS
Herceptin may not be doing so much for cancer victims (NZ Herald, 16/05/2008)

Nuclear-Free Status

2008-08-10T06:00:00.001+12:00

Our nuclear-free status is something that most Kiwi's are deeply proud of. The only terrorist act to actually occur in New Zealand territory, the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior, was over this issue. One of our most-loved ex-Prime Ministers, David Lange, famously argued to the Oxford Union why we are nuclear-free. We stood up to the most powerful country in the world and said 'no' to bringing nuclear warships into New Zealand waters - a move which, until recently, has meant we were not officially considered 'allies' of the United States. We know that nuclear power is a relatively green solution in that there are no emissions, yet we still worry about the effect radioactive waste may have on our children and our children's children. We are nuclear free and we love it.

Because this is such a passionate issue for many Kiwis I thought I'd take a look around and see what the New Zealand political parties stood for when it comes to being nuclear free. I wanted to know how they felt about nuclear power and what they thought of letting nuclear warships into New Zealand territory or cooperating in war efforts with nuclear capable countries. To do this I checked out Defence Policy, Environment Policy and Energy Policy.

Given that Labour were the ones to introduce (and defend) the nuclear-free policy back in 1987 it's no surprise that their (2005, the only policy currently available on their website) policy is anti-nuclear. Their Defence Policy states that, unless it is a UN-sanctioned or humanitarian effort, New Zealand will not cooperate in military tasks with countries whose involvement may involve nuclear weaponry (and this is the main reason we were never involved in the "War on Terror" except in peacekeeping roles).

Looking at their Energy Policy Labour are clear - they don't want nuclear power. In regards to sustainable energy they list other methods such as wind and solar.

Within National's Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Discussion Paper (PDF) they state that New Zealand's nuclear-free policy is "iconic" and will stay in place. This is good news, but those of us with political memories will remember Don Brash's gaffe in 2004 where he famously mentioned the policy would be "gone by lunchtime". Arguably this comment lost National the 2005 election so you can be pretty sure they're going to toe this line. There is no mention of nuclear energy - National is yet to launch it's energy policy - but their staunch anti-nuclear stance suggests it won't happen.

New Zealand First's Defence and Veteran's Affairs Policy states they are "committed" to New Zealand's anti-nuclear status.

An interesting addition to New Zealand First's policy is their pledge to "take positive action to assist the veterans of the nuclear testing at Christmas Island and their families in their legal action to achieve compensation for the negative effects on their health". A quick Google search revealed the story to me. Back in the 1950's and 1960's the American and British Governments undertook a series of nuclear tests at Christmas Island. The servicemen who were present consequently suffered from DNA mutations which were passed onto their children. Quite a nice touch from NZ First.

The Energy Policy emphasises the need for continuing research in the production of electricity but does not specifically mention nuclear power.

I don't think it's going to come as any surprise to anyone that the Greens are staunchly anti-nuclear. They have introduced an amendment to the current nuclear-free policy, which would extend the nuclear-free area in New Zealand waters (currently nuclear material can't be carried within 12 miles of the country).

Their Defence and Peacekeeping Policy clearly states the Greens will not stand for nuclear armament by the New Zealand Defence force but the Trade and Foreign Policy makes no mention of it. While the Greens say a lot about their anti-nuclear status, there is very little mention of it in actual policy. I don't honestly see the Greens changing their stand on the nuclear issue but the lack of policy on it is a little strange.

In regards to clean energy, the Green Party are clear - they support renewable energy, not nuclear energy.

The one thing that hinders this site is the fact that many parties simply do not have policy. The Maori Party is one of these parties. There is no official 'line' on nuclear policy but from speeches and quotes I have found it's possible to assume that the Maori Party are also anti-nuclear. An example of these quotes is below.

“The anniversary of the New Zealand Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Disarmament and Arms Control Act, passed twenty years ago today on 8 June 1987; is a day this whole nation should celebrate"

Tariana Turia

There is no mention of nuclear power or defence. The best a voter can do in regards to this issue and the Maori Party is assume that, because every mention of being nuclear-free on their website comes with expressions of pride and happiness in our status, the Maori Party is anti-nuclear.

United Future's Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Policy states, very clearly, that not only do United Future support current legislation but they want to "actively striv[e] to achieve a world free from nuclear weapons". Their Energy Policy makes no mention of nuclear energy, but it also makes no mention of any other specific energy type.

First of all I need to preface this particular section with two pieces of information: firstly, there is no recent reporting on Act's stand on the nuclear-free status of New Zealand. Secondly Act has only one policy - a "20 point plan" aimed at increasing the weekly income of the average New Zealander by $500. Act are, however, the only party to actively omit saying in one form or another that they are anti-nuclear.

A quick key-word search on their website turned up the following quotes:

“Ambassador Swindells all but spelt it out in his speech last night, the only way we can have the type of relationship Australia enjoys with the US is to drop the unnecessary and foolish ban on nuclear-powered ships visiting New Zealand ports."

Ken Shirley (ACT Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman, 06/07/2005)

"And we have this ban because?"

Act website, 08/03/2006

And the They Said It award goes to:

"There's now only one party prepared to stand up and argue against the nonsense of banning nuclear-powered ships: ACT!"

Act website, 09/02/2006

Because being nuclear-free is such an integral part of being a New Zealander, it seems all the major parties are in favour of keeping it that way. The main comment I have is that many of the parties - most notably the Green Party - have not actually written this down in policy. As for Act... well, we'll keep an eye on this. It certainly doesn't seem to be an integral policy this time around and I can't find any reference to Ken Shirley still being a party member on the website and Wikipedia reports he has moved into the public sector

Trains and Rail

2008-08-08T06:00:00.003+12:00

It might seem silly to think of this as an election issue, but trust me, it is. If you need some convincing, here is the reason you should care about this in one paragraph.

The Government spent $690 million (including associated costs) to buy back the existing New Zealand rail infrastructure earlier this year - this is after it was privatised in the 90's. Rail has always made a loss in New Zealand. We're very hilly, we're long and for the last 50 years petrol has been cheap enough that trucks were the most effective method of getting goods from Point A to Point B. This however, is changing. Petrol prices are up, as are labour costs and a train can move the equivalent of 60 trucks worth of goods for a third of the energy. From both an environmental and business point of view, rail is a great option for moving goods. Unfortunately, there has been a significant amount of neglect inflicted upon our network over the past 15 years and in order to get the newly formed KiwiRail working well and to capacity, it needs to be upgraded - to the tune of about $400 million.

So, to put it in a sentence - you should care because it cost us a lot, because it's good for the environment and it's probably the most cost effective method of moving goods around the country.

The main things I looked for when researching this article were

How does the Party regard the recent acquisition of KiwiRail and would they keep it if they got power?
Does the Party recognise the "green potential" in rail?
Is the use of rail as a form of public transport in centres such as Auckland and Wellington addressed?

The biggest problem I have with Labour right now is the fact that all their policies on their website are for 2005. Obviously once they get updated we'll update our articles but for now we'll report on what they promised to do last time.

Looking at their Transport Policies, Labour have pledged to upgrade rail networks - particularly the Auckland rail network. They've also invested heavily in the Wellington network - and, of course, they bought the rail back in the first place.

Labour are committed to using the rail network so I'd say their next set of policies will involve keeping the network in the hands of the public and to keep pouring money in for upgrades and perhaps even some extensions.

Try as I might, National doesn't mention anything about the railroads within policy. Points to remember here however - National was the party who sold our rail overseas in the first place in order to grant tax cuts back in the 90's. They then didn't regulate maintenance of this infrastructure, effectively letting it fall into a state where it's going to cost $200 million to fix. While John Key has said there will be no asset sales in the first term, rail is a target for asset sales which would be quite a step backward given how much it could make in the future, how much it cost to buy back and how good it is for the environment (not to mention the pressure it takes off our roads). To keep things in perspective, the NZHerald has reported this interesting John Key quote:

"National's made it clear we won't be selling assets in our first term," he said on Radio New Zealand. "If there's any change to that position ... we will go and seek that mandate by going out and asking the voters of New Zealand whether they support a particular policy or not."

New Zealand First has quite a cracker of a Rail Policy. Simply put, they figure now that we have them, we should keep them (making it impossible for the tracks to be sold at any point in the future), ensure that the tracks are maintained, and provide an incentive for companies to use them as a means of shipping.

As you might imagine, the Greens have a high level of support for rail infrastructure which is outlined in their Transport Policy. They would like to see more people travelling between centres by rail (although, as an environmentally-conscious voter myself I'm not even entirely sure I could do the 12-hour (if you're lucky) journey between Wellington and Auckland ever again), but also want to drastically increase funding via a moratorium on new motorways or highways. The Greens state they'd like 'integration' of public transport but don't indicate what that means or how that stacks up for city rail systems.

The Maori Party lacks in policies so I went on a hunt to see what kind of statements they've made in the past. There's this fantastic speech from Pita Sharples about how rail can be used to decrease Auckland congestion. No mention on how rail can be used in the transport of goods or it's green potential.

Peter Dunne is going to hold onto the rail network. He's said, quite recently, that "We do not support asset sales as we believe the majority of New Zealanders, having experienced the rash of such sales in the 80's and seen their consequences, do not want to see more taxpayer-owned enterprises flogged off".

As far as what they want to do with the rail network, United Future mention it in two of their policies - the Transport Policy and the Business Policy. United Future want to investigate the possibility of competition on the rail network and they "support the continued use and upgrading of commuter [...] rail" - although they don't say exactly how they're going to "support" it.

United Future make mention of improving the rail infrastructure and will give priority to areas where "rail investment constraints are holding back economic growth and development". They do not seem to consider the environmental aspects of rail.

Act are all about tax cuts. One look at their website and "20 Point Pledge" shows that, so I did some more digging and found this speech by Rodney Hide in reaction to Michael Cullen's tax cut announcement earlier this year. A particularly interesting part of the speech is below (I've added the emphasis).

The only thing that is a bit disappointing is the fact that the tax cuts are a bit small - but it is a long way for Dr Cullen to come in order to give us a tax cut.

I will, however, pick up on a point that Dr Cullen made and that the Prime Minister referred to. It was about how, when times were getting tough, the National Government sold assets. But the Labour Government — and apparently this is a good thing — has bought back assets. That is to say, it has taken assets held in private hands and brought them in to be owned by the Government.

The example that we have here is rail. We heard Dr Cullen say that buying back rail was great because Kiwis wanted to use rail. Well, the interesting thing about that is that if that is the test of what the Government should buy back, what would we leave to be run by the private sector?

If the fact that people wanted to use services is the justification for State ownership, we should perhaps buy McDonald's, Woolworths, and Foodstuffs New Zealand. Of course, if Kiwis did want to use rail and pay the price, how come the Government has had to step in and buy it? And I ask Dr Cullen how smart it is to take $665 million of taxpayers' money and give it to Australia — to the Australians? How does that make New Zealand richer? By taking $665 million from Kiwis and giving it to Australians, the only thing that has changed is that the railway now supposedly belongs to the Government.

I'll let you decide how to take Mr. Hyde's comments.

RELATED LINKS
Steel backbone to an economic lifeline (New Zealand Herald, 09/08/2008)

Drugs

2008-08-06T06:00:00.003+12:00

We're not talking the legal kind here, we're looking at where parties stand on illegal drugs - including their record as to how they voted for the ban on party pills. Whatever your stand on drugs - whether you love them or think they're the scourge of society - it's probably a good idea to know which way the wind blows for each of the main parties. First of all I think the best place to start is to look at each party's history. As a case study I'll look at the party pill ban that came into effect earlier this year. Simply put, here's how it breaks down.

Bill introduced by: Jim Anderton (Progressive Party)
Voted for: Labour, National, New Zealand First, United Future.
Voted against: Green Party, The Maori Party, ACT.

(source: NZHerald)

There are some things I was specifically looking for when researching this article. I wanted to know what drugs the party thought were the problems and I wanted to know what plans and provisions they made for rehabilitation. I looked specifically at Social Policy, Youth Policy, Health Policy and Law and Justice Policy.

So, looking at policies and plans, what have the majors got to say on the drugs issue?

Labour are in the "Drugs are Bad" camp. Their policies are all dated 2005 however there are no specific policies on drugs within the 2005 Labour portfolio. However, they reference P and methamphetamine especially within the Law and Order section of their policies. Labour would like to see an end to the "P made me do it" excuse (think Antonie Dixon) and think that instead of treating this like an excuse, it should be treated as an aggravating factor and only make the punishment harsher. It's worth noting that I can't currently see anything about other drugs or drug rehabilitation.

National also don't like drugs and again, like Labour only really talk about P and methamphetamine. National clump P in with their Gang policies. National want to "clamp down" on P dealers and manufacturers - stopping them from getting bail, handing out tougher sentences and ensuring they see trial. When it comes to the youth of New Zealand, National want to see the Youth Court be able to hand down mandatory rehabilitation programmes (reference: NZ National) Again, no mention of other drugs and with the exception of the youth courts, there is no mention of drug rehabilitation.

The first party I've investigated who even acknowledge the existence of drugs apart from P. The big points in their drug policy are:

aggressively target "P" and other dangerous drugs through co-ordinated education and police programmes aimed at reducing both access to and the appeal of these types of drugs
oppose all efforts to legalise cannabis and any other form of illicit drugs

Interestingly enough they also want to raise the drinking age. (source: NZ First) One of the lynch-pins in the NZ First ideology they want to "protect [the] social fabric and traditional family values which underpin our society". This means they oppose relaxing laws related to prostitution, cannabis and other drug use, and "other issues that undermine traditional family values". Further, NZ First believe that any changes to these types of policy should be decided by referendum rather than by politicians. NZ First would like to implement roadside drug testing, looking for people driving while under the influence of drugs. It's worth noting that NZ First also clump drugs in with gangs (source: NZ First) and again, I can't find any mention of drug rehabilitation - except for inmates in prison.

Lots of people think that Marijuana Law Reform is the Greens' "big policy" it's not, but frankly they are one of only a few parties actually looking at this issue with any depth. The only other party with a dedicated policy is United Future. The key principles of the Green Drug Reform Policy about sum it up. They recognise that all drug use, regardless of it's legal status can cause harm and that the goal is for drug-free lifestyles. However, they point out that while no drugs are healthy - not all of them are problematic and some current Government policies do not help, but rather create an entirely new set of problems. As far as cannabis goes, this is the skinny on how the Greens actually stand:

Their biggest priority is drug education
they think medical marijuana is a valid pain relief and want to see it implemented
they want people to be able to grow cannabis for personal use - and have limits defined in law
they want it to be illegal to drive while stoned
they want an 18+ age limit on cannabis use.

The fact that the Greens have a separate policy on this means they are one of the few who have thought beyond the media buzzwords of "P" or "methamphetamine" but the only mention I can find of rehabilitation is within the Youth Affairs Policy.

The Maori Party are thin on the ground on actual policies so we'll look at their ideology, history, and what they've actually said instead . In their Budget Reaction earlier this year, the Maori Party emphasised the amount needed for drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Hooray! This is the first party to actually talk about it for regular Kiwi's who are over the age of 18. Political mud-slinging aside,the Maori Party are also strongly against P.

As I mentioned earlier, the Maori Party voted against making party pills containing BZP illegal, take a look here and read their statement to the speaker. The fact is the Maori Party think it's far more pressing to look at rehabilitation for addicts, support for their families and bringing in tougher controls on alcohol and cigarettes rather than looking at BZP while it is still new on the market and it's effects are pretty much unknown.

The focus of United Future is drugs that are proven by medicine and science to be harmful. Specifically United Future believe that the most harmful substances are methamphetamine (specifically 'P'), cannabis, alcohol and tobacco. They oppose cannabis as a drug for personal use and, like National, want to remove the idea of being under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol as a mitigating factor in sentencing. In a first so far on this post, United Future have quite a comprehensive look at rehabilitation, acknowledging that treatment centres need more funing and they need to be geographically dispersed. Something that (admittedly) surprised me about United Future was the fact they had a seperate Drug Policy (I know, we're supposed to be neutral here but I think this is great, I'm impressed!)

Judging by this page and the fact that Rodney Hide was very much against the ban on BZP I'd take a stab in the dark and say he's not entirely anti-drugs but, to be honest, his website is difficult to navigate and nothing in his "20 Point Plan" specifically addresses drugs.

Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party
This website only specifically deals with the "Top 7" political parties from the 2005 election, but just because it's relevant I'm including the Legalise Cannabis Party. These guys put it best in their mission statement

ALCP MISSION STATEMENT
The Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party exists to legalise cannabis for recreational, spiritual, medicinal and industrial purposes; to empower people to work together for peace and true justice; and to institute a proper and just balance between the power of the state and the rights and dignity of the individual. We believe adults have the right to freedom of choice unless that choice harms other people or the planet.

POLICY MINIMUM PROGRAMME

Immediately tolerate adults’ personal possession and cultivation.
Establish regulated R18 cannabis commerce, like alcohol and tobacco. (Policy Council fine tunes ‘best practice’)
Make provision for expungement [sic] of cannabis convictions.
Establish therapeutic and medicinal applications of cannabis.
Enable full-scale cannabis-hemp production and utilisation.

Being fair, the ALCP support rehabilitation but don't mention any other drugs.

What the...?

2008-08-03T04:00:00.001+12:00

Edulection is a collection of New Zealanders who care about politics. Our main aim is to try and get other people to care enough to actually know why they’re voting for whoever they decide to tick.

Edulection has been started by Holly and Kat, two Kiwi bloggers who are frustrated with people who tell us they're voting for John Key because he's "cute" or for National because they "don't want to vote for the losers". If you want to vote for National, that's fine, but we'd prefer to hear considered, rational decisions from our friends. This is our world, our country and we think it's a decision which everyone should take seriously.

We have our own political opinions which we express on our personal blogs but we want to provide a neutral, easy-to-understand platform for the average Kiwi to learn about what they're really voting for. This is what Edulection is all about. An estimated 2 million Kiwis are online (Source: NZHerald) so we think it's a great way to try.

We aim to make sure you know why you're choosing to vote for a political party. The idea is you can look at things that are important to you (creative industries, the environment, health, education, business, the economy etc) and get an easy-to-understand overview of each party's policies and election pledges for the 2008 General Election. We don't care who you vote for, we just want to make sure you know why you're doing it.

If you have a topic you’d like to write about, contact us, we’re always looking for more contributors. We have a list of requirements but we want as many policies as possible to be covered meaning if it’s important to you, it’s important to us.

Write for us

2008-08-03T03:59:00.001+12:00

Edulection is a collaborative effort. Politics affects every issue around and, while some are more pressing than others, they are all important. What is important to someone in a city might not be important to someone on a farm and vice versa so we are looking for a wide range of contributors to take part in our project.

If you want to write for us there are a couple of things you need to know:

Edulection retains the right to edit your work. We need to make sure you’re communicating clearly to the audience.
Every article must look equally at the policies of at least the top seven parties in the 2005 general election (Labour, National, New Zealand First, Green, Maori, United Future and ACT)
You must cite sources. We encourage using the websites of these parties as the best place to gather information as well as media websites such as NZHerald or stuff.co.nz.

We recommend you check your topic hasn’t been taken yet, just send us a quick email with a topic. When thinking about what to write, please keep the following in mind:

If it’s a particularly large topic we’ll ask you to focus it into a specific issue. Just looking at one party’s policies on “social issues” or “the environment” is a giant task! Simplify it some and instead look at “the unemployment benefit” or “waste water”.
Write about something you’re interested in – every person has at least one thing – youth issues, health, employment, education, law and order, public services, the economy… the list is literally endless. When you email us, tell us why you want to write this article and what makes you care about the rest of New Zealand caring about it too.
You can write in any style you see fit however we are looking especially for people who can take the often-boring world of politics and policies and make it fun and easy to understand. Play with it.

Have a think about it and send us an email. We're aiming for a publication date of 1 October 2008 (though we might make it earlier once the election is actually called) so you have some time.

Disclaimer

2008-08-03T03:00:00.001+12:00

We just want to be clear, we’re not affiliated with any political party in New Zealand. Obviously we have our opinions but we’re allowed by law to run this website as stated in The Electoral Finance Act (2007) in Part 1, Section 5(2)(b) where "any editorial material, other than advertising material, in a periodical that is written by, or is selected by or with the authority of, the editor solely for the purpose of informing, enlightening, or entertaining readers" is not an election advertisement.

For more info on this section of the act visit The Electoral Finance Act (2007)

We don’t want to take any risks however so our contact details are outlined below

H. Brown and K. Jenkins
PO Box 106-585
Auckland City Mail Center
Auckland
New Zealand

Or you can email us at edulection@gmail.com

Polling Booth

2007-09-15T10:51:00.000+12:00

Another week has gone by and it's been quite exciting from Edulection's point of view. The election was called last week and our readership increased overnight quite dramatically which was fantastic to watch. This was clearly illustrated in our EdulectionElection poll which has four times the number of previous polls (not that that really says much but still, awesome to see).

Last week I asked where our right-leaning readers were. Well, you showed me. I've changed the poll question entirely this week. We'll ask the party vote question again next week but for now we're interested in knowing if you know who is running for your electorate seat and how much you know about them.

Our posts are still a little thin on the ground - we apologise for this - unfortunately sometimes life just gets in the way. If you have an issue you'd like to write about, please email us and let us know, we'd love to hear from you.

Below are the results from last week. The excellent thing about this poll is it looks much more like what I'd expect the final election results to look like this year which means we're reaching a balance of voters - rather than just attracting one type of person we're attracting a range which is great. For anyone new to EdulectionElection please be aware that this has absolutely no reference to how MMP actually works - we ignore the 5% thresh hold, the electorate seats and the Maori seats. This is just an interesting way of presenting our information.

There are also a few events you might be interested in happening over the next few weeks. We'll keep you up to date with any political events we hear about - if you want to give us a tip just email us and let us know.

On Thursday September 18 there is a conservation forum hosted by Forest and Bird in Wellington. For more info, check out the page here.

Also on Thursday September 18 there is a tertiary education debate hosted by the Auckland University Students Association in Auckland. You can check out the event's Facebook page here.

On Wednesday September 24 there is a debate surrounding public transport hosted by the Campaign for Better Public Transport in Auckland. For more info, check out the page here.

Polling Booth

2007-09-08T12:30:00.000+12:00

First off - apologies for the lack of content last week. We try and update once every two days but other commitments mean this sometimes doesn't happen like we would hope. Each entry needs to be researched, referenced and edited and this takes time. Ideally we'd simply like more writers - you don't have to contribute regularly, if there's only one issue you'd like to cover than we'd happily take a single submission. Anyone wanting to write for Edulection in order to make sure the issues of the 2008 New Zealand General Election are covered can email us and say hi. We'd love to have you on board.

Last week Holly contributed her first post on Early Childhood Education with a promise to follow up with primary and secondary education in the near future. We've got another writer in the works and hopefully I'll finally get a piece up about Climate Change this week too.

The EdulectionElection went well this week with a higher-than-average respondent rate (but still hardly statistically significant). A new poll has been started so please vote and let us know who you plan to vote for. We use this poll to judge who's reading our stuff. We're a little worried about how many of our readers swing to the left - where are all the righties?

This week's poll certainly showed more diversity than the previous polls which was awesome too.

Polling Booth

2007-08-31T13:48:00.000+12:00

Another week, more issues. Winston Peters is out of his ministerial position and has now lost much of his 'baubles of office'. Helen Clark seems to have made some serious political slips of late and, surprisingly, this even shows up in this week's EdulectionElection poll!

While in the first two weeks we have posted the EdulectionElection results, Labour has been fairly even with the Greens, this week it's kind of slipped to the Greens. Of course our tiny sample aside, it does show us which way our readers generally think. The graph is at the bottom of this post. Remember our poll is nowhere near representative, highly biased and doesn't even account for the MMP system but it's still cool to see who our readers support.

The poll has also been reset so if you've voted before, please vote again. If you're reading via RSS, come cast your vote and let us know. It's completely anonymous and just for fun.

This week Edulection welcomed our first outside-writer onboard - our resident sex-blogger, Curvaceous Dee who wrote a post on Civil Unions. If you'd like to write for Edulection please just drop us a line and tell us what you'd like to write about.

This week's outside link is from YouTube. You can watch the question time debate between Winston Peters and Rodney Hide from early last week. Good stuff, but be warned, it's over 30 minutes long.

Polling Booth

2007-08-25T06:00:00.000+12:00

Once a week Edulection bring you a roundup on Edulection itself by revealing our poll results and advertising for writers.

Last week we were pretty thin on the ground for content. I apologise. Until now we've been working with just one writer but in the next few days I should be joined by two more. That doesn't mean we're still going to stop looking for writers. If you're interested in writing for Edulection (I'm sure there's a few who could contribute in their study breaks...) then please send us an email. The more people helping out the more issues can be covered.

So for the poll results... once again low numbers but our Parliament looks different. Usual banter applies - this is a guide - we want to know how our readers plan to cast their vote. This is a weekly poll, people can only vote once per week. At the end of the week I share the votes and show how many votes went to what parties using the parliament graphic. It does not take into account the electorial seats and we don't have a seperate Maori roll. What you see isn't entirely what parliament if only readers voted, but it's bloody interesting to see the kind of political leanings our readers have.

We don't judge we're just interested. We'd quite like it if once a week you voted in our little poll. It's on the main site so if you've got us in RSS (and that's great if you do) then jump over to http://www.edulection.co.nz and say hi to the Edulection site.

We've also found this website - http://www.election08.co.nz - they've got all the headlines, interviews and media coverage. It's worth checking them out.

Polling Booth

2007-08-12T06:00:00.000+12:00

The first week of Edulection is over and therefore so is the first week of polling.

Each week Edulection is going to ask you a question - this week we're asking if you know how MMP works - cast your vote on the left.

Last week we asked you which party you're going to vote for. This is going to be a recurring question, we're going to ask every fortnight and every fortnight we'll show you how parliament would look if voted for by the readers of Edulection.

It's worth noting that, for convenience sake we've ignored the issue or electorate seats and just assumed that the votes translate across the board. Also it's a very small pool of votes.

Edulection is still looking for contributors - if you'd like to contribute to the project, email Edulection and let us know what you'd like to write about. Examples of topics we'd love covered are infrastructure, policing, tax cuts, Working for Families, the health system, ACC, tertiary education... the list is literally endless. Apart from individual topics, we'd love to hear from staunch supporters of political parties - we're keen to have features where people tell us why they support a particular party but obviously to work we need supporters of every party.