Posts by Matthew Littlewood
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According to Critic he's not appearing on campus. I briefly spoke to the ODT's political writer, Dene McKenzie, before Clark's appearance and he said that while Key's in Dunedin on Thursday, the media won't know his actual schedule until that morning.
Kinda as I expected then. I remember talking to the guys from Critic when I was catching up with a couple of the old crowd on Thursday evening and they suggested that was the case.
Which begs the question, what on earth has he got to lose from at least trying to reach out to them? I mean, if he's on campus, then he might as well give it a go.Geez, even Helen Clark braved the Christchurch campus last election and got booed by the usual Young Nats crowd. I know North Dunedin is as sure a definition of "Labour stranglehold" as any, but it does strike as feeble. Especially after he's been giving the "I've been talking to people Helen Clark doesn't talk to" rap for the last 8 months.
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What I want to know is whether John Key will actually address the students in Dunedin in an address-type situation- usually he just does the "speak to the marketing students/first year pol sci students" thing.
No matter- he'll doubtless give the same damn stump he does in every single venue.I mean, I've seen in a few very different environments this year, and he doesn't strike me as someone who "works" the crowd- rather, one who has a "one-size-fits-all" stump. It's that same strange disconnect that was apparent in those bloody awful party political broadcasts on Friday.
Actually, both were pretty dire, but Labour's at least seemed more focussed as a piece of propaganda, National's came accross as a CEO's address to his shareholders. And not in a good way.
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Eddie: It would if we actually had serious media scrutiny. Here's my crystal ball looking fifty eight minutes into the future: What an act of strategic genius, now here's the student politicians and usual suspects who think it's a work of genius. Any hard questions about what it's going to cost (really) and how it's going to all be paid for (really)? Don't be stupid.
Have to say, I agree it'd be nice if there were more coverage on the whole picture too- as in the costs as well as the benefits. But I won't hold my breath.
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"Nearly everyone has accepted that tertiary education will no longer be "free." "
Btw- I meant "free again." I mean, it hasn't been free to anyone since the guys in parliament were finishing Uni! And it would be utterly unfeasible today.
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Over the last nine years, we've had a Labour Government who have tried not to make it too much worse, rather than trying to actually solve it.
Actually, I think that's a little unfair. The fee maxima had a dramatic impact on debt levels and there was an interest/repayment change that was significant too. I think Labour's tried hard to make National's dog-of-a-scheme work...HECS is nowhere near as bad as what National introduced!
Oh, don't get me wrong- it's not as if they've done nothing. But I prefer to see it as a "holding pattern," if you will- keep the status quo, just brush away some of the nasty edges that really sting. Certainly, making the loans interest-free was a small mercy (cards on the table time: my loan is looking like it's upwards of $25,000), and this could be another means of addressing the problem. But you do wonder whether a more fervent overhaul is later needed.
Nearly everyone has accepted that tertiary education will no longer be "free." Where the real issue lies is how it's going to cost us, as well as how much.
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After that, they need to find some way to address the structural inequity caused by generation debt. There will be 20 years of students who will have been forced to borrow for their education, and whose life paths (house, children, whether they stay in the country) will have been altered because of it. But that's probably at least one or maybe two elections down the track.
Yeah, I've often wondered that if we are going to see a major political seachange, it will be (effectively) my generation, once we all start to properly settle down and get homes and maybe families or whatever. Then the battleground on how to deal with student debt really becomes an issue, if it isn't already.
Over the last nine years, we've had a Labour Government who have tried not to make it too much worse, rather than trying to actually solve it. Mind you, questions of affordability aside (and there are questions), this universal allowance scheme could be a right move forward.
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It'll have a much smaller impact upon the coffers than straight-out expenditure.
A lot of the money isn't additional money lost to the government, it's a transfer out of money the government currently lends in the form of student loans, to expenditure in the form of allowances.
There will be more of it, and obviously it will never come back, unlike loans, which eventually do in the most part.
That being said, $210 million is bound to be an under-estimate. In 2006 students borrowed $310m in living costs, and there will be a fair number of students who receive neither an allowance nor a student loan - living off a job, or their parents, etc.
I would guess that the actual cost would be closer to $400 million.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
I assume Labour have (hopefully) learnt from their gamble back in 2005 where they were less than totally accurate about the actual cost of the interest-free loan package.
Me, I'm in favour of this bribe, to a degree, but it's all a matter of what they will need to do to shore up the funds for it.
But really, it's a bandaid until a fully workable programme on how to actually reduce mounting student debt is found.
Me, I was surprised they didn't announce this earlier.
Whether it will get them that many extra votes is another matter entirely, mind. I'm sure there are "party insiders" that news sources can lazily quote to get the inside scoop on that... -
I can't help wondering if the assumptions on the costing are as heroic as they were for the student/parent bribe in 2005.
Shit yeah. Labour better have caculated this properly otherwise the National Party is going to OIA this to hell. As they have every right to- I mean, I'm all for generous policies such as this one, but we need to know the cost.
Expect Ombudsman Bev Wakem to be on the telly a bit more in the near future. -
Agree. If that costing is accurate, it's not wildly unaffordable, but with the PREFU numbers and the rhetoric about not trusting National to run a tight ship, announcing it now (rather than making some vague promise about "further support of tertiary education students" then doing the details in this December 'mini budget') looks irresponsible.
Me, I'm just annoyed that I finally finish being a student at the end of this year!
But seriously, the timing for this is strange, at once cynical and desperate. In the long run it probably won't break the coffers that much, but the real question is whether it's actually worth the risk.More pertinently, could the newswires stop using "Party insiders" as a source and just admit to talking to the secretaries and/or their typewriters? It's lazy journalism.
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I also noticed a point while reading the comments: Graeme points out the current age of adult criminal responsibility is 17. To borrow from another poster there: The idea that someone can have a family, a job, a house (unlikely, admittedly, but theoretically possible), be in the military and be treated as a responsible adult when it comes to criminal prosecution, and not get to vote is seems hard to justify.
A very fair point. I guess the choice for the age is always going to arbitrary to a degree.
As I said though, maybe it's a matter of education as much as it is the ability to have the choice. A case in point (and excuse this garbled analogy): I'd hazard a guess that most of the 16-year-old Germans I went out drinking with when I was spent time on a school exchange over there would be more mature with how they handle their alcohol than most NZers in their mid-20s I'd run into. It's not just the fact the age for being allowed into pubs is much lower there (16, I think), it's as much to do with the environment they're "taught" to drink, if that makes sense.