Posts by George Darroch
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Paul, that's illegal under existing law, and while not paying the minimum wage will still be illegal under the new law, the firing won't be if it occurred within 90 days.
Because the new law takes away any requirement for the employer to provide a reason for firing in the first 90 days (s120 of the ERA does not apply during this time), employees will have no idea under the law why they were fired (even if they have a very good idea in practice why they were fired). They will thus have no recourse against such scenarios as you've described above.
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Yeah -'the newest recruit.'
Didn't make herself exactly wellknown round the rohe.
Has slanted her heritage.
Isn't welcome.She got elected. She can't be that unknown or unwelcome, surely?
Which isn't to say she's popular with all, or carries great mana - I don't know her at all...
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She showed how aligned the ideology of the Bill is with the No Child Left Behind law in the US and quoted an evaluation of that law that showed a 17% drop out rate of black students and those with disabilities from education in just 2 years.
And that's why they need the $3000 fines...
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I've decided I like this Government. In a way.
At the moment, it's so completely lost in its own rhetoric, in a world that they've created, and completely sure of the sources of all the problems they've located.
New Zealand's problems can be attributed almost entirely to the interfering hand of Labour, who don't understand 'common sense' of the type most New Zealanders want. They've mistaken a mild discontent for a strong one, and think they have a great mandate to make the changes they want, rather than the room to make the case and build one.
That kind of mindset leads to decision making of the type we're seeing at the moment. It means bad and rushed policy, things that don't work, and winters of discontent.
While there's a human cost inflicted on the sufferers of these bad laws and policies, it is often much easier to reverse this kind of work than with policies that take longer to come to full effect, and thus have the effect of blending into the landscape, and becoming the policy landscape.
It's early days, and predictions have a habit of going wrong, but I'm hopeful there's a silver lining to this cloud.
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Sacha, Paul - the document that explains carefully but simply why Pharmac made their previous decision not to fund for more than 9 weeks (at that stage) is upthread on page 1. Having read it, I can't see how anyone would make the decision Ryall did.
Unless, of course, they were listening to the drug company. Either directly, or indirectly through the pressure of breast cancer groups who were being lobbied.
Call me bloody cynical, but I think that this might be the first move towards dismantling Pharmac completely, and replacing our buying model with something expensive and less effective.
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There's a fascinating article in the New Yorker magazine about what makes a good teacher. It turns out that a large part of what makes a good teacher is listening, and a bunch of interpersonal skills that are difficult to test for.
What for me makes a good MP is a good listener. Someone who can listen to constituents, listen to experts, and take their advice and complaints on board constructively and create meaningful legislation.
This is a large part of what disturbs me so much about the legislation on testing and truancy - very little obvious consideration of the evidence about what is needed to improve schools, and simplistic solutions. They certainly haven't listened widely, and have no apparent desire to do so.
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Maths is no easier. Many questions come in two parts: the question, and then "How do you know your answer is correct?" Again, he writes "I just do." [His physicist father assures me that "By inspection" is a perfectly respectable equivalent for this at the professional level].
I hated that about maths (I see you still use the anglicised spelling). I was homeschooled, and maths was an entirely intuitive thing. That was until I got to high school, and had to explain they whys, and every single step, and then they lost my attention completely for a few years.
The amendment is so short its ridiculous. No doubt it seems very straightforward for National MPs, but it gives carte blanche to the Minister to set whatever system makes most sense to her. It also comes off the back of a dubious speaking tour from a so-called "expert" and without any due consideration of how these similar systems have worked elsewhere. As Russell has said, this is the absolute epitomy of soundbite policy.
If we had more than a soundbite media (Radio NZ and TVNZ 7, notable exceptions) we might have had these policies examined properly before the election (or god forbid, demanded more than a few days out from election day). We might even have them properly critiqued and criticised where appropriate now. From what I've seen from the "90 day bill", where very few of the arguments for and against have actually been examined in detail, any detail whatsoever, we don't have much to go on.
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in the meantime we'll remove every other carbon-reducing initiative we can think of.
To be fair that isn't too hard, there weren't too many of them.
What they do with EECA will be the litmus test between being merely maladvised ideologues and complete idiots. That agency is one that saves both business and individuals hundreds of millions of dollars every year, and has a large number of benefits even before climate change is even considered.
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I've noticed DPF has locked up his comments section. Looks like he got sick of the sewer rats after all.
He normally turns off comments for blog posts about his NBR column.
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More worth quoting...
Emerging evidence is that sequential 12 months is the least effective way to use Herceptin .
So what does National fund?