Privatising schools - more policy out of National

You gotta hand it to DPF, he’s adept at running interference on an issue. National finally released some policy on education and, once again, it lifted its hemline enough for the rest of us to see it’s going commando on privatisation.

DPF meanwhile is vainly trying to keep the Kiwiblogger’s focussing on the bulk-funding debate within National. The rest of us, meanwhile, are intrigued by Key’s references to greater private involvement in the provision of education and lifting the amount of funding given to private schooling.

There’s no other way to read into this position - but further privitisation in education.

The Press quotes Key as saying:

“Do I believe that the private sector could build a school and operate it on behalf of the state? Yes, I do,”

Although he also reported to have added:

“I don’t think a wholesale programme of privatisation would be acceptable and nor would we embark on it”

DPF needn’t worry about National’s bulk-funding policy though. If National aggressively pursues greater privatisation in schooling, bulk funding would have to be necessary element. Worryingly for parents, under National, bulk-funded schools would be unlikely to meet the student-teacher ratio of 1:15 the current government aims to have in place by 2008.

The mythologizing of Helen

An amusing aspect of much of the Kiwiblog commentary is its wild mythologizing of Helen Clark as some sort of all-powerful machiavellian character sitting at the centre of a sophisticated socialist-feminist conspiracy.

While DPF tends to avoid this kind of hyperbole, many of his regular contributors relish the opportunity to attribute every governmental, social or even environmental failing directly and personally to Helen Clark. But this kind of facile demonisation of Clark is ultimately self-defeating.

For a start, it’s a tacit acknowledgement of Clark’s influence and organisational skills within government - even if over-estimated.

Secondly, it’s unlikely to be electorally influential. Local electorate competitions are about candidates and parochial issues - not the Prime Minister’s dominance. Furthermore, while the Prime Minister’s performance may be influential in party voting - the representation of Clark as a singular and decisive force within government just doesn’t seem to be a killer message. What’s more - while the focus is on the PM it isn’t on the weaker elements of the government performance.

Finally, this focus on Clark reframes the electoral conversation into a presidential-style competition. And in order to compete in this context, National needs a similarly competent and capable alternative to Clark.

Now Key’s media honeymoon is over, his immaturity as a political leader is becoming increasingly apparent. His bungling efforts to catch up on Ryall’s disastrous health announcement is a case in point.

The bottom line: The more the Kiwiblog chorus-line obsesses about Clark it’s inadvertantly putting a focus on Key and we’re just not sure he’s up to the comparison.

Idiot/Savant thinks we’re boring…

Idiot/Savant damned us with faint praise but conceded our item about Kiwiblog’s longevity raised a good question. In response, I/S doubts Kiwiblog demise should National ever win office:

as the unofficial mouthpiece of National on the Net, [DPF will] be kept busy promulgating an endless succession of press releases and spin, much as he does now

Ouch!  We’re lucky to get away being described as dull. We still love Idiot/Savant.

National’s speed wobbles

You can infer quite a bit about National Party strategy by observing DPF’s choice of Kiwiblog content. His posting on the Herald DigiPoll is a case in point. It shows National is anxious for its supporters to not make assumptions about the next election.

David, more than others, is familiar with the hubris many National supporters have about winning the next election. It’s evident in the self-absorbed comments that splash about in Kiwiblog. But DPF and the smarter National party strategists know the party needs to build stronger electoral momentum than simply waiting for the government to lose public confidence.

National has been lazily trading on the vague voter boredom and antipathy that slowly builds with any long-term government. Not only does familiarity breed contempt but slowly and surely the incumbent’s various bungles and unpopular policy choices slowly build resistance like a cumulative toxin. This kind of voter allergy might contaminate pre-election polling - but it’s not necessarily electorally lethal. And, while it might offer the Opposition an opportunity to exploit - at the end of the day National has to actually win the treasury benches.

It seems DPF understands this and that, despite the facile rhetoric to the contrary, Labour is doing a pretty good job. While most voters might grumble and groan about the government they’d be hard pressed to articulate specific reasons for their dissatisfaction. The government might be suffering death by a thousand grazes - but none of the “boo-boos” have seriously undermined core public confidence.

Deep down most voters understand the government is competent and is, at worst, benign. Clark is an extremely savvy strategist and will exploit this. She knows National has yet to land a serious punch to the government’s credibility and also appreciates that, to win office, National needs to present itself as a credible alternative. This means National needs policies and vision. And with Key’s honeymoon over - National is looking decidedly underdressed in both areas.

The bungled health policy release was exactly the kind of stuff that will lose National the opportunity to displace Labour at the next election. The egregious Mr Ryall is arrogant enough to believe voters would accept any old shit from National as long as it was not Labour. How wrong he was. He underestimated the sophistication of the media and the electorate generally to see through his words and see the privatisation of health agenda dangling in the background. Such hubris.

DPF is now trying desperately to reposition National as the underdog and to get the party’s activists focusing on winning the election rather than sitting back and waiting for Helen to lose.

DPF must be worried.  There’s still a lot of time to run prior to the election and National gets speed wobbles on something as critical as public health.  I must admit a degree of schadenfreude.  Ryall is an odious git.  So, it was nice that he of all people has started what could end up being a lethal rot for National’s electoral ambitions.

Ode to Sam Dixon’s Recursive Loop

Sam Dixon challenges whether or not we’d reference his shout out.  Well, of course we would.  And happy to do so.  We like Sam’s smart and witty comments.  Long may he wade about in Kiwiblog injecting a bit of savvy humour.  Here’s to you Sam!

David’s Free Speech Campaign

Kiwiblog’s been going at the Electoral Finance Bill pretty hard. The core of the argument around the EFB comes down to whether or not you believe there is unlimited freedom of speech or whether you believe there should be reasonable limits on free speech prior to an election and, if so, to what extent.

The problem Farrar has, is he actually agrees with the sentiment of the Electoral Finance Bill in the sense that he supports regulating freedom of speech prior to an election (via reasonable spending caps on political organisations) - but to “sell” this message to his Right Wing colleagues he’s dressed it up as a Freedom of Speech issue.

The most recent move was announced on Kiwiblog this afternoon. Farrar announced the launching of The Free Speech Coalition along with Cameron Slater (aka Whaleoil) and Bernard Darnton - the Libertarian who tried to sue Helen Clark.

The Coalition’s website gives an immediate impression it is aimed at free speech. For example, beneath the site’s banner headline is the phrase “Speak your mind anytime”. But the irony is Farrar’s already disclosed he supports reasonable limits on freedom of speech prior to an election. So, it sort of ruins his (and the Coalition’s) credibility right out of the gate and it makes you wonder about the real motivation behind the Coalition.

As one comment suggests, the Coalition should be more appropriately known as:

“The Campaign for Freedom of Speech in the regulated period immediately preceding an election as it pertains to political dialogue but unrelated to reasonably regulated political party statements”.

Farrar’s own commitment to free speech is more directly under attack in the threads. Dead Duck Dux is asking why and whether Farrar’s prohibition on the word “cunt” is now released. Apparently, it’s not.

Ironically too, in the last couple of days Mr Free Speech Farrar has deleted comments made by Sonic because they offended David’s sense of work ethic and he also threatened anyone daring to comment on Rory English (Bill English’s son who made un-PC comments on Bebo) that they would be dealt with severely. Clearly Kiwiblog is not modelling an excessive amount of free speech.

Farrar’s hypocrisy on free speech has more than a passing resemblance to National’s own blind spot on the EFB. National is busily chomping at the bit about the EFB and yet is a major beneficiary of anonymous donations or under-hand masked donations made via lawyer trusts. National’s not interested in fair an equitable electoral law. It’s just unhappy the government might create a law that disadvantages its (the National party’s) interests.

Sloppy Political Management

DPF analyses the political fallout following the National Party’s stunningly stupid mistake of neglecting to mention its position on removing controls on GP fees and concludes it was sloppy political management. Well, that’s one way of looking at it.  Either it was amateur night in the Opposition offices or it was a coyness borne of arrogance.

I’ll do a DPF and lazily quote a more eloquent writer.  Here’s what Colin Espiner had to say:

The Government has been dying for National to make this kind of error for months, but when it came it was even better than it had hoped. Not only was National planning to let doctors charge what they liked, it was trying to pull the wool over the public’s eyes by not telling them about it.

Of course this isn’t quite fair. Most doctors are reasonable, and competition - at least in major towns and cities - may well keep prices down. And Ryall himself volunteered the information; he just omitted to put it in his policy paper.

But politics is all about perception. And the perceptions National has just handed to Labour will keep it busy for weeks. The Government can, and I’m sure will, argue that National wants to scrap the cap so GPs can charge more as a pay-back to its rich, white mates.

Brilliant. Funny DPF didn’t quote this blog entry ad naseum.

DPF gets testy

Farrar latest post revels in the Law Society’s opposition to the Electoral Finance Bill.  It was certainly a challenging submission.  But then DPF caps his post with the following flourish:

“If Labour, Greens, NZ First and United Future insist on pressing ahead, despite this, they should be made to suffer the consequences.”

Aw geez, what would those consequences be?

They’re KIDS

Kiwiblog has once again carried a story about the shenanigans in Victoria’s student association, VUWSA. This time DPF is crying foul about the lack of journalistic integrity being shown by the student “newspaper”, Salient. Someone should tell David that Salient is a student newspaper…it wouldn’t even know how to spell either journalism or integrity.

There was also something a little ironic about the juxtaposition of a story about young Rory English’s alleged youthfully-invigorated homophobic outpourings on Bebo and a “serious” article about the goings on in the student association (as if these weren’t just kids taking life all too seriously). As most grown-ups who attend university quickly learn, student politics is about serious as a teenager’s crush on a pop idol and should be treated as such.

But, you know, I wonder about DPF’s motivations here. Why the interest in VUWSA? Why not stories about other university associations? Anyone who has studied or worked at several universities will confirm that the one thing they all have in common is that the student politics is consistently and uniformly facile regardless of where you go.

Could there be an alternative motivation for DPF’s ongoing fascination? Well, I think I am safe ground here speculating that young Mr Chris Bishop quoted by David is the same Mr Chris Bishop behind the “Keep it 18″ campaign and the very same Mr Chris Bishop who won Wellingtonian of the Year. I think I am also on reasonably safe ground speculating that Mr Bishop’s political leanings might well align with the National Party than other parties. Perhaps this A-Team thing is a Young Nat proxy war. Hard to know.

I know DPF’s birthday photos revealed another Chris with VUWSA connections. No not the tall blonde next to DPF - although she is a Chris - but that’s a whole other story. No, I am talking about this photo of Chris Whelan (second from the left) - the former Canterbury student president who, in the mid-to-late-nineties was VUWSA’s general manager. Maybe Chris, who now works at NZAID, couldn’t let go of his student association interest?

Maybe it’s a combination of things. One thing you can probably guarantee, there will be another VUWSA story in the near future if history is anything to go by.

We all get our five minutes…

Loud tut tutting happening over at Kiwiblog about Gaynz decision to out Bill English’s son’s allegedly homophobic remarks on the Bebo social networking site. The kid’s youth (14 years) and his hitherto low profile solicited widespread condemnation of Gaynz’ decision. Hell, people are even agreeing with Sonic! It seems like a bit of a storm in a teacup. Weirdly, DPF’s loyalty to English might, in this instance, result in highlighting and perpetuating a story that deserved to die when it was first mentioned.

David’s comment on the story was interesting. He admitted his own journey from conservative youth to liberalised adult. Good on him. However, I started to worry when he started enumerating his gay friends that the piece was turning into a “some of my closest friends are black” anecdote. Luckily for all concerned, DPF caught himself and assured readers he was not trying to establish his “credentials”. Still, he could have made the point without the count…so perhaps more cold-hearted readers might disagree.

Ironically, DPF also got himself a bit of five minute fame today when he appeared as a clue in the Dominion Post’s five minute quiz. You know you’ve made it into the popular consciousness when you become a clue. Notwithstanding DPF’s brush with quiz infamy, I suspect some of Kiwiblog’s more pungent respondents, like the egregious Redbaiter, will remain clueless - figuratively and literally.