Polity by Rob Salmond

hey ho. must learn not to comment on polity!

@Rob Stowell: I certainly do not "see human misery as data." I do, however, believe that it is possible to collect data, aka information, about human misery. It's a good idea to do that if, like me, you want to have less misery tomorrow.

So I heard a little of this on the radio, I don't listen to parliament much, English moved the first reading of the bill ... I assumed it would be read out loud .... but no, 20 seconds later he moved the second reading, not even enough time for MPs to read it quietly to themselves .... why do they bother?

Just wondering were any MediaWorks reporters allowed in the Budget Media Lock-up?
Considering they brought an end to them at the Reserve Bank.
http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/news/2016/04/reserve-bank-takes-action-after-investigation-confirms-leak

@Ian. Yes, NewsHub was there.

human misery as data

well it could lead to a misery accord
ergo misericord*

a small dagger used to deliver a death stroke to a wounded enemy.

:- )

*also an excellent album by Jay Clarkson and The Breathing Cage from 1991.

Can I ask by what metric you consider our educational rankings to be falling considering the increase in NCEA pass rates? Also for Health the issue is quality, not quantity of spending. Results can measured in things like the infant mortality rate, life expectancy e.t.c.

@Nicholas: I'm going on the PISA rankings on education - NZ kids are doing substantially worse now that in 2006 or 2007 when PISA did it's previous round of testing. And I agree outcomes are the most important health metrics, but I feel pretty comfortable saying health investment levels and health outcomes are linked.

As with any of Bill English's budgets, I think the devil sticks in the detail. There will be some good and welcome spending, and additional spending, and there will be much lacking elsewhere. The figures tend to be presented to show the government of the day in the best of light, but they have to be scrutinised, and then we often find, there may actually be little extra spending, or actually even less spending than before, that is on a per capita basis.

We must note, there has been a few years of net immigration gains, which will have significantly increased the population, not just by returning New Zealanders, but also permanent residents returning, holding other passports, and by new immigrants.

Any population increase, the natural one of local residents included, will lead to an increase of demand for services, in health, education, social security and infrastructure, last not least housing.

This budget is again presented in an upbeat manner, as usual, but looking at the whole picture, it is not surprising and not has great as some may think.

Housing has got little extra, that is there is little incentive and extra spending to now address the greatest political and economic and social challenge this country has faced for decades, to serve the needs of a growing population.

This proves, the government is not on top of things, is running behind the reality, and desperately tries to "address" issues and challenges by simply presenting back of the envelope "solutions" that are not really solutions. Paula Bennett's $ 5,000 carrot for some that are homeless or in social housing, to leave Auckland, is one such desperate, poorly thought through announcement.

She is in my view not fit to be a Minister, as she proved in Social Security and as she is also proving as Minister for Climate Change matters.

When the government Minister in charge of Social Housing, the senior one, that is Bill English, does not even know what his colleague just did, then they have lost the plot, for sure, this government. And that is what we saw yesterday.

The snakeoil salesman John Key was at his best again in the Budget debate this afternoon, so he rescued the package for the hopeless rest of his brigade, he rescued the mediocre budget of Bill English.

The press gallery will be satisfied, and Corin Dann will award the Budget 8 out of 10 on One News tonight. Then they will talk about tax cuts. Key and English know their audience. Details are for wimps, soundbites for the win.

I kind of hope National stay in power after Key has gone, so they can clean up their own mess. Or more likely, face the consequences.

Then why the hell did he crap on about how much money he’s spending?!

In a post-Truth political reality, why should he care?

for Health the issue is quality, not quantity of spending. Results can measured in things like the infant mortality rate, life expectancy e.t.c.

and metrics like unmet need, denied referrals, equity across sub-groups, etc

Thanks for this much needed analysis.

@Rob
Don't get to invested in PISA.

We're going down the rankings but a lot of that is because new countries are being introduced that live on standardised testing, where the kids are consigned to the scrap heap if they don't pass the standardised test for university. Whereas in NZ, NCEA tests for a lot of non-exam skills through internal assessments. It's understandable that kids who work solely for exam-type assessments are going to better at exam-type assessment than kids who do work for many different types of assessment.

Although Shanghai is "top" in the ranking this is what wikipedia has to say -
"Critics of PISA counter that in Shanghai and other Chinese cities, most children of migrant workers can only attend city schools up to the ninth grade, and must return to their parents' hometowns for high school due to hukou restrictions, thus skewing the composition of the city's high school students in favor of wealthier local families. According to Schleicher, 27% of Shanghai's 15-year-olds are excluded from its school system (and hence from testing). "

NZ would improve a lot if the 27% of the lowest deciles schools weren't included. Given the different enrollments in high decile versus low decile schools that would be like only testing in deciles 4 and up (actually that's a guess but I don't think it's far from the truth).

And it's become like the Olympics, there is prestige in a country doing well so there is a huge incentive to cheat. But to the kids taking the tests, it doesn't matter and, from the stories I have heard, treat it as bit of a laugh.

The real problem with education is not that we are going down in the PISA rankings but that the govt is trying to change the education system in order to not go down the PISA rankings. But it's the easiest to acquire skills that are tested by PISA - drill and kill skills. Not deep and creative thinking that we really need to improve our economy and give citizens a way to understand and improve their lives.

This budget is again presented in an upbeat manner, as usual, but looking at the whole picture, it is not surprising and not has great as some may think.

I've been contemplating this. They've introduced targeted investment in disadvantaged kids via schools – but at the cost of freezing all schools' operating funding. That's not exactly redolent of the "strong"", confident economy the Prime Minister talked about. Then you look at the serious cuts in DOC's budget.

I basically like governments delivering surpluses, but they've had to dig pretty hard to construct this one.

Dr Moreau to triage....

I basically like governments delivering surpluses, but they’ve had to dig pretty hard to construct this one.

its more of a 'plaited-plus'
an unlikely beast
on the face of it...

...an abomination,
or abnegation,
if you will...

deep and creative thinking that we really need to improve our economy and give citizens a way to understand and improve their lives.

heaven forbid

targeted investment in disadvantaged kids

$2 a week

First Dog explains the budget - it could be ours