Episodios

  • Kerre Woodham: New Zealand's education system has been failing children for a long time

    Kerre Woodham: New Zealand's education system has been failing children for a long time
    Aug 5 2024
    Yes, the maths. You know, I know we've been talking about this, that we have been failing our children for decades now. This is not a previous Government issue, this is not of their making. This has been a long time coming. Where New Zealanders used to assume a world class education as their birth right, where anybody who was educated in New Zealand could stand amongst the brightest minds in the world, now we've had successive generations of children falling behind in every metric. The numbers have been there. But instead of using the international results that have consistently put us at the bottom or near the bottom of the class, the educators, the boffins who make decisions about what our kids learn and how they learn and what our teachers teach, have refused to accept that their ideology is flawed, that their experimentation with our children has failed. Instead, they phaff around and say that testing is outmoded and an old patriarchal colonial construct, and not the best way to assess a child's abilities and the like. Utter, utter nonsense. In 2021, the Ministry of Education commissioned a report on our math syllabus, in the face of two decades of slipping maths results, and that's by both international and national measures. So it asked a panel of independent experts convened by the Royal Society to look at the New Zealand Curriculum, which outlines what kids need to know and when, to see if it was fit for purpose. The conclusion? Massey University distinguished Professor of Maths Gaven Martin, who was chair of the panel that wrote the report told the New Zealand Herald our maths education was a 'goddamn mess'. Pretty unequivocal. The system was widening the gap between rich and poor children and left Māori and Pasifika children falling behind at school and ultimately falling behind in life. And you know it, and I know it. You'll have heard the calls from so many parents and grandparents who are paying through the nose to send children to private tuition companies, to either get their kids the education in maths that they're not getting at school, or to give them the extra stimulus because they're good at maths and want to be better, that overworked and underprepared teachers simply cannot give them. So Labour knew there was something wrong under Helen Clark, and National knew under John Key, and Labour knew under Jacinda Ardern, and now this coalition Government knows that there is something terribly wrong with how we're teaching our kids. Christopher Luxon has moved to introduce structural maths for students 0-8 a year earlier than intended, after new data showed just 22 percent of Year 8 students in New Zealand reached the benchmark for maths. That's the bare minimum. And only 22 percent of them reached that benchmark. He said it amounts to a crisis - and Minister for Education Erica Stanford told Mike Hosking she agrees. "We've compared ourselves to other countries who are doing a much better job than us, who have been actually climbing the ranks in the OECD, whereas we've been dropping for many, many years and I don't believe for a second that there are some people who just can't do math. That is completely untrue." "Everybody can do maths. It's just the confidence and having wonderful teachers and great curriculum and great resources. And we've seen other countries like Singapore and Australia and the UK surge ahead because they have those things right and we don't and we are going to get them right under this Government." "And I tell you what, I have been around the country for the last couple of years talking with principals of high schools and primary schools, and they all agree that we have a massive problem in maths. Nobody agrees with the Union apart from the Union, and I don't think we should be listening to them. High school principals tell me when I walk in the door, Erica, the first thing we have to do with our year nines or our third formers is teach them their timetables because they don't know them. Without fail, every high school I go in to. So there is a problem and the unions can have their heads in the sand but I'm going to move on despite that and implement our plan because it has to happen." It really, really does. We've talked about it for far too long. The leader of the Academy report back in 2021 said the real issues went beyond the curriculum to the heart of how New Zealand educates its students, which ranged from insufficient teacher knowledge to a system that labels kids too early in life and doesn't give them the same chance to succeed. It said there needs to be a real shake-up, but there's doubts that there is the political will. Currently teachers and schools have to pick and choose from a myriad of options for both professional development and curriculum resources, and that is true across many, many lessons, many subjects. So if you want to learn history, you make up your own lesson plan, basically, based on the resource material that's there, it's a lucky dip,...
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  • Gaven Martin: Massey University maths professor on the Government's new fast-tracked maths curriculum

    Gaven Martin: Massey University maths professor on the Government's new fast-tracked maths curriculum
    Aug 4 2024

    A maths expert says a new Government action plan is a good step.

    It's bringing forward a new curriculum to Term One next year, with twice yearly assessments - and a $20 million boost for teachers' professional development.

    Massey University maths professor Gaven Martin chaired an expert panel asked in 2021 to improve student maths results.

    He says the devil will be in the detail.

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    13 m
  • Kerre Woodham: Transpower needs to take responsibility

    Kerre Woodham: Transpower needs to take responsibility
    Aug 2 2024
    Mistakes happen. We get that, we've all made them. Some are more serious than others. Some are fixable, some are not. But as old Mr. Martin said in the LV Martin and TV ads, it's the putting right that counts. There was no doubt, almost from the time the Transpower pylon tower hit the ground, that somebody within that crew had made a fundamental error. We had callers in, the morning of the tower collapse, who pretty much delivered the same findings that the official investigators produced days later. The tower fell because the crew that was performing routine base plant maintenance work didn't follow standard practice and they removed all of the nuts from three of the tower four legs, and it fell over. That human error caused the incident that cut power to tens of thousands of people and cost an estimated $60 million to householders and businesses. Northland's been hit pretty hard over the past few years with the Covid lockdowns, major closures and weather events, and then the pylon collapse. Some of the events have been acts of God, and you just have to accept that life is not always easy. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. You take a deep breath, and you carry on. But when a major company is responsible for a seismic interruption to business, when there was insufficient supervision of inexperienced workers who hadn't received any formal training for the work they were doing, who weren't certified for the tasks they completed unsupervised, that the inexperienced team member who removed the nuts from the foundation legs was not adequately supervised while performing the task... come on, this is not one of those things! This is not an oh well, we can't control the weather or well, it's a tricky little virus that needs to be controlled situation, this is a SNAFU. This is a FUBAR. And companies should take responsibility when they make fundamental errors or their contractors do. Ultimately, Transpower is responsible for delivering the part of the region. They shouldn't be trying to weasel their way out of their obligations. Transpower acting CEO John Clarke said compensation for businesses won't be happening: “Given the challenges and practicalities for utilities, of all the things that can happen to interrupt supply, there's not any way that we can compensate them.” It is simply not good enough. This is under oh well you know, one of those things. It's not one of those things, it's a major stuff up. North Chamber Chief Executive Darryn Fisher says Transpower needs to front up. “In a place like Kaitaia, where 600 people are reliant on one big business staying alive, the direct result of what has happened here with Transpower puts those things in jeopardy. And I'm calling for the board and that management team to put their big boy pants on, get on an airplane, get up here, and front up to these local communities and explain why their negligence is putting their livelihoods at risk.” “Transpower have got values on their website talking about how they're good social citizens, and how they're good community people, well what they're about to do through their negligence and avoiding all of this conversation is absolutely crush a workforce and small community towns like Kaitaia.” And Northland MP Grant McCallum says transfer needs to open up their chequebook for Northland. “People like myself, the leaders of Northland, sit down with Transpower and say, actually you owe the people of Northland. There's a lot of anger out there. You've heard it from the business community this morning. They're really frustrated. They feel that they have their owed something. And actually the wider community, which has been my pitch, is for the wider community to get a decent cheque from Transpower which we can use to benefit all of Northland, because everybody was affected, the power went out to the whole province.” It's just not good enough. I mean, come back to what John Clarke said, the Acting Chief Executive: “Given the challenges and practicalities for utilities, of all the things that can happen to interrupt supply”. Well sure, weather events. I totally understand that Transpower can't control those. There are things that can happen that are beyond your control, this is not one of them. This is contracting out to a crew who weren’t up to the task quite clearly. If it had happened to any one of these businesses that had been affected, if they'd made an error of that magnitude, that could be traced back to incompetence and inadequate supervision, you can bet your bippy that they would have to pay, that they would have to recompense their customers. This is a fundamental human error, it is not one of those things, and it is high time in this country that when we made mistakes, we owned to them, and we did our best to mitigate them. I'm sick and tired of people washing their hands of responsibility. Of going, you know what, you know it happens, we stuffed up and ...
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  • Dave Letele: Community activist on the next instalment of his docuseries "Heavyweight"

    Dave Letele: Community activist on the next instalment of his docuseries "Heavyweight"
    Aug 1 2024

    Dave Letele is a former rugby league player, retired professional boxer, and community and social activist.

    He’s retracing his personal and confronting journey with gangs, addiction, and alcohol in his documentary series ‘Heavyweight’, uncovering rarely told stories and doing a “vital reality check” on life in Aotearoa.

    Tonight’s episode focuses on the rise of gangs and associated criminal activity, investigating the complexities of gang culture in New Zealand, along with its impact on communities and individuals.

    Letele joined Kerre Woodham to give a bit of a preview of what the episode has to offer, as well as well as look at a few of the challenges gang members face in moving away from that life.

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    10 m
  • Kerre Woodham: Who is Te Pati Māori to decide who's Māori enough?

    Kerre Woodham: Who is Te Pati Māori to decide who's Māori enough?
    Aug 1 2024

    Bloody hell. If there is anyone who is entitled to go on a little light trauma induced shoplifting spree, it would be ACT MP Karen Chhour. For those who don't know her background, Karen grew up in the state care system. She was elected to parliament as an ACT Party MP in 2020 with the goal of reforming Oranga Tamariki, having seen rather more of it than most of us have. Before politics, she was self-employed in the New Zealand made clothing industry. She's a mother of four and she's lived on Auckland's North Shore for the past 30 years. So just the sort of person you'd like to see in Parliament: life experience, lived experience, a mum, firm stake in the future of the country for her children, self-employed, hard worker. Exactly the sort of person you'd like to see.

    Well, we'd like to see. If you're a Māori Labour MP or a member of Te Pati Māori, oh no, you don't want Karen Chhour in Parliament. Because she might be Māori, but she's not the right sort of Māori, is she? For those people, it's not enough to whakapapa back. You have to be their sort of Māori. Which means that although we have a record number of Māori who have been elected to this Parliament on their merits, most of them got there because they were the best person for the job. There are 33 MPs of Māori descent across all of the six parties. Nine in Labour. Six in Te Pati Māori, six in the Greens, five in National, four in New Zealand First, three in ACT. You would have to say that's a really good representation across all political viewpoints. But no. To the ones on the left, the ones on the right of the political spectrum do not count. They are simply not the right sort of Māori. And no one, it appears, is more wrong than Karen Chhour.

    Former Labour Deputy Leader, the late and unlamented Kelvin Davis said in 2022, Chhour needs to leave her “Pākehā world” and stop looking at the world through a “vanilla lens”. Willie Jackson urged her to cross the bridge, to come over from the Pākehā to the Māori. Labour MP Willow Jean Prime called her a “sellout” during the first reading of the Oranga Tamariki Amendment bill. A comment on social media from Te Pati Māori said Chhour had a “disconnection and disdain for her people”. “If it was done right, she would have been raised mildly, should have been raised being connected to her whakapapa and having a knowingness of her Māori tongue. Instead, she was raised Pākehā with a disconnection and disdain for her people”. “Karen and her experience is exactly why we need Section 7 AA”. Later, a Te Pati Māori MP said Chhour had been made a puppet by her party. What a pack of righteous offensive bigots. No wonder Karen Chhour is feeling under siege.

    “I can't control what the public is saying about my personal traits around being Māori enough or not being the right kind of traumatised person. Hearing it from other MP's that shouldn't be allowed. I'm still a person. I'm still a person and I feel like I'm getting that stripped away from me day by day in this place. I've had enough. I asked for an apology, that's all I wanted, and I didn't get one, and that is so disrespectful.”

    Yeah, it is. It's disrespectful and it's offensive. And will Speaker of the House Gerry Brownlee do anything about it? Nope. He's not going to go down as one of the all-time greats, is he? ACT Party leader David Seymour says the speaker appears to be giving a green light to racial harassment in Parliament.

    So what is Māori enough? Is Dr. Shane Reti Māori enough? Good luck telling Shane Jones he's not Māori enough. James Meager gave a great maiden speech... oh, he's National, so he probably doesn't count. He is Māori, but on the right of the political spectrum, so probably not Māori enough. He said the left do not own Māori. They don't own the poor and they don't own the workers. No party and no ideology has a right to claim ownership over anything or anyone, and Amen to that, James.

    I'm not Māori enough to say what is Māori and what is not. I have never in the time I've read about the history of this country known all Māori to think the same way. Iwi aren’t united in their views, hapu aren’t united, and people within hapu aren't united in their views. People and families aren't united in their views. Who the hell are Te Pati Māori and those sanctimonious mealy-mouthed arses on the left to decide what it is to be Māori and whether you're Māori enough? Surely being Māori enough is having the confidence to know who you are, to decide how you want to vote, to decide which ideology you best think will improve the lot of your people, which is why you entered Parliament. How very bloody dare they.

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  • Sir Lockwood Smith: Former Speaker of the House on the Parliamentary clash between ACT and Speaker Gerry Brownlee

    Sir Lockwood Smith: Former Speaker of the House on the Parliamentary clash between ACT and Speaker Gerry Brownlee
    Jul 31 2024

    ACT Leader David Seymour is alleging racism in Parliament over select committee tensions and claims of personal attacks towards MP Karen Chhour.

    The ACT Party says its confidence in the Speaker of the House is “falling by the day”, accusing Gerry Brownlee of failing to address racial harassment in Parliament.

    Seymour told Mike Hosking this morning they wrote to the Speaker, calling the issues 'serious.'

    He says the response suggested there was no issue.

    Former National MP and Speaker of the House Sir Lockwood Smith joined Kerre Woodham to discuss how he’d approach such a situation.

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    7 m
  • Maree MacLean: Author on how stay sober

    Maree MacLean: Author on how stay sober
    Jul 31 2024

    Today marks the end of Dry July, an annual campaign that challenges people to abstain from alcohol to raise funds for cancer support organisations.

    For some people, July has them realising they’d rather stay sober.

    Kerre Woodham was joined by Maree MacLean, the author of ‘The No B*llshit Guide to Staying Sober’ for a chat about staying sober.

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    9 m
  • Kerre Woodham: Let the police get back to policing

    Kerre Woodham: Let the police get back to policing
    Jul 31 2024
    There simply must be a better way of dealing with mental health patients rather than relying on police. For years now, police men and women have been left to pick up the pieces of broken minds because of a lack of resources within the beleaguered mental health sector. But more than the lack of resources is the lack of will on the part of the mental health sector. When you're overworked, when you're under resourced, and you have somebody else doing the heavy lifting, (that is the police) why on Earth would you make more work for yourself? Why on Earth would you if you were a crisis counsellor, a mental health worker, go out on strike and demand that you be given resourcing for crisis teams to go and pick up the mentally unwell and stop the police doing it? You're just not going to, are you? You've got bigger fish to fry simply putting one foot in front of the other and getting through the shift. But it is simply not right that the police are the babysitters for the mentally ill, simply because no other government agency will do it. They won't, and they know the police are last resort. Hospital staff say they can't be left to look after people who are a danger to themselves and other people. They don't have the resources or the personnel, and I have seen the charge nurses in ED’s going no, no, you needn't think you're leaving her here to the police officers who bring them in. I haven't got the people. I cannot have two or three nurses sitting here looking after this person while we wait for them to be seen, when really there's nothing physically wrong with them. Nothing. I've got screaming babies running high temperatures. I've got people who can't breathe. I've got broken arms. I've got seven ambulances out the back. And the police can't leave somebody who is having an episode on their own. And the reason they can't is because nobody else will take the responsibility and nobody else cares, because they have to care more about what's in front of them. Mental health workers say they simply can't produce crisis teams out of thin air, people who are trained to defuse tense situations and provide the sort of triaging necessary when dealing with somebody who's in the midst of a mental health crisis. But that's not the job of the police, either. And yet they're left with it because they can't strike. They can't lobby, and they can't strike, and they can't refuse. And so, because of that, other government agencies are using and abusing them. The police in the past haven't been able to say we haven't got the staff either, and besides, this is not our job. Until now. Recent changes have seen officers not attending 111 calls relating to mental health if there is no immediate risk to safety or if it's deemed no immediate risk to safety. There are plans to transfer some of those 111 calls to the non-emergency 105 line, and police have been directed that they should only spend a maximum of 60 minutes waiting in ED’s with mental health patients, then it becomes somebody else's problem. I mean, 60 minutes, you're not going to be seen in 60 minutes, but they are going to have to walk away and then it becomes the responsibility of the overworked ED departments. At least they have the luxury of striking. The nurses can say no, we're not doing this until we get the staff, until we get the highly trained staff we need to be able to manage these patients. The police don't have that option. It's the mental health workers and the health agencies who need to be lobbying for extra resources, extra staff, the ability to care for these people, not the police. And what the hell are the police doing there in the first place? Most of these patients that they're dealing with are sad, not bad. They're just very sad people in the midst of a mental health crisis who haven't committed a crime. What the hell are the police doing there? They're there because it's been dumped on them, because other agencies know they can't refuse. Mark Mitchell said yesterday that police need to draw a line in the sand. “There's always going to be times when police are going to be required, but there's many times that there aren't, and I think that the rest of the system has got used to always having the police. The police have always been seen as that 24/7 government agency and over time, they've picked up a whole lot of work that is not their core role, and other agencies are going to have to step up. They are going to have to build out some more capability. We are going to have to get smart around triaging and, and identifying what the actual need is and how we best respond to that. I know that it's been about a 60% increase in mental health call outs for police. Like I said to you that that is not sustainable. “Look, if I use another example, I've been out on night shift with the staff, you had an ICAR, an incident car which has two police officers in it, that was called to a young woman that was having thoughts of self ...
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