Midday Report Essentials for Wednesday 23 April 2025
In today's episode, New Zealand's sole cardinal says it is important the next pope continues to prevent child sexual abuse in the church and is politically astute considering the current geopolitical environment, for the second time, Te Pati Maori MPs have declined to turn up to a Privileges Committee hearing at Parliament, a coroner examining the disappearance of John Beckenridge and his stepson Mike in Southland 10 years ago has heard conflicting evidence about what a witness was told, and a Tauranga councillor says a lack of airline competition in the region has been a problem for years.
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RNZ News
an hour ago
- RNZ News
Parliament set for showdown as Greens' co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick refuses to apologise for comments
Parliament is set for a showdown on Wednesday afternoon as the Greens' co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick refuses to apologise for comments which saw her booted from the debating chamber. Speaker Gerry Brownlee on Tuesday, barred her for the rest of the week , unless she said sorry for suggesting coalition MPs lacked a spine during a debate on the war in Gaza. Speaking to RNZ on Wednesday morning, Swarbrick said she had no intention of doing so, but would be turning up to the debating chamber for Wednesday's 2pm Question Time regardless. "I am returning to work," she said. Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick was barred from Parliament for a week due to her Gaza speech on Tuesday. Photo: Screengrab / Parliament TV Swarbrick said the party had received correspondence from legal experts and the public pointing out "far worse" things had been said by other MPs, where the Speaker had chosen not to intervene. "It just doesn't really wash." Swarbrick said she would prefer Parliament's attention was focused on the "real issues of the day" and re-iterated her call for more action against Israel. "New Zealanders want action, and if our House can come together on the point of sanctioning Israel for its war crimes, then that finally would bring us in line with our legacy of standing for human rights and justice." Otago University professor Andrew Geddis told RNZ it was unusual for Swarbrick to be asked to withdraw and apologise, given many MPs had made similar comments in Parliament before without consequence. Professor Andrew Geddis said Swarbricks ban was "unusual". (File photo) Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly He said the standard penalty for challenging the Speaker's authority was to be ordered out of the House for one day. A week-long punishment, Geddis said, was inconsistent with other rulings made by Speakers in recent times. "If the Speaker is starting to almost make up the rules as he goes along, he puts at risk the preparedness of other MPs to accord him his authority. "MPs might start asking, 'well, if the Speaker is just going to do their own thing with no regard to precedence, do we really trust them to have that sort of power?" The incident occurred during an urgent debate on Tuesday afternoon which was called after the coalition's announcement that it would come to a formal decision in September over whether to recognise the state of Palestine . As Swarbrick came to the end of her contribution, she challenged coalition MPs to back her member's bill allowing New Zealand to apply sanctions on Israel. "If we find six of 68 government MPs with a spine, we can stand on the right side of history," Swarbrick said. Almost immediately, Brownlee condemned the remark as "completely unacceptable" and demanded she "withdraw it and apologise". Speaker Gerry Brownlee ordered Swarbrick out of the chamber on Tuesday. (File photo) Photo: VNP / Phil Smith Swarbrick shot back a curt - "no" - prompting Brownlee to order her out of the chamber for the remainder of the week. "Happily," Swarbrick said, as she rose to leave. Green Party whip Ricardo Menéndez March later stood to question the severity of punishment, saying Parliament's rules suggested Swarbrick should be barred for no more than a day. Brownlee later clarified that Swarbrick could come back to the debating chamber on Wednesday, but only if she agreed to withdraw and apologise. "If she doesn't, then she'll be leaving the House again," he said. "I'm not going to sit in this chair and tolerate a member standing on her feet... and saying that other members of this House are spineless." Swarbrick was not the only MP to run afoul of the Speaker during Tuesday's debate. Labour MP Damien O'Connor was told to either exit the chamber or apologise after interjecting "bloody gutless" while Foreign Minister Winston Peters was speaking. O'Connor stood and left. Brownlee also demanded ACT MP Simon Court say sorry - which he did - after Court accused Swarbrick of "hallucinating outrage". Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
NZ Herald
2 hours ago
- NZ Herald
NCEA's demise is a lesson in failed educational policy
New Zealand students ranked above the OECD average in maths, reading and science literacy in the 2022 Pisa (Programme for International Student Assessment) report. But there has been a decline in scores across all three subjects in the last 20 years. We should not move on from the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) without asking how it happened and why we persisted with a scheme so obviously flawed. If I tell you Trevor Mallard was the Minister of Education in 2002 when the NCEA was implemented, you may think no further explanation is needed. When he was Speaker of the House, Mallard responded to protesters coming to Parliament by turning on the sprinklers and playing Barry Manilow songs over the public address system. But, in fairness, the NCEA was not his idea. I was in Parliament when it was promoted. It was his associate minister, Steve Maharey, by profession a sociology lecturer, who drove it through. Maharey was a true believer in 'cognitive learning', what he called 'personalised learning', more commonly known as 'pupil-led learning': the notion that children learn by discovering knowledge for themselves rather than being directly taught. We do learn from experience and finding out information is an important skill. But to master any worthwhile subject, we must first be taught essential foundation knowledge. A simple example: to write coherently, one must know grammar. You cannot do chemistry without being taught the periodic table, or mathematics without learning times tables. The NCEA allowed pupils to choose to skip learning challenging content essential for subject knowledge in favour of collecting soft credits. It is also unfair to blame only Maharey. In the British comedy Yes Minister, politicians come and go while the real power lies with senior civil servants. So too in New Zealand. The NCEA was the creation of senior bureaucrats in the Ministry of Education. It is a department that has promoted a string of fads, from open-plan classrooms, 'look-and-guess' reading and that built schools so badly designed they have had to be demolished. The ministry has created a school system where absenteeism is rife. Really big mistakes are usually made by clever people. Stupid people are rarely able to make a big mistake. Those promoting pupil-led learning were clever, articulate and convinced that they knew best. What they claimed is superficially attractive. Rote learning can crush creativity, but the alternative they imposed was worse. Act MP Deborah Coddington summed up our view at the time: 'One of the most dangerous experiments ever foisted on New Zealand children.' John Morris, Auckland Grammar headmaster, correctly predicted that the NCEA would mean 'the dumbing-down of academic standards'. Some New Zealand schools have never adopted pupil-led learning, opting for the Cambridge exam instead. National's then education spokesman Sir Bill English warned that if problems weren't fixed, 'NCEA will lose credibility'. This belief that it just needed a few tweaks led the Key Government into continuing with a system that was flawed. The flaws were visible from the start. Students and schools gamed the system. In 2004, Cambridge High School claimed a 100% NCEA pass rate by giving pupils credits for picking up litter. In 2013, nearly 25% of internal assessments were marked incorrectly, yet the credits still counted toward NCEA grades. In 2017 then Education Minister Chris Hipkins announced a review of the NCEA. The Government launched a trial of of new NCEA literacy and numeracy tests in 2022. The results were shocking. More than 40% of students failed at least one test in the June 2023 exams. The Herald has reported that Labour's current education spokeswoman, Willow-Jean Prime, didn't respond to NCEA meeting offers. By contrast, in just 18 months, Education Minister Erica Stanford has announced the end of the NCEA and its replacement with externally marked exams. Critics complain this will mean teachers 'teaching to the test'. Exactly. Exams will result in teacher-led learning. Pupils being taught reading, writing and arithmetic, essential for passing exams. For two decades, NCEA's designers insisted their system was the future. The future has arrived, and it has failed. The real lesson is not just that the NCEA must go, but that the political class must never again be permitted to impose unproven ideology-driven experiments on our children.
RNZ News
4 hours ago
- RNZ News
Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick has no plans to apologise after being barred from House
Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick has no plans to apologise, after being barred from the House for the rest of the week. During an urgent debate on Tuesday, Swarbrick said government MPs could grow a spine and support her bill imposing sanctions on Israel. The Speaker suspended her from Parliament and said unless she apologised, he will do so again every day this week. On Wednesday, a Green Party spokesperson confirmed Swarbrick was not planning on apologising. Speaking to media after the Speaker's ruling, Swarbrick said the party would follow the correct processes, and would ask the Speaker to reflect on previous language in Parliament. She described the ruling as "ridiculous" and the punishment excessive. "As far as the robust debate goes in that place, I think that was pretty mild in the context of the war crimes that are currently unfolding." She drew a comparison with comments made by former prime minister Sir John Key in 2015, when he challenged the opposition to "get some guts". Swarbrick said she was tired and angry at the massacre of human beings. Swarbrick. Photo: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone "What the hell is the point of everything that we do if the people in my place, in my job don't do their job?" she said. "If we allow other human beings to be just mercilessly slaughtered, to be shot while waiting for food aid, what hope is there for humanity?" Swarbrick was not the only MP to run afoul of the Speaker during Tuesday's debate. Earlier, Labour MP Damien O'Connor was told to either exit the chamber or apologise after interjecting "bloody gutless" while Foreign Minister Winston Peters was speaking. O'Connor stood and left. Brownlee also demanded ACT MP Simon Court say sorry - which he did - after Court accused Swarbrick of "hallucinating outrage". On Morning Report' s political panel, National minister Paul Goldsmith said the government was taking time to discuss Palestinian statehood. Labour's deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni said there was no worse injustice than what was happening in Gaza and the silence from National was "deafening". "You saw the frustration explode in the House yesterday. "There are a lot of New Zealanders out there watching the scenes in the Middle East and wondering where the voice of our government is on this, and why its taking so long to make simple decisions." Goldsmith said the decisions weren't simple. The government had always been clear it was in favour of a two-state solution, and was working its way through what it wanted to do, he said. "Australia made a decision on Monday, we don't have to do our decision on Tuesday," he said. Goldsmith said the government was working on a clear position recognising a concern around Hamas and making sure that they were not involved in any future Palestinian state. Australia will move to recognise Palestine at UN meeting in September , and Foreign Minister Winston Peters has said New Zealand would make a decision over the next month. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
