Govt's AI strategy is all hype and no vision
In his foreword to the recently released Strategy, Reti states: 'Until now, New Zealand was the only OECD country that had not published an AI strategy'.
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RNZ News
5 hours ago
- RNZ News
The 'right to choose' key to the Cook Islands-NZ relationship
Foreign Minister Winston Peters with Minister for Pacific Peoples Shane Reti celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Cook Islands constitution in Tāmaki Makaurau. Photo: RNZ / Teuila Fuatai New Zealand's foreign minister says Cook Islanders are free to choose whether their country continues in free association with New Zealand. Winston Peters made the comment at a celebration of the 60th anniversary of the constitution of the Cook Islands in Auckland today. Peters attended the community event hosted by the Upokina Taoro (East Cook Island Community Group) as part of an official contingent of MPs. Minister for Pacific Peoples Shane Reti and Labour Party deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni also attended. "We may not be perfect, but we've never wavered from our responsibilities wherever they lay," Peters said. "For six decades, we have stood by ready to support the Cook Islands economic and social development, while never losing sight of the fact that our financial support comes from the taxes of hard working New Zealanders," This week's anniversary comes at a time of increasing tension between the two nations. At the heart of that are four agreements between the Cook Islands and China, which Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown signed in February. The New Zealand government said it should have been consulted over the agreements, but Brown disagreed. The diplomatic disagreement has resulted in New Zealand halting $18.2 million in funding to the Cook Islands, which is a realm country of New Zealand. Under that arrangement - implemented in 1965 - the country governs its own affairs, but New Zealand provides some assistance with foreign affairs, disaster relief and defence. Peters today said the "beating heart" of the Cook Islands-New Zealand relationship was the "right to choose". "Cook Islanders are free to choose where to live, how to live, and to worship whichever God they wish." After his formal address, Peters was asked by media about the rift between the governments of the Cooks Islands and New Zealand. He referred back to his "carefully crafted" speech which he said showed "precisely what the New Zealand position is now". Brown has previously said that if New Zealand could not afford to fund the country's national infrastructure investment plan - billed at $650 million - the Cook Islands would need to look elsewhere. Brown also said in at the time that funding the development needs of the Cook Islands was a major motivator in signing the agreements with China. Discussions between officials from both countries regarding the diplomatic disagreement were ongoing. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
NZ Herald
7 hours ago
- NZ Herald
NCEA changes: What led to Government's radical overhaul, why we shouldn't be shocked
The proposal does, however, represent massive upheaval for a sector that has faced its fair share of stop-and-start in the past few years and is a step away from the flexibility beloved by some in the education community. Education Minister Erica Stanford revealed the proposal on Monday morning. Photo / Alyse Wright The Government's proposal would lead to two new certificates being established for Years 12 and 13 that are more structured and subject-driven than the current standards-based model. Instead of students trying to grab every credit they can across disparate standards like kids in a money booth with paper notes blowing around in the air, they will be tested and marked on their knowledge of an entire subject. The return of an 'out of 100' and A to E letter grade is intended by the Government to be a clearer indication to parents, employers and tertiary education providers of a student's knowledge. The package is one of the most consequential steps the coalition has taken this term and will likely be remembered as a landmark moment in this Government's approach to education. Pending any last-minute adjustments during consultation, these changes will have a direct impact on the readiness of future generations entering the workforce and tertiary education. When the Government talks about tackling the infrastructure deficit, improving productivity and ultimately achieving its prized economic growth, there are, of course, short-term initiatives to get the ball rolling. But long-term, it's students in class right now who will have a lot to contribute. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, who has spent considerable time working overseas and is known to be personally passionate about education, is clearly concerned NCEA isn't preparing Kiwi kids to be the top of class internationally. You only have to look at an OECD study released last year that found New Zealanders aged 16 to 24 had below-average literacy, numeracy and problem-solving skills. The results have worsened compared to a similar study in 2014-15. Asked by the Herald last month about possible fixes, Luxon made it clear the Government was readying for a 'fundamental overhaul' of secondary school assessments. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has a passion for education. Photo / Michael Craig What led to change? This hasn't come out of nowhere. Stanford has been looking to make changes to NCEA for years, including when she was National's education spokesperson in Opposition. The then-Labour Government announced a programme of work to deal with various issues facing NCEA. It devised new literacy and numeracy co-requisites and fewer standards to refocus students, but there were delays as the sector asked for more implementation time. Stanford believed the change programme was 'fundamentally flawed' and thought simply making tweaks wasn't enough. After taking office in late 2023, she pushed out the introduction of some reforms. But the new minister didn't have enough time to halt the Level 1 amendments set to begin just a couple of months later. So she later commissioned a review by the Education Review Office (ERO), which found that despite the overhaul, Level 1 remained 'difficult to understand' and was not preparing students for future achievement. It said one option was to drop it entirely. That report was hugely influential and formed the basis for discussions about what to do not just with Level 1, but the entire qualification. Stanford told the Herald last month that ERO 'unearthed a lot of things that we weren't possibly expecting'. Over the following year, Stanford received more briefings, including papers from the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) the Herald got hold of. They warned of a credibility crisis over 'overused' flexibility, a lack of coherent vocational education pathways and an over-reliance on internal assessments. They also showed nearly half of Year 12 students who achieved Level 2 last year did so 'without engaging in a full programme of coherent subject-based learning'. About a third of Year 12 and 13 students who achieved Level 2 or 3 relied on unit standards from 'disparate' subjects. Education Minister Erica Stanford has been thinking about reform since her time in Opposition. Photo / Mark Mitchell A more prescriptive approach While this was happening behind the scenes, Stanford was beginning to announce reforms focusing on primary and intermediate schools. This sequencing was important. Stanford believed to address issues with students at high school, you first had to start with the challenges facing them earlier in their school life. The Government instructed teachers to spend an hour a day teaching reading, writing and math. Structured literacy and numeracy was rolled out, while standardised testing was brought in much earlier in a child's school life. The actions showed the Government's prescriptive approach. Today's secondary school qualification proposal keeps to that pattern, rolling back some flexibility and replacing it with more direction. The Opposition sees this as the Beehive enforcing 'one-size-fits-all' and has argued the minister is moving too fast. But the Government thinks the 'back to basics' style is easier for students and parents to understand, and also simpler for teachers. Stanford wants an overall education package driven by consistency, with the hope children can move between schools and expect the same level of learning, driven by the same assessments and standards. Whether that works out will depend on how well the changes are implemented and if the minister is able to bring those in the sector along with her. Stanford is critical of how reforms were being rolled out under Labour, though Chris Hipkins – current Labour leader and former Education Minister – says they were disrupted by factors such as Covid-19. He believes Labour's work provided insights into NCEA's issues. Labour's main point of concern on Monday was not directed at the substance of the proposed changes, but instead around the uncertainty caused and ensuring teachers, parents and others had an appropriate period to share their views. The Post-Primary Teachers' Association responded to the proposal by saying while no system is perfect, the current one has 'clear advantages' over the previous qualification and no changes should be made 'for change's sake or political legacy'. 'The lack of adequate support for, and political flip-flopping on, NCEA means teachers are left trying to fill the gaps. We need stability and certainty.' Consultation will take place over the next six weeks, while any new qualification won't be introduced until the end of the decade. Jamie Ensor is a political reporter in the NZ Herald press gallery team based at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub press gallery office. In 2025, he was a finalist for Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards.
RNZ News
5 days ago
- RNZ News
Just as NZ began collecting meaningful data on rainbow communities, census changes threaten their visibility
By Lori Leigh and Brodie Fraser of Rainbow communities had been invisible in the census since its inception in 1851. Photo: AFP/ Allison Dinner New Zealand's 2023 census was the first to collect data on gender identity and sexual orientation, showing one in 20 adults identify as LGBTQIA+. But just as reports from this more inclusive census are being released, Minister of Statistics Shane Reti announced a change to existing administrative data collected by government departments as part of their normal business, scrapping a 150-year history of the census. Currently, there are no sources of administrative data that include adequate rainbow demographic markers such as sexual orientation, gender, transgender experience or variations of sex characteristics. Without high-quality data, the policy reforms needed to address underserved and historically marginalised populations become harder to make. How can we create evidence-based policy with no evidence? The slogan of the 2023 census was "tatau tātou - all of us count". Rainbow communities had been invisible in the census since its inception in 1851. The 2023 Census was a watershed moment, born out of decades of determined activism and advocacy from the community. For us, as housing and homelessness researchers, it was particularly important to finally have whole-of-population data about rates of homelessness among LGBTQIA+ communities . Data on housing showed rainbow communities pay higher rents, live in mouldier housing and move more frequently than non-rainbow communities. Adding LGBTQIA+ data to the census meant we were the first country in the world to have such data on the housing experiences of these communities. We were applauded internationally by colleagues who have long been wanting similar homelessness and rainbow data from their own national censuses. This data will be a great advocacy tool, but it is bittersweet that we will never have such information again. There is a nearly 50-year history of various community movements, from boycotts to activism, chronicling the queer struggle to be appropriately counted in the census. In 1981, a group of Wellington lesbians held a "dykecott" of the New Zealand census to protest their exclusion. This included sending blank census forms to the Human Rights Commission with various explanations essentially saying "no rights, no responsibilities." Then, in the 1990s, the Wellington City Council's lesbian and gay advisory group came together to lobby Stats NZ about the need for inclusive census data. In 1996, census forms were changed to be able to count same-sex partners. In 2002, the former editor of the New Zealand LGBTQIA+ magazine Express Victor van Wetering went so far as to lodge a formal complaint against Stats NZ, stating the agency was in clear breach of the Human Rights Act. He alleged it was failing to meet its statutory requirements. Advocacy continued throughout the 2000s and 2010s, and in 2018, Stats NZ released their statistical standards for measuring sexual orientation. The possibility of inclusive census data started to become more of a reality. The decision to halt the census as we know it means there will be no longitudinal comparative data for rainbow communities. Just as the community has been allowed out of the statistical closet, people will be put back in. It had long been argued that accuracy of rainbow data would improve over subsequent censuses. Now we will never know what developments might have emerged. Community advocates and the Human Rights Commission continued to raise the lack of rainbow data collection at the population level. In 2020, the Human Rights Commission released a report which found New Zealand's data collection processes fail to accurately count the country's rainbow community members. Stats NZ had already started significant work to evaluate and update their sex and gender identity standards. Weeks after the report, the agency committed to what would become the 2023 census. Rainbow community groups applauded, felt finally listened to and called the shift a major win. This sense of pride continues as reports and data are released from the census. Research and survey data consistently show rainbow communities in Aotearoa New Zealand experience multiple forms of discrimination. This includes violence, family rejection, bullying and social exclusion. These experiences contribute to disproportionately high rates of serious negative outcomes such as suicidality, health inequities, homelessness and substance use. Despite this, we continue to lack data comparing the experiences of rainbow communities with those of the general population. As a result, health and social disparities affecting LGBTQIA+ people are systematically under-recognised in government strategies and across health and social service systems. Efforts to address these inequities are also frequently under-resourced and inadequately prioritised. Former government statistician Len Cook said: "There is no time over the past 50 years when the scope and quality of population statistics has been of such importance in public life in Aotearoa New Zealand as now." Scrapping the census is a cost-cutting exercise. But what is the real cost of losing data and which communities will disproportionately bear this cost? The decision renders LGBTQIA+ people, once again, invisible. This story was originally published on The Conversation.
