UPDATE: Why on earth are the Greens giving money to a bloody private school???
What on earth are they doing?
Greens caught bending party policy to grant $11.7m to private school in Taranaki
The Green Party has been caught bending its own party policy after a private school in Taranaki was given $11.7 million to fund an expansion programme.
The money comes from the Government’s $3 billion shovel-ready projects fund, and was announced in a press release from Greens co-leader James Shaw who said the grant to Green School New Zealand would help the school expand its roll from 120 students to 250, creating 200 jobs.
But Green School New Zealand is a private school which charges up to $24,000 a year for New Zealand students and $43,000 a year for international students.
Green Party policy is opposed to state funding being given to private schools, and wants it to be gradually phased out.
‘Public funding for private schools should be phased out and transferred to public schools,” says the party’s current education policy.
FFS, this bullshit, ‘But it will create jobs’ justification is the sane line Eugenie Sage used to defend her rubber stamping Chinese water bottling and it reeks of whatever the Ministry has told the Minister and the Minister has simply signed off on it.
My guess is that Shaw wasn’t even told it was a private school and he signed off on it without checking.
It looks like another case of the quick white bureaucrat jumps over the slow green fox.
Sigh.
Look, please, please, please NZ Greens, just try saying nothing for the next 6 weeks and let’s see if that keeps you above 5% because every time you say something you mange to fuck it up.
UPDATE: I had just guessed that stupid old James Shaw had absentmindedly signed off on this stupid idea, but now find out that he actually pushed for it…
…FFS guys. Even when I try and give them the benefit of the doubt they manage to screw up.
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Well, I’m just going to expect them to bend the rules a lot more now particularly around Climate Change, protecting primary health, education and resources. I welcome our new Green overlords. Let’s hear them roar.
Doh!!!!!!!!!!
https://youtu.be/atGjfmqb_TE?t=2
Green Party NZ is no longer the real “The Green Party” that’s why we turned our back after they sacked two of the last remaining real ‘Green Party members’ Kevin Hague an Kennedy Graham.
Bye bye Green Party.
Please get your facts straight, kennedy Graham resigned over Metiria’s admission about benefit dosh. He was not re-admitted after she left, that is not a sacking.
Kennedy Graham was frankly useless, he never transitioned from being a diplomat to being an MP. Arrogant man. He wanted a bit on both sides of the Israeli / Palestine debate…. that says it all.
Kevin Hague left after he didn’t get the leadership ahead of Shaw, and is now head of Forest and Bird. That is not a sacking!
+100 CLEANGREEN…the original Green Party has been corrupted…the name Green Party has been sullied
( to me Green Party means Green badge wearing ,corporate aligned, globalists, ageists, elitists and fascist…)
…real New Zealand environmentalists are and should look else where…as do most New Zealand farmers
Labour should be very careful about any association with the Greens
Yes correct Red Buzzard, 100%
The Green party was taken over by a ‘corporate culture lot’ and that’s why many of the old members left as I call it as being sacked because they saw what was happening, and we feel as they have pushed us out too, due to their policy shift, that has deeply affected our family included.
Yep, well if they’re looking for converts from the Labour Party (such as me), they’re doing a fucking useless job of it
This announcement even took the co-convenors of the party by surprise. To suggest he didn’t know it was a private school is a nonsense.
James doesn’t really care about the kaupapa of the party.
I wonder if the caucus knew.
This could be their death knell and they will only have him to blame. Lots and lots of teachers vote Green and they are going to be pissed off big time.
Don’t lose your bottle. It isn’t the same as Sage (not very) granting water bottling rights, and not giving an explanation as to why her hands were tied. Or did she? Everything is so bound up on what can be done since we stupidly didn’t do the reluctant virgin and held back from committing ourselves to the alphabet trade coalition that is supposed to have us by the short and curlies so that we are bound by more regulations than we ever had under our previous system. End of Rant! As to the Green School perhaps it comes under new overseas business that will have multiplier effects. I throw that word in because its an economic term that we should be adding to our personal stores of economic lore. It’s a word with lots of good possibilities flowing from it – almost like an aura, for those who are sensitive.
There are many left leaning people who vote Green because the Party is ,supposedly, against neoliberalism.
I am one of them and have voted Green since their formation, after our Values Party days.This move to fund an elitest private school would be the last straw for me, which leaves me no-one to vote for. I know we are anxious about getting back in at this election (what with all the other recent mis steps made by the current leadership eg reclaiming the word c…) ,and I strongly fear this policy would definitely drop the Greens under 5%.
I would reluctantly have to vote Jacinda just to help keep the bloody Natz out.
Bye bye Greens …. it is so disappointing.
Another reason for people not to vote Green. I find it strange when the environment is so much in the news and in need of protection a party that is supposed to be its voice is losing favour. For me their social policy blaming white men for all the problems is a real turn off. They have had 3 years in a position to get thinks done but what have they achieved of real worth.
I will be surprised if they get over the 5%
Excellent decision. With the confidence i have in my fellow NZdrs to see this for exactly what it is & the opportunity cost to the other struggling public schools, this will be the final nail in the coffin of these woke hypocrites.
My first reaction to this was “What the actual eff word” and a feeling of outrage given my and the Green Party’s view of charter schools.
First off, I am most definitely a fan of alternative education (one size does not fit all) and the idea of this sort of schooling appeals greatly.
I was and still am against the idea of charter schools, because of the “for profit” aspect of them, I could see them drawing education down the same path as elder care, where the main driver of their existence is to provide dividends to shareholders.
This school appears to be for profit.
I am, I think, ok with for profit organisations for education so long as NO public money from the education budget goes into them, I think that can stave off education going down the elder care track.
The money for this seems to be coming from the PGF, ostensibly to boost the ability of this school to up their roll, this providing jobs in the region. If it were anything else other than what, on the face of it, appears to be a charter school, this money were going to, would we be reacting like this, I wonder?
I don’t think ongoing money from education will be contributing to it, someone could correct me there, which would influence my view of this.
It’s a pity this has just been dumped on us, a fait accompli, with no opportunity to discuss the pros and cons of it.
I don’t like the idea that something like this, which is very much needed everywhere will be very elitist. I would prefer to see such education available to more people, those who can’t cough up the best part of $25k a year for it.
Sage had to make a decision about the bottling plant. It was not optional and about the only criteria she could consider was economic development and jobs. She could not consider environmental factors.
“My guess is that Shaw wasn’t even told it was a private school and he signed off on it without checking.’..and I thought Hooton was the worst political pundit ‘guesser’ this year..
Good on them, I reckon it’s something they have done right. It demonstrates an increasingly better focus on what they say is a priority. The poverty of spirit we experience when we are excluded (and that’s at the root of the objection) is the habitation of God.