Now is the time of the year when we send in requests to that mysterious red-garbed being at the north pole for ‘goodies’ of one sort or another. This is my belated wish-list of gifts. But not gifts for myself. These are gifts for the whole of New Zealand…
So many little occurrences and huge events have transpired over the last couple of months, to brand this as one of the most intriguing (and tumultuous) of election campaigns in my life. Only the 1984 and the 2014 General Elections rank as memorable. In all three, there were two threads weaving through the campaigns;
Speaking to a fully packed downtown conference centre in Wellington, on a cold, gloomy rainy afternoon, Labour-leader, Andrew Little launched into a fiery attack on the current National Government focusing on it’s inarguably lack-lustre track record for the past eight years.
It is amazing how many blame the victims of neo-liberal ideology, rather than looking at the causes of why things happen. Are some people really so simple-minded that they can’t see beyond their immediate prejudices…?
Labour’s promise of a return to (limited) free tertiary education appears to be unsettling some, for whom the last thirty years has been dominated by the implementation and bedding-in of user-pays (often gradually, so as not to spook the punters) ; reduced-tax; and minimalist-government ideology;
Prior to 1992, tertiary education at Universities was mostly free, with minimal course fees. On top of which, a student allowance plus part-time paid employment, was usually sufficient for students to graduate with minimal debt hanging over them.