The rich don't get enough!

Schools lose in Key plan for sport
New Zealand's poorest high schools will lose thousands of dollars each year because of a Government policy billed as helping more children to play sport. Prime Minister John Key went to Bairds Mainfreight Primary School in Otara this week to launch the Kiwisport programme in front of a line-up of sporting heroes. But neighbouring Papatoetoe High School calculates it will be $8000 worse off, and other low-decile schools in the area face similar cuts of about 25 per cent. Principal Peter Gall said Papatoetoe's funding for sports staff would fall from $41,000 to $33,000 because the new money was not linked to a school's decile rating. He had spoken to a few other local principals, who had also assumed at first they were about to get more money. Tangaroa College was down by $7500 and Otahuhu College had lost $6000. "It seems that we're robbing the poor to pay the rich," said Mr Gall, who is also president of the Secondary Principals Association.

The Dark Lord of the Sith, National’s Sun-Tzu-Machiavellian- svengali-overlord, Murray McCully (who is also the head of the house of Slytherin) was last week wagging his finger at the repressive Burma military Junta for their kangaroo court joke trial against democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi. He didn’t, while wagging his finger, point out that the NZ Government actually helps train officials from the repressive Burmese military Junta. So we’re not really that cross with them after all.

When he wasn’t sending mixed signals to one of the worst human rights abusers in the region, Muzza was telling poor schools to shut up. The Government last week announced they were taking sports money off poor schools to give to their Kings & Gwammer Old boy club mates as a response to childhood obesity (that has nothing to do with the junk food National have now put back in the tuck shops). Muzza needs to remind those principles from poor schools that people who complain about government cutbacks (like dirty filthy benes), get to have their privacy rights intruded upon!

Brothers and Sisters if the Government want to pretend that putting junk food back into tuck shops and taking sport money away from poor schools to give to rich schools is the way to eradicate obesity, who are we to tell Muzza that the ref doesn’t have a rugby team?

Taking money off poor schools to give to rich schools so rich schools can offer scholarships to any talented player from the poor schools (so they get to take the money and talent as well), is a vision of societal harmony that mimics the National party vision of free market crony elitist capitalism perfectly.

You would think after giving the private education industry $35 million that would be enough, but National want to be ant-Robin Hood, this time stealing from the poor to give to the rich. It ain’t the change you thought you were voting for, but it certainly is change.