Since his elevation to the role of Prime Minister, Chris Hipkins’s spin doctors and the compliant MSM are energetically pushing the “Chippy” narrative. Portraying him as a regular down to earth, focusing on the “bread & butter” issues, Cossie Club, Joe Average New Zealander.
But we must not be fooled by the Joe Average persona nor by the choir boy looks.
You don’t have to scratch the surface too deeply to unearth the same range of political ideologies that seek to achieve a skewed ethnic equality, the same “we know best” dogma and exactly the same innate ability to obfuscate and to equivocate as his predecessor.
The only thing we haven’t heard is the “I refute the premise of that question!”
If you want to see obfuscation, equivocation and plain dodging the question at its very best, have a read of Today FM Tova O’Brien’s article on her attempt to garner a clear answer from Hipkins on the Maharey resignation issue. https://www.todayfm.co.nz/home/opinion/2023/03/tova-obrien-the-most-remarkable-political-verbal-acrobatics-ive-ever-seen
As Tova wrote, “one of the most remarkable examples of political verbal acrobatics”.
Further emulating his predecessor, Hipkins also has some serious failure marks on his report card.
His ineffectiveness and incompetence were there for all to see in his previous ministerial role.
We must not forget Hipkins, as Minister of Education from 2017 until he became Prime Minister in January, had oversight on the Ministry of Education.
This is the ministry, which on Hipkins’ watch, and ostensibly with his endorsement, has given the nation’s schoolchildren a radical, “decolonised” history curriculum.
New Zealand’s education system is already in a parlous state but we are busy installing the vision of a minority into the centre of our education system.
All conducted under Hipkins’s watch and all without formal approval from the public.
This can only be acknowledged as a radical and serious step with far-reaching and extreme long-term consequences.
A step too far in an effort to correct some perceived ethnic disadvantage or simply a minister not assuming responsibility?
Maybe it is both?
If you want to influence and change thoughts or actions, where do you start? Education and in particular, the most impressionable, the younger generation.
This curriculum refresh makes it clear that local iwi will collaborate on what is taught. Recommending that, “Leading kaiako [teachers]… incorporate te reo Maori and matauranga Maori in the co-design of localised curriculum with whanau, hapu, and iwi.”
Given New Zealand’s current mediocre ranking in international educational standards, how can involving “whanau, hapu, and iwi” while undertaking such a prominent and important role improve our children’s education?
Hipkins must believe it will help, otherwise why allow the refresh to be structured so?
Critics say it shows up the curriculum refresh for what they are calling “the skewed ideological demonising of Pakeha as oppressive colonisers and venerating Maori as valiant guardians”: further saying “…inconvenient historical facts are simply airbrushed out of existence. It fails to directly cover the Musket Wars that blighted the years between 1807 and 1837 as tribes relentlessly slaughtered each other.”
There is a fundamental problem at the core of the Curriculum Refresh, in that it is centred, not on improving literacy or numeracy standards, but principally on race and identity.
Clear evidence of Hipkins’s incompetent management of the Education portfolio is provided by none other than Kelvin Davis. Davis was Hipkins’s Associate Minister of Education. Davis gives a very strong impression that he and the Maori caucus were actually in the driver’s seat, with Hipkins nothing but a compliant puppet!
When Hipkins was sworn in as the nation’s 41st Prime Minister on January 25, Davis told Waatea News: “I would say to him, ‘These are the things I want to do, I want to do this, I want to do that for Maoridom.’”
Hipkins would sit there pretty impassive, he’d pause for maybe a second and then go, ‘Yep, I’m into that, it’s a good idea.’ He would just back our Maori education things so I am confident Chris is going to be doing amazing things for Maoridom.
There you go, the incompetence verified, straight from the horse’s mouth!
The sad saga of Hipkins’s (in)competence continues with him covering himself in failure by being responsible for the disastrous centralisation of polytechnics. So far this has cost the education sector around $200 million!
In December last year, Stuff reported Te Pukenga – the organisation that now runs the country’s polytechs – “needs a further cash injection of almost half a billion dollars, according to figures they had seen.”
Adding, “A yet-to-be-published business case from the Crown entity says its preferred option is for a further $422.6 million over four years from 2023, including $285.8m to integrate IT systems, $60m for ‘transformation programme management’ and $26.8m for ‘people change costs’.”
The document also outlined an option where 487 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff will be made redundant by 2026, with 104 losing their jobs by the end of next year.
But would you believe it? One month earlier, in November, Te Pukenga was advertising for eight new executive directors – who will each earn in excess of $200,000 a year – while also looking to slash its budget by $35 million and talking redundancies!
Bloody hell, how can this guy ever be allowed anywhere near any senior government role?
Only in a Labour government would this level of ineptness be tolerated!
There was any number of experts warning Hipkins “that his centralised model wasn’t going to deliver better educational outcomes and be more financially viable” but the “we know best” philosophy kicked in and Hipkins pushed ahead with it anyway, leaving the polytech sector in total disarray!
Penny Simmonds, National’s tertiary education spokesperson said, “The Government needs to stop wasting taxpayers’ money on Chris Hipkins’ ideological dream which is producing worse outcomes for our young people, and instead focus on creating a more effective funding system that supports vocational education.”
With the latest Taxpayers Union/Curia poll showing Labour taking the lead for the first time since March 2022, it just shows the contrived “Chippy” narrative is resonating with a lot of voters.
For five years, incompetence, failure and deceit have pervaded this Labour government and there is absolutely no reason to believe this will not continue under Hipkins’s leadership.
Do you want more of the same? Do you want our country to sink further into a mire of debt and skewed ethnic ideology? No? Then –
Don’t be fooled by the choir boy looks!