Saturday, December 13, 2008. 12:06AM
BAIL and NATIONAL STANDARDS AMENDMENT BILL
I’ve just finished watching (another) hilarious broadcast of our mature politicians scrapping it out on Parliament TV over the Bail and Education National Standards Amendment bills.
Let’s start off with the Bail- The National Government introduced this bill to make it more difficult for Prisoners to get out on bail conditions. The Opposition is arguing that we don’t have the space, the money, the resources and that it won’t have any real effect on crime rates.
Let’s start with the space issue. It’s true. True true true true true. New Zealand’s prisons are chockablock as it is, and we probably wouldn’t have much more space to keep the prisoners in for longer. The Labour Party is dead right. The same goes with the resources, and the money. Taking these into account, anyone is most likely to argue against the bill, saying it’s a stupid idea, right?
I think that where the Opposition falls out is when they talk about the effects that it will have on Crime Rates. I’m sure any law abiding citizen would agree that if this bill managed to keep just one criminal off our streets that is highly likely to re-offend and hurt another innocent person, and to have them kept in prison longer so that they can think about what they have done makes this bill worth it. Even to save one person’s life, or to save them from being emotionally/physically harmed would make passing it worth it. No one has the right to distress anyone else in society, no matter how messed up they are. It maybe a reason, but it is no excuse, and I say good on the Government for taking a stand against criminals. It may not be perfect, but it’s a leap in the right direction. We can’t help criminals if they are raging the streets continuously re-offending and wreaking havoc. The sooner Phil Goff actually takes the people into account the better, and I feel his slanderous comments show how little he actually knows about how bad things are out there. Melissa Lee hit the nail on the head, referring to recent cases and showing how, even though they might happen in a blue moon, these effect the people, the tax payers, and showing how important it is that we put a stop to it, then saying that “The National Party were elected into Government for a reason, and that they are there to do a job, just let them do it”. This was followed by an explosion of applause from both sides of the room, and when voting, it was interesting to hear National and Labour were both in support of the bill, that was, at least until Phil Goff walked back into the room.
As for National Standards, it’s a step in the right direction for NCEA; it’s a step in the wrong direction for New Zealand’s students. I still cannot see how the government feels that a system as pathetic as NCEA can be for the best of New Zealand Students. NCEA is too easy, too flexible, and, when compared to other standards of education, looks like a complete joke. The fact that a student only needs 8 credits in literacy and 8 credits in numeracy to pass Literacy and Numeracy requirements is feeble. This effectively means that students can write a few letters, give a speech and read a book to pass their Literacy requirements, even if they can hardly spell, and then do a few unit standards in Basic Number and Using a Calculator can give them the minimum literacy requirements us a very, very, very sad prospect.
National campaigned that what they aimed to do was for every student to have achieved their literacy, but NCEA has that many loopholes and can be manipulated so easily that it means that students can achieve without having some of the most necessary communication skills of the modern world- Effective communication with others, the ability to do basic forms of research, be able to understand advanced texts in unfamiliar situations and many other skills are essential in society. The idea that we allow students to use Unit Standard level qualifications to pass their literacy requirements is outrageous- And whilst not everyone is a genius, we need to push for achievement rather than setting a standard for everyone to follow. Achievement standards allow this, and usually the achieved level of these is only slightly more than the unit standards themselves.
As for numeracy, having a mother needs her calculator to do basic time tables has proven to me how much we need to be able to work with more advanced forms of mathematics as a bare minimum. Percentages and Fractions, long division and multiplication and Algebra should be the bare minimum for achievement.
If we’re sticking with NCEA, instead of setting a bare number of credits that students need to achieve, we should have compulsory standards- Lets take literacy for example. Instead of saying that students must have a minimum of 8 credits in Literacy (Te-Reo Maori or English) to pass NCEA Level One, we should be saying that ‘Students must pass the following standards: 90218, Give a Speech or Dramatic Presentation,90141, Research a chosen topic and draw conclusions etc.
This would set a minimum standard for everyone and ensure that everyone that passes has the essential skills to survive in the modern world.
And once again, give students the option of sitting NCEA or School Cert and Bursary.
Edit: New News on the National Website:
Justice Minister Simon Power said he was delighted that a significant majority of the Parliament had passed the Government’s changes to the Bail Act which will make it harder to get bail.
The Bail Amendment Bill was the first step in the Government’s Action Plan on Violent Crime, which is to be introduced in the first 100 days of government. It reverses the changes to bail that were introduced by the Labour Government in 2007.
Mr Power says Labour’s changes ignored public safety by making it easier for people to get bail.
“Public safety was not always at the forefront of policy-making in the last term of the Labour Government, and their changes to bail were prime examples of that.
“This law reverses Labour’s changes that increased the threshold for remand in custody from ‘a risk’ that the defendant may abscond, interfere with witnesses or evidence, or offend on bail, to ‘a real and significant risk’.
“That meant that even if a defendant had repeatedly breached his or her bail conditions in the past, they may not have been remanded in custody.
“Those changes compromised public safety, but the new provisions return the threshold to simply ‘a risk’.
“In the Government’s view, the ‘risk’ test draws the appropriate balance between the rights of accused to be considered innocent until proven guilty, and the safety of the public.
“We have now returned the benefit of the doubt to the public, rather than to the accused, and that’s good for everyone,” Mr Power says.