Passive, Quiet And Oppressed By Managerialism

The education debate between the two major parties' respective education ministers -- Labour's Trevor Mallard and National's Bill English -- that I attended last night was an enthralling event no doubt brought about by the happenstance of the near-conclusion of the election campaign. It was a chance for the two politicians to really claw into each other in front of the audience of a handful of academia and a few more senior visitors. Forget the fact that many in the aforementioned audience were already solidly partisan in terms of their political views; the concept remains that it would have been most enjoyable to observe a verbal battle in the epic vein of lions ripping people to shreds in the Roman Colosseum.

The reality was that no such heated debate was to take place. Both parties seemed to have policies relatively centred on the retention of the current handling of the financing of tertiary education in relation to other parties. Max Calder-Watson of the Greens On Campus spoke out about that fact early on in the piece, going so far as to lay the claim that we should really have been seeing a debate between the Greens and the ACT Party rather than the two major parties. His comments were met by the audience with spontaneous, if somewhat sparse applause, as well as a few "here-heres."

Personally I felt that what Max said -- also the response that he received -- really summed up the feel of the evening. His words brought forward the concept that no significant debate was going to take place. The muted reply from the audience highlighted the fact that there were few people in the audience who had not already thoroughly placed their allegiance with either Labour or National. The Maidment Theatre was crawling with Young Nats and haunted by strangely-intimidating black-shirted Princes Street Labour members.

As you would expect, given that the building was filled with opinionated intellectuals, the real action was produced by those spectating. A very generous amount of time was given for questions. One student (obviously not a Labour voter) questioned Trevor Mallard on the merits of helping students succeed under the tertiary education system, only to "punish" them by taxing thirty-nine cents out of every dollar that they earn above sixty thousand. I think this yielded quite severe responses, in both the positive and the negative senses, from just about everyone in the theatre. Of course, this notably well-placed question that the student had asked gave Bill English the perfect opportunity to verbalise again that National's promised tax cuts will help New Zealanders both during and after their time in tertiary education.

Another memorable moment was Max Calder-Watson's quite unnecessarily-fiery-but-still-enthralling interrogation of Bill English. "Do you think, that you deserved your free education, but I don't, is that what you're saying?" He repeated the question several times with an emotional and rabid fervour, and in various forms, as Bill made multiple attempts to lay the foundations of a waffling, generic answer or to dodge the question altogether. In the end, Bill submitted -- "No... I don't [think I deserved my free education]" -- thus summoning the inevitable wash of laughter from the Princes Street Labour members and the remarkably excitable AUSA members in the front-centre row. Bill implied at one point that he thought too many of the questions were being asked by Princes Street Labour members (except he's one of those people who says "Princess Street Labour").

Largely an enjoyable evening, it was marred by only a few factors. Bill's seemingly cynical attitude to students -- caused by his generalised perception that we are apathetic towards the tertiary education issues that effect us -- was one such factor. The same man's constant seagull-flap gesturing as he spoke was another. Also, as I thought Alison put very well: "He speaks in superlatives." Serving to exemplify that fact is a quote taken from when he was talking about a group of high-ranking civil servants who had written up a report on tertiary education in New Zealand. He took the liberty of assuring us that the report is "not some ratbag opposition opportunism." The reactions from the audience ranged from entertained to stupefied.

Ironically, another one of the significantly bad aspects was the rabble of the audience itself, despite the fact that it had indeed produced most of the confrontations that had been of interest. Some students or small groups who put questions to the politicians seemed to insist on smothering the politicians as they were attempting to answer said questions, which seemed rather ridiculous. It was certainly frustrating to behold. Overall, though, the time I spent at the Maidment last night was time well-spent. I came out of it with an amplified perception of the major parties' relative lack of any real reformist policies in the area of tertiary education, however it was good nonetheless to gain a greater understanding of Labour's and National's general philosophies about the issue.