Confidence for youth

Press, 1 April 1985, Page 2

Confidence for youth

Parliamentary reporter The public were now accepting much more that the school curriculum must not only reflect fundamental values in society but that it must be broad enough to equip young people with knowledge and skills to enable them to enter adult life with a degree of confidence, said Mrs Margaret Austin (Lab., Yaldhurst). That meant a focus on intellectual, physical, and cultural development, and attention to the personal and social needs of students. One-to-one counselling was every young, person’s right in their schooling, she said.

Local government Local government legislation from the Government was frightening, dictatorial, and Bolshevik, said Mr Rob Talbot (Nat., Ashburton). It saw the introduction of local government by Ministerial edict, because there was nothing in it that required the Minister concerned to consult local authorities. The legislation destroyed all aspects of the Labour Government’s great philosophy of consensus, he said. Famine’s toll New Zealanders should go on the 40-hour famine be-

cause television had shown everyone that the famine in Africa was the worst disaster in recent history there, said Mr Jim Gerard (Nat., Rangiora). People needed to understand that, even with the quantities of aid reaching Africa, there was no end to the intense suffering experienced by many there. Indeed, predictions were for a greater death rate from starvation in 1985 than in 1984, until the harvests later in the year, he said. ‘Democracy’ The Government was talking about nothing more "socialist” or “Draconian” in local government than ensuring that people were elected in the same way people were elected to Parliament — by districts, said Mr Philip Woollaston (Lab., Nelson). Local authorities could not determine the parametres of their own districts any more than Parliamentarians could determine the boundaries of their own electorates. It was an unalterable tenet of a democracy that people seeking election did not chose their own boundaries, he said.