State Sector Bill

Press, 9 March 1988, Page 20

State Sector Bill

Sir, —Surely, by going on strike so conveniently close to the similar action of the caretakers and cleaners, teachers are confirming the very assumptions which i form the basis for the introduction of the State Sector Bill, and thus justifying the Government’s actions. The claimed reason for the need for the bill is that State servants are, in fact, no different from other workers. Therefore, why should their conditions of employment, etc., be different? They are very cooperatively proving the contention by showing they will go to any lengths to look after No. 1, even to the extent of using our children as pawns in their power games, exactly as the cleaners did. At least the cleaners had the good grace or, more likely, the political acumen, not to mouth the transparent I hypocrisy of quoting the welfare of the children as orie of their motivations. —Yours, 'etc., ; '. TERRY DOLBY. March 5, 1988. | ; Sir, —As a sixth-former at Rangiora High School, I can sympathise with Imy teachers’ grievances relating to the State Sector Bill. I strongly object, however, to the way they chose to express their dissatisfaction with all it entails. Their initiative of nationwide rolling stoppages showed, in the final analysis, only their solidarity with other gfoups in the P.S.A. and demonstrated their ability to flex their “industrial muscle.” Such posturing is both futile and insignificant; instead of sending any resoundingly loud messages to the Government regarding their unhappiness with the bill it primarily harmed the very, people whom they are duty-bound pledged to educate. In retrospect, ll see the only tangible effect of tiie action has been to disrupt my schooling. If teachers are supposed to be teaching us, amongst other things, social responsibility, !■ wish that they would exercise a little themselves. — Yours, etc., i SIMON DAVIES. I March 4, 1988. | sir,—The State Sector Bill is a key element in the Labour Party’s hidden agenda of constitutional revolution. It was foreshadowed in Wellington — along

with State! corporatisation — on December -6, 1984. On that day Geoffrey Palmer, M.P., spoke to the U.N.E.S.C.O. International Commission of Jurists (the legal equivalent of World Heritage). The Government’s constitutional expert entitled his talk a “Report on Progress” (refer “N.Z. Law Journal,” February, 1985). Mr Palmer said, inter alia: the Government was committed to constitutional! change; it wanted to “share power”; and that “open Government is subversive... It undercuts; a number of cherished beliefs.. .[ It will greatly alter the complexion of the institutions of State.” It is typical of the sinister drift in New Zealand affairs that Mr Palmer should share the Government’s constitutional agenda with jurists bent on world government through world law. — Yours, etc., SUE HUNT. March 7, 1988.