It is hard to be shocked by this National/NZ First/Act government but somehow it keeps happening to me, writes Philippa Braithwwaite

This week:

■ The Regulatory Standards Bill went through despite 92 percent of the submissions being against it.

Despite the Law Society, law academics, Māori iwi and many ordinary Kiwis like you and I submitting against it.

Despite that no party campaigned on getting this into law. Despite that it values individual rights over collective societal rights, public goals and environmental issues.

Despite the fact it has created a new set of benchmarks to judge new law against.

Despite that David Seymour’s own Ministry for Regulation advising against it.

And, by the way, this is a new ministry set up by Mr so-called-less-government Seymour. Thank goodness Labour has said it will dump this dangerous law immediately it gets into government.

■ The Minister of Education made the arbitrary decision to axe schools’ obligation to give effect to the Treaty of Waitangi.

This is another attack on Māori and the Treaty by this Government. It is bad for Māori and Pākehā kids who learn about their history and broader New Zealand culture from our schooling system.

It also ensures that schools work hard to meet the needs of Māori kids – kids that have been failed by the system in the past.

Removing Treaty obligations also enables further privatisation of our public education system.

Private owners of schools do not want to be tied to the Treaty and big international education firms would be stopped from buying our school system by the Treaty clauses.

Mr Seymour and Act’s charter school take over is just the beginning of the privatisation.

■ Charter schools are paid $45,000 per child per year, public schools are paid $9000.

And charter schools have no obligation to teach the New Zealand curriculum.

Last time Mr Seymour set up charter schools they were sold to us as being about equity, while this time they are unashamedly about free choice and libertarian principles.

You can see this as the type of schools choosing to become charter schools begin to change.  

And there are numerous examples of bad faith actions.

■ The seven or so charter schools set up at the start of the year have been told by The Charter School Agency (another agency set up by Mr Seymour) to keep their enrolment numbers secret. What is that about?

■ A recent campaign to make Kelston Boys’ High school a charter school against the wishes of its board, principal, and staff by a group called Bangerz(sic) was more like a hostile takeover than positive education policy.

Now, the school has to spend time and resources fighting a government- sanctioned takeover bid of a school the government already owns. What a waste of time.

■ The Charter School Agency signed a new sports school contract with a non-existent trust. How does that work?

■ The Aotearoa Infinite Academy is an online charter school owned by Jamie Beaton of Crimson Education. Crimson Education is valued at one billion.

Mr Beaton was a guest on the right-wing TaxPayers’ Union podcast telling us how to fix NCEA by using a “globally-standardised system”.

But it makes you wonder who will sell the education minister the globally standardised system.

And, of course, he is also making money per pupil from his charter school Aotearoa Infinite Academy.

How many pupils can an online school take and is he getting the $45,000 per pupil other charter schools are getting?  

Oh, and by the way, he is interested in standing for National in Brooke van Velden’s Act-held seat of Tamaki. Wheels within wheels.

■ A newly announced controversial charter school, Totara Point School, will open in Epsom, Auckland. Despite being located within 4km of two existing Catholic primary schools, this taxpayer-funded school is inspired by the peculiar Catholic Opus Dei, and will operate with a Catholic ethos.

Can anyone just make up a school idea and ask for taxpayer funding?  

This whole charter school system of independent publicly funded schools with control over their own curriculum, teaching and management is a very strange concept.

This Government has taxpayers funding private schools. People just have an idea and ask taxpayers to fund their odd schools despite there being no evidence of need. This makes no fiscal sense to me, and this is from the Government that ran on fiscal responsibility.

They have taken money away from public schools to give to their charter schools. All in the name of choice.

But most of us don’t have choice. We just use the underfunded public schools.

No wonder the Government performance rating hit a new low in the latest IPOS Issues Monitor survey – 3.9 out of 10, the lowest rating since the survey began.

Labour scored better on managing the economy, the health system, housing, unemployment, and poverty.  

This Government is out of touch with ordinary New Zealanders.

Let’s make this Government a one-term government.