Hero 42, Full credit where its due.This crisis is above political gamesmanship and we are the richer for that. The damage tragedy and suffering cuts across the political divide. We are pulling together. We have a long way to go.

Gidday

Squirty,

"Ole-fella-Jack's fallen in love with Jubilant John the Juggler.

Just out of bed too ole-fella ?? "

Like bloody hell mate. I was actually replying to an earlier post of Tahi's but hey, he was right with the last one too. But that don' mean that I either like or trust that slimy bugger but the simple fact is a PM visiting an area in crisis does have a good effect no matter how big a heap of crap he is.

And no I had just come in for lunch.

I see the governments reduction in funding of our universities has caused them all to slid down the world rankings.
Not good for the investment in our youth and not good at attracting overseas students here either.
But we still have our tiny tax cuts to comfort us.

The Universities varied widely in their fees, and charging far too much. It needed sorting.

That depends on the choices we make. Are we investing in our future or do we want to save money. Investment is long term and helps develop the country and make it rich.
Saving money is short term and ends up with us becoming more impoverished as we don't have the talent to develop the money making opportunities in the modern world.
We can't compete with cheap overseas labour so we have to compete with our smart abilities and that needs education.

My comment was made after listening to an interview with the Head of Auck University on radio. He suggested students can afford to pay more as their fees are attached to their interest free loan.
That the money can be spent on good tutoring and improving the Universities.
My husband is a tutor, and a good one, but told there is no money for them, and then he sees it ploughed into buying up real estate.
If the higher education concentrated in supplying courses that will benefit for the future, well and good, but they need to cut back many obscure courses which is creating a nation of permanent students, getting useless degrees that don't get them jobs.

"That's what they are in the job for, to have gone abroad at a time like this would have been political suicide."

Yet a poll done showed that three quarters of the several thousand pollsters who participated said that he should go as there was nothing he could do.

He'd have been damned if he did and damned if he didn't. Who'd be a poli, eh?

"Good to see they aren't using this as a political opportunity but are working together for the good of the country."

Funny you should say that

I read a fascinating article the other day saying that all `politicking' had been put aside because of the earthquakes in Canterbury. But the blogger said to expect cracks soon (excuse the pun) as it wouldn't be too long before poli's would be doing their utmost to get some coverage out of the disaster.

Two points were mentioned.

1) That Phil Goff was being left out of the lime-light so his department would ask that he accompany John Key down to Christchurch, on Mr Key's second visit. It would put John Key on the spot because if he said `no' he would be seen as the baddie. If he said `yes' he'd be seen as a sincere person (but it would give Mr Goff the photo opportunity to be seen as a leader in a crisis).

2) After being the people's choice as next Mayor of Christchurch, Jim Anderton quipped that it would take an earthquake for Bob Parker to win the mayoralty for a second time. No sooner had he said it ... 7.1 on the richter scale!
Suddenly Jim Anderton can't be seen to be lobbying for the top job when the man in the top job is trying to keep `his' city together. Someone then compares Bob Parker to Rudy Giuliani (Mayor of NY at the time of the 9/11 strike). However, Jim can't resist getting one little swipe in and says `yeah, but where's Rudy Giuliani now?'

"but they need to cut back many obscure courses which is creating a nation of permanent students, getting useless degrees that don't get them jobs."

Can't agree with you more, Gaye-Belle. My nephew is one of these. He's never left school and he's in his 30s. I think a degree in cleaning Tibetan Monestary toilets is the only diploma he hadn't got.

But there is a huge need for tibetan toilet cleaners at the moment because the Chinese have driven out all the current job holders when they invaded the country.

There is of course no such thing as a worthless degree as a degree shows the ability to think clearly, research, analyse and develop new conclusions.
All the major companies have graduate programmes and they will take people with good degrees in even obscure subjects as they can then get them to work in their corporate culture. Thats how my nephew got a good job in Datacom, his mate got one in ANZ and my neice got one in the public service. They all started on six figure salaries.