One of the favoured parliamentary question approaches of recent times has been for a government  backbencher to ask “Has the Minister seen any reports of alternative approaches to dealing with the economic crisis” (or whatever issue).  This is followed by (often irrelevant and meaningless) comparisons to something a former Labour Minister said 20 years ago.

Well, for the benefit of the Ministers of Finance and Education, here is an alternative approach for dealing with the effects of the recession.  The Australian Government is providing training places at TAFEs (polytechnics)  for those who lose their jobs.  This is exactly what could have been part of the nine-day fortnight, or indeed  a stand-alone policy.  It recognises that if you are serious about improving productivity, training and skill development are the key. 

I am particularly taken with Kevin Rudd’s quote

The government cannot stop the global recession from bearing down on communities across Australia but it can reduce the impact by taking local action to support training and jobs.

John Key seems to understand the first half of that quote, but is a lot less focused on the second half, and NZ is the poorer for that.