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Speaker 1: Now Associate Minister of Education, David Seymour has announced our

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Speaker 1: one hundred and forty million dollar funding boost to tackle

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Speaker 1: truancy in schools. Seventeen million dollars will go towards frontline services,

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Speaker 1: while the bulk, which is one hundred and twenty three

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Speaker 1: million dollars, will go towards setting up a new attendance agency.

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Speaker 1: Now Pat Newman is the principal of Ho Ho To

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Speaker 1: School and he is with me. Now, Hay, Pat, welcome.

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Speaker 2: Back here, killa.

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Speaker 1: Been a while, Yeah, has been a while. Now do

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Speaker 1: you like the look of this or no?

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Speaker 2: Well? I firstly leaped up and down. I thought mister

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Speaker 2: Seymour was finally doing something really useful. And then I

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Speaker 2: looked at it and one hundred and forty million is great,

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Speaker 2: even though we know where the money came from, which

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Speaker 2: is on what they say, from not paying woman. But

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Speaker 2: I then looked at where it's going. He's inventing another bureaucracy.

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Speaker 2: That's where it's going. He's inventing a bureaucracy that has

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Speaker 2: not worked in the past. On that way, we have

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Speaker 2: told him time and time again that the school handle it.

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Speaker 2: Give us the funding, give us the rest of it.

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Speaker 2: We don't need big brothers sitting over us from Wellington

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Speaker 2: giving directives and telling us how to do the job.

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Speaker 2: We're actually more skilled in it. The one hundred and

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Speaker 2: forty million over two and a half thousand schools is

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Speaker 2: about sixty five thousand each. Give it to us and

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Speaker 2: we could do something with it. I could tell you

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Speaker 2: now how I could end up. I could tomorrow get

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Speaker 2: another twelve kids in the school every day, if I

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Speaker 2: could get another thirty thousand bucks.

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Speaker 1: How would you do?

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Speaker 2: Well, We've already put aside twenty five thousand of our

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Speaker 2: own money this year out of our OPS grant, and

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Speaker 2: I'm now desperately out there trying to raise a difference

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Speaker 2: to buy a van, another van. We've got two running already,

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Speaker 2: to bring kids to school.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so you reckon Evan solves the problem, which

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Speaker 1: suggests that the problem for the kids is not that

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Speaker 1: they don't want to go to school. They do want

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Speaker 1: to go to school, they just can't get to school.

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Speaker 1: Is that what you're experiencing?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? And finally I noticed in this thing, he's noticed

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Speaker 2: that that socio economics might just have something to do

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Speaker 2: with it, which I thought was quite a surprise for

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Speaker 2: us to see more. But he does. He actually acknowledges that. Fine,

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Speaker 2: so perhaps, well, he's always seems to blame parents rather

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Speaker 2: realizing that there is a cause, which is called socio economics,

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Speaker 2: which is not a blame on parents. It's the reality

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Speaker 2: of where the government has dropped them.

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Speaker 1: Oh I see, okay, all right.

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Speaker 2: So he actually sees that they'll give more money to

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Speaker 2: schools and or high socio economic or low socio economic areas.

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Speaker 2: So to me, it might The question I've got is

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Speaker 2: would the money be better spent on putting another bureaucracy

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Speaker 2: with computers that are supposed they're going to solve it

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Speaker 2: by checking who's not there, or actually solving the real problem,

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Speaker 2: which is socio economics.

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Speaker 1: Hey, how much of a problem is kids wanting to

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Speaker 1: sit on the PlayStation.

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Speaker 2: It's not actually during school time, we're not having that problem,

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Speaker 2: but it's definitely a problem, definitely, But it's the problem

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Speaker 2: starts at birth, where the PlayStations or those sort of

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Speaker 2: things that are the automatic babysitters, and people get it

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Speaker 2: very Mums and dads get very excited because the two

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Speaker 2: year old can sit on the tablet and they think

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Speaker 2: it shows that they're a genius. It doesn't. In fact,

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Speaker 2: it starts. It's the start of the rot. In my opinion,

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Speaker 2: I've got to be careful. I'm seventy two, but suddenly

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Speaker 2: might say that because I meanders throw it's not. It's

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Speaker 2: actually from what I see with the experience.

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Speaker 1: I'm a lot younger than you, and I can tell

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Speaker 1: you you'll bang on and I think most parents and grandparents

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Speaker 1: will agree with you. Hey, listen, I just want you

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Speaker 1: to take on something here. So David Symour got a

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Speaker 1: bit of he got the mayor's backs up the other

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Speaker 1: day because he asked if the mayors could help him out,

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Speaker 1: you know, just getting the community to be involved, and.

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Speaker 2: Kind of there wasn't ideos meaning what was he meaning?

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Speaker 2: He told them he actually said that it was their

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Speaker 2: job to get out. He changed as the as the

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Speaker 2: responsors came back. Mister Seymour did change his view to

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Speaker 2: a degree.

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Speaker 1: What did he want the mans to go walk the

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Speaker 1: street and get the kids?

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Speaker 2: Well, that's what I was saying, yeah, And then what

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Speaker 2: he was saying get out and do stuff and you've

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Speaker 2: got a responsibility there. That was basically what do you say?

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Speaker 2: I actually said on Breakfast show quite directly, mister Seymour.

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Speaker 2: This is not their job, but I want to ask you,

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Speaker 2: this is mister Semour's job.

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Speaker 1: I want to ask you about this though, because the vibe,

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Speaker 1: the impression I got was that he was just trying

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Speaker 1: to basically rally the community. But is the community doing enough? Pat?

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Speaker 1: Are we doing enough when we see kids wandering around

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Speaker 1: during school? What should we do it?

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Speaker 2: Look, we ran it very successfully. Then we ran out

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Speaker 2: of money because the government grants came. But we did

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Speaker 2: work up here. What the government needs to be doing

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Speaker 2: is using the television and other forms of media who

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Speaker 2: sell the message that being in school is important, that

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Speaker 2: we're there to help.

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Speaker 1: But why can't we do it? We're parents, we're grandparents.

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Speaker 1: Why can't we If we see snotty little Johnny will

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Speaker 1: around at twelve, go what do you do get in school?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? It would be really nice, And we were getting that.

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Speaker 2: We're saying is looking over the fence in the neighbors

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Speaker 2: with the kids at school, saying, hey, listen, what can

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Speaker 2: I do to help to get the kids to school?

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Speaker 2: And that's the whole thing of what I was trying

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Speaker 2: to say is that, But we need to have something

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Speaker 2: driving it. So people actually think it's all right to

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Speaker 2: do that. A lot of people say, oh, we can't

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Speaker 2: reach over there. They might, it's not our business, you

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Speaker 2: know what I mean. And what we've got to do

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Speaker 2: is to reinvent the community because we don't have communities

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Speaker 2: in town, we don't have communities in city, so we've

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Speaker 2: going to reinvent them.

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Speaker 1: You are quite right, and it's actually incumbent. It is

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Speaker 1: incumbent on ourselves. I suppose I personally think it's incumbent

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Speaker 1: on us to just set that community up again. Pat,

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Speaker 1: always good to talk to you. Thank you, mate, Pat

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Speaker 1: Newman to hold a school principle. For more from Heather

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Speaker 1: Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to news Talks.

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Speaker 2: It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast

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Speaker 2: ust on iHeartRadio