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Speaker 1: As part of Scrutiny Week, we find out what farma's

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Speaker 1: former boss, Sarah Fit quit in February, of course, where

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Speaker 1: they don't come Monday payout as it turns out, a

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Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty seven thousand dollars. Anyway, David Seymour's

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Speaker 1: the Minister of Farmaker and is with us on this David.

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Speaker 2: Morning, Good morning mate.

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Speaker 1: Broadly speaking the value of Scrutiny Week. This is the

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Speaker 1: sort of stuff we get. Is it worth it?

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Speaker 2: It's an awful lot of time and Parliament. I briefly

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Speaker 2: set in as a substitute because normally they only have

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Speaker 2: you can't do it if you're a minister. But I

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Speaker 2: wanted to cover someone who was sick, and I watched

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Speaker 2: the behavior of the Chloe sawbricks of the world and

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Speaker 2: I thought, you know, I don't know if this is

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Speaker 2: really going to make people believe in democracy, but you know,

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Speaker 2: the Parliament agreed to do it for three years. So

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Speaker 2: here we are.

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Speaker 1: VERYL was asking the questions over and as Fit in

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Speaker 1: the three fifty seven thousand VERAYL wasn't defending it, was she?

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Speaker 1: I mean, she wasn't defending Fitfit was a disaster wasn't she.

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Speaker 2: Well, I just want to be clear. I'm not saying

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Speaker 2: who it was. You know, I can't do that, but

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Speaker 2: I just make the point Farmac inheritited a person that

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Speaker 2: we didn't hire. They will hire a long time ago

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Speaker 2: under a contract that we didn't sign, adjudicated with employment

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Speaker 2: law that we are changing. So ioways say in life,

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Speaker 2: it's not what happens to you, it's what you do

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Speaker 2: with it. We've got a great person in that role.

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Speaker 2: We're really really pleased with them and the way Farmac's

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Speaker 2: turning around the contracting that's up to the board, but

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Speaker 2: i'd hope that's tighter. And then the employment law. All

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Speaker 2: the people that are jumping up and down in this

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Speaker 2: ought to support the act Party and the government's policy

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Speaker 2: of saying, look, if you're over two hundred thousand dollars,

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Speaker 2: then you can't take a personal grievance because if you're

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Speaker 2: playing with the big kids, you have a massive influence

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Speaker 2: on the effectiveness of the organization and you shouldn't be

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Speaker 2: able to tie the organization up in a PG. That's

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Speaker 2: the bane of many small businesses existence. It shouldn't be

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Speaker 2: applied to somebody who has so much influence over whether

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Speaker 2: everyone else can be productive.

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Speaker 1: While I've got you, talk to me about that fuzzy food.

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Speaker 2: How is it?

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Speaker 1: To several questions, that was disgusting. I don't know how

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Speaker 1: it happened, but the food's disgusting. How did kids eat it?

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Speaker 1: You couldn't get them to eat normal food, but they

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Speaker 1: suddenly fuzzy, disgusting food. And is it really a problem

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Speaker 1: or do we have something at play here?

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Speaker 2: Well, here's a few facts. It appears that a meal

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Speaker 2: that had been from a previous week was reserved to

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Speaker 2: some children. Radio and New Zealand then reported they're all

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Speaker 2: being tested for food poisoning. Well that there is no

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Speaker 2: food poisoning. There is no sickness at all. And what's

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Speaker 2: interesting is that the principle at the center of this

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Speaker 2: is what you might call a frequent flyer in terms

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Speaker 2: of getting in the media to complain about a range

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Speaker 2: of government policies. So we're doing some testing and keeping

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Speaker 2: a very open mind about how meals from last week

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Speaker 2: got in front of children this week.

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Speaker 1: How much trouble broader question are you and Erica facing?

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Speaker 1: This is the teterity thing that schools just don't like.

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Speaker 1: You are not going to do what they're just it's

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Speaker 1: a war basically.

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Speaker 2: Well, Erica and I are fine. We're very clear in

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Speaker 2: what we're trying to do, and that is make sure

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Speaker 2: that when a kid goes to school, there is a

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Speaker 2: teacher who's a knowledgeable adult standing in front of one classroom,

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Speaker 2: not three, joined together, with a knowledge rich curriculum of

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Speaker 2: facts that they are transferring from one generation to the next.

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Speaker 2: And then at the end we're going to test it

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Speaker 2: with proper exams so you can't fiddle your credits and

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Speaker 2: work around actual proper learning and testing. That's what we're

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Speaker 2: doing and that will uplift all children in the future

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Speaker 2: of this country. What I find interesting as we did

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Speaker 2: some analysis over the weekend and discovered that the schools

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Speaker 2: that have come out and made these declarations have an

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Speaker 2: average UWI pass rate for Maori students of twenty four percent,

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Speaker 2: which is hardly great. In the average across the country

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Speaker 2: that figure is thirty two percent. So I know that

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Speaker 2: people get into statistics and correlations, not causation. I get it,

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Speaker 2: But just on the face of it, the schools that

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Speaker 2: invest in all of this politics and virtue signaling don't

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Speaker 2: actually seem to do better for Mari's students when it

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Speaker 2: comes to getting university entrants. Now also just ask a

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Speaker 2: few questions. If you have a school that's doing this,

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Speaker 2: you could ask them did they actually consult their parent

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Speaker 2: community before sending out these messages? Number two? Did they

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Speaker 2: talk to anyone outside the school community such as those

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Speaker 2: that are pushing this campaign and it is a campaign?

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Speaker 2: And number three and you know this happens to be

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Speaker 2: an ac party policy. The major change that we made

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Speaker 2: to the duties of school boards was we said academic

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Speaker 2: achievement must be the paramount objective. They're not talking about

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Speaker 2: how they're going to address that and these emails going out.

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Speaker 2: And finally we also said, you know, you' no longer

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Speaker 2: have to give effeck to the treaty, but you do

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Speaker 2: have to reflect all of New Zealand's cultural diversity. They're

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Speaker 2: not saying how they want to do that, so it

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Speaker 2: would be useful if they could reflect and follow the

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Speaker 2: laws of Parliament and maybe focus a bit on academic achievement.

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Speaker 1: Good stuff. Appreciate it, David Seymour, it's a shame you've

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Speaker 1: got to say, well, that doesn't Minister of Fun. Where

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Speaker 1: it started off as Minister of Fine but ended up

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Speaker 1: associated Education Minister.

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