Buzz from the Beehive
It was a short speech – around 500 words – on a big subject, when the PM addressed the 10th meeting of the Friends of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty.
She said the gathering provided an important opportunity to reiterate New Zealand’s unwavering commitment to achieving a world without nuclear weapons.
And she said New Zealand, as a firm opponent of nuclear weapons, including nuclear weapons testing, has been “a steadfast supporter of the CTBT since it was first proposed”.
CTBT is the abbreviation employed in the world of diplomacy for Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty
But here’s the thing: we can’t tell from the speech if the PM was speaking as the representative of a member of the organisation she was addressing or whether she had been invited among other guests who were attending.
Point of Order searched the Beehive and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade websites but could find no announcement that we had joined the group, although Australia was one of its founders.
Much closer to home, two ministers have posted announcements affecting the education and wellbeing of the nation’s children and the way schools are funded.
- A progress report on the introduction of the Equity Index (and a pointer to who gets what).
Another 47,000 students will be able to access additional support through the school donations scheme and a further 3,000 kids will be able to get “free and healthy” school lunches as a result of the Equity Index.
That’s on top of nearly 90% of schools that will also benefit from “a bump in funding” when schools start receiving equity funding based on the Equity Index rather than the old decile system.
As Education Minister Chris Hipkins explains things, schools and kura in Te Tai Tokerau – probably better known as Northland – will have the biggest average increase of around $223.11 per pupil.
At the other end schools and kura in Auckland will receive an average increase of $6.25 extra per pupil.
But schools in South Auckland will receive on average $525.47 per pupil after the changes, representing an average increase of $70.47.
Schools in the north of Auckland will receive on average $60.77 per pupil for an average increase of $16.60.
The amount of money the Government contributes through the school donations policy will be increased and the number of schools that are eligible will be explained.
School donations will increase from $150 to $154.13 per student in 2023. Combined with the expansion in eligibility, this will result in up to in $9.3 million in extra funding provided directly to schools next year. If those schools and kura join the scheme the families and whānau of around 47,000 young people at 155 schools will no longer be asked for donations.
More information on who gets what can be found in the press statement.
- A progress report on the Government’s mission to produce fit and well-fed children
A total of 800 schools and kura nationwide are now benefitting from a physical activity and nutrition initiative aimed at improving the wellbeing of children and young people.
Healthy Active Learning was funded for the first time in the inaugural Wellbeing Budget and was launched in 2020. It gets regional sports trusts, regional education offices, and public health units to work together to support schools to implement healthy eating and drinking, and quality physical activity programmes.
The initiative has expanded from 300 schools in 2020 to 800 in 2022.
Recent evaluation findings show Healthy Active Learning has significantly increased the priority teachers place on Health and Physical Education as a learning area with more teachers also integrating it with other parts of the curriculum, the press statement from Education Minister Chris Hipkins and Sport and Recreation Minister Grant Robertson says.
“They also show schools and kura are providing physical activity experiences that are more inclusive, and consider the needs, of all students.”
And the cost?
The Government has invested $47.6 million into the Healthy Active Learning initiative between 2020 and 2024 and has recently committed a further $13.4 million in funding to support the ongoing delivery of this initiative beyond 2024.
“It is being delivered at no cost to education providers.”
That leaves us wondering at whose cost it is being delivered.
The latest posts on the Beehive website include another (much longer) speech by the PM, to a Summit in New York hosted by Michael R. Bloomberg, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Climate Ambition and Solutions. It is being attended by heads of state, government and civil society leaders, philanthropists, business executives, and grassroots climate activists from around the world
“… to spotlight emerging, systems-changing solutions and showcase the critical need to turbocharge ground-breaking climate innovations to address the world’s most pressing environmental challenges.”
But Point of Order focused on Jacinda Ardern’s speech (shorter than the press statement on the number of kids who will benefit from equity-based programmes next year) to the Friends of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.
The PM said the Treaty’s adoption in 1996 was a clear statement of New Zealand’s shared determination to end nuclear testing and was a critical factor in the indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
“As the threat posed by nuclear weapons continue to rise, and the international community is divided over a choice between disarmament or a new nuclear arms race, both treaties require our urgent care and attention.”
New Zealand was proud to support the CTBT, Ardern said, and she acknowledged the particular dedication it has taken among member states and the Provisional Technical Secretariat to continue to progress implementation of the Treaty over the past quarter century.
But while she was pleased to celebrate the Treaty’s successes,
“… we must not gloss over the fact that it has not yet delivered us the disarmament benefits promised all those years ago.
“The Treaty’s entry into force cannot be achieved until eight specific countries have ratified it. I therefore take this opportunity to urge India, North Korea and Pakistan to sign and ratify the Treaty, and China, Egypt, Iran, Israel and the United States to ratify it.”
But how many people were in the audience?
The Friends of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (according to information posted on Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs website in 2016) is a group of nations formed by Japan, Australia, and the Netherlands that coordinates and promotes efforts to facilitate entry into force of the CTBT mainly in Vienna where the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization is located.
The group at that time consisted of seven countries – the three founders plus Canada, Finland, Germany, and Kazakhstan.
Searching for “Friends of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty” on the MFAT website, Point of Order was given just one response – a statement to the UN Security Council delivered by Ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, Permanent Representative of New Zealand to the United Nations, on 23 September 2016.
The PM’s speech is the only mention we could find of this organisation on the Beehive website.
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Point of Order 
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