Dr Michael Johnston: Teachers deserve better than their union

Every two or three years, the Ministry of Education and the teachers’ unions engage in the spectacle of ritual combat known as collective bargaining. In 2025, the Public Service Commissioner took over from the Ministry in the arena. But the exercise remains a ritual.

Everyone knows, more-or-less, what the outcome will be before bargaining even begins. The education budget is fixed, so the government negotiator has very little room to move.

Typically, the ritual goes as follows.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 14/10/24

Polls dip for Nats but govt sticks to its guns on growth – and the restoration of “mauri” (but how is it measured?) plays a part

The phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid” was coined by James Carville, a strategist involved in Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential election campaign against George H W Bush.

It worked for Clinton, whose team used it successfully to unseat Bush the elder, despite the fact that 90 per cent of the country approved of the job that the incumbent had been doing just a year before the election.