David Farrar: Hold my beer, Willow-Jean, says Ginny

It was almost beyond dispute that Willow-Jean Prime was the worst Labour Education Spokesperson in living memory. It is hard to think you can do worse than having your leader criticise the Government for a lack of consultation over NCEA, and then learn Willow-Jean personally ignored or declined three personal requests from the Minister to brief her.

Bob Edlin: Labour perhaps supported the English Language Bill because it could not build a strong case for scuttling it

Stuff reports –

The bill to register English as an official language of New Zealand passed its first reading on Tuesday, and there was silence from the Opposition benches when it came to the vote.

It was initially assumed Labour and the rest of the Opposition parties were against the bill, and had just forgotten to vote in opposition – but Labour, on Wednesday, confirmed to Stuff that it supports the legislation.

David Farrar: Prime bullsh*t

The Herald reports:

Labour leader Chris Hipkins told his party’s education spokeswoman Willow-Jean Prime she should have responded to attempts the Government was making to brief her on the NCEA change process.

But he doesn’t believe it was unreasonable for Prime to wait to speak with teachers and parents before meeting Education Minister Erica Stanford.

Kerre Woodham: How can anyone not be critical of Labour?

I get texts on the daily from people saying “you're so negative about Labour”. “You never have anything good to say about the last government. You're so critical of Labour.” And I say to them, how can anyone with a brain not be critical of Labour?! The gut feeling I had at the time that the previous administration was out of their depth and hopelessly incompetent has been proved with hard data, time and time and time again.

Cam Slater: Labour’s NCEA Debacle - Hypocrisy, Incompetence and a Failing System

The Labour Party’s latest display of rank hypocrisy and jaw-dropping incompetence is a doozy. The New Zealand Herald dropped a bombshell, revealing that Education Minister Erica Stanford bent over backwards to get Labour’s Education Spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime up to speed on the Government’s plan to overhaul the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA). Did Prime seize the opportunity to engage in meaningful cross-party collaboration? Nope. She either ghosted the invites or flat-out declined them, only to later cry foul about not being consulted. If this isn’t a masterclass in political cynicism or sheer ineptitude, I don’t know what is.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: How hard is it for Labour to check their texts?

So I don't know what's worse, the fact that Willow Jean Prime is a lazy, disinterested waste of space in Labour's team, or the fact that Labour's been busted almost lying about this. So let me get you across what happened, and you can decide for yourself.

In March, Willow Jean Prime took over the Labour Party education portfolio from Jan Tonetti, and her National Party counterpart, Erika Stanford, sent her a text to say congrats and I need to get you up to speed with the NCEA change process. It would be good if we could meet first and I can run you through where we're at. There is a policy advisory group of principals who are working on the details. You can have access to them as well as my officials and also NZQA.

David Farrar: Labour hypocrisy exposed

When Erica Stanford announced the scrapping of NCEA, Labour said that there hasn’t been proper consultation, and it was all too hasty.

Today we find out that Labour’s supposed Education Spokesperson, Willow-Jean Prime, turned down multiple offers to be briefed on the NCEA change programme. Chris Hipkins was complaining that the opposition wasn’t consulted, and in fact his own spokesperson turned it down!

Point of Order: Willie Jackson is coy about a meeting....

.......(if there was one) to determine what media will tell us about Treaty issues

Our monitors of the government’s official website have spotted no press statements from Willie Jackson since July 8, when he paid tribute to Dr Ihakara (Kara) Porutu Puketapu.

We are disappointed because we are expecting – correction, we are hoping – to see something today, preferably a denial that Jackson is meeting with mainstream media people to determine how Maori and Treaty issues should be reported.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 23/6/23

Willow-Jean Prime adopts the Beehive practice of mixing two languages – and the effect (dare we say?) is bumfuzzling

Point of Order has engaged in a hasty bit of linguistic research on hearing – or rather, reading – the opening sentence of a speech delivered by Associate Health Minister Willow-Jean Prime.

As has become common practice in the Beehive, this sentence was crafted to combine te reo and English.