Anita Baker: Porirua Mayor on David Seymour’s call to help with school attendance

David Seymour’s calling on mayors to help in reducing school truancies.

The Associate Education Minister’s asking mayors to use the Government’s new daily school attendance dashboard to understand how regions compare to each other.

Porirua Mayor Anita Baker says Seymour's plea was vague.

“So if he wants to play us a formal role, I think he needs to look at funding us."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to give me your thoughts on that, Nicholas with
us after five it's nine two ninety two. It's the
text number and standard text fees apply.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Now.

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Mayors, it turns out, are not loving the fact that
David Seymour has asked them to help him get school
attendants up. So you'll be aware that yesterday he publicly
asked the country's mayors to keep an eye on his
new school attendance dashboard and then lead a conversation in
their communities about how to get the kids attending school
a little bit more and so on. Anita Baker is
put it to his man is with us? Now, Hey, Anita, hello,

(00:27):
So I see there are quite a few mayors who've
said they're not stoked about this. Are you one of them?

Speaker 2 (00:32):
I'm not stoked about it. We do a lot with
our schools already. We're on top of working with our
schools in our young children. And the Prime Minister and
the local government form minister told us to stick to
our knitting, do our course course services. So if he
wants to play us a formal role, I think he
needs to look at funding us. Did he came is it?

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Because I look at what he said it was pretty nebulous,
so it was a bit vague. It's not it doesn't
seem like it's there's no actual request there. He's just
asking you to sort of just keep an eye and
the kids go into school.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
It made it sound like he didn't know what we
actually did already, and that we'd already work with the
schools and we have programs with them. So I just
thought that was a bit iffy on from his side.
He could have picked the phone up and spoken to
a few of us, worked out what was going in
the region.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
What do you do with the schools, how do.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
You well, we have a school bus that goes to
the Lobber Decil schools that's funded. We have a maharing
A Tachi program which starts, and we have twelve kids
that come into council for ten weeks, one day a week,
and we do training with them. This month, there is
a try challenge that they're running, the Careers Expo, the
Pacific Symposium. All our services work together around our children

(01:43):
and potty of us. So I just don't think he
realizes what we actually do.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
So Anita, you can tell me if I'm wrong, But
the vibe I got from his as I say, pretty
wooly in vague request. Was it felt to me like
he was basically just saying, hey, listen, if you guys
see and not just you as the mayor, but leading
but the communities led by them. Is you guys see
kids wandering around during school hours, tell them to get
back to school. Let's all start being adults keeping an

(02:07):
eye on each other's kids and telling everybody's kids to
go back to school. Was that the vibe you got?

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Oh? It was? And it was looking at those numbers
every day, and I thought, I haven't got time to
look at the numbers. We've already got truancy offices that
go around, especially in our colleges, that take them back.
I don't see many kids wandering around in our community.
We have wardens down at the train stations so that
we don't have any issues after school. So I haven't
seen it is a huge issue that he's talking about.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Yeah, okay, what is your what's your attendance rate? Like
in Portador?

Speaker 2 (02:37):
I haven't looked it up, to be fair, I've been
home sick all day and I haven't even loft.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
I'll be one, So you yourself are truant. As it turns out,
I am.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
I've slept for fifteen now.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Sorry, s wrong with you? Have you got COVID?

Speaker 2 (02:50):
I think no. I tested. I'm sure it's a touch
the flu and I'll be back tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Oh jeez, no, the flu takes you out for longer
than that. Listen, Anita, thanks very much, really appreciate your time.
I need to Baker portad Is Mayor Christ sush Mere
Film Major seems to be one of the ones leading
the opposition to this in a big way. He said
it's a bit rich of the government to make a
request like this after they've previously told counsels to go
back to basics. And Nick Minett he's going to be
the one cooking the school lunches and he's not clear.
Keen on that. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive

(03:16):
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