English shows his feelings at school visit
PM’s emotions surface after charter students tell their stories
Prime Minister Bill English got emotional twice yesterday. The first time was when Parris Bryant, a student at Vanguard military school in Albany, gave a talk after a ferocious welcoming haka and presented him with a bunch of letters from students about why they had ended up there.
The second time was when a reporter later in the day asked why he had got a little misty-eyed and whether he had been trying to “outemote” Jacinda Ardern (who got teary herself about her grandfather being asked to leave Waikato Hospital in the dead of night).
“I think that is a ridiculous statement,” the National Party leader snapped, genuinely offended at the very thought he had contrived an emotional response as part of the election campaign.
“I have spent 20 years with young people, working with them, raising them, at their games, in their homes and particularly we’ve had a strong focus on policy that enables each one of them to get on track.
“What you’ve heard me say during this campaign to high school audiences is what I’ve been saying to them since I’ve been the Finance Minister nine years ago. It is the same message. It’s not a matter of outemoting.”
That is not to say that English avoided politics at the charter school.
The very nature of the school is steeped in political history and controversy, because they are publicly funded independent schools and an initiative of Act.
Secretary of Education and Act leader David Seymour was in on the prime ministerial visit.
And politics and the election campaign were very much what English had in mind when he issued a challenge to his political opponents in front of the Year 11 to 13s.
He told them he was campaigning to continue with “what’s lit your eyes up, what’s remotivated you, what’s made you fine young New Zealanders”.
“My challenge to the other political parties is this: I dare them to come down here, look you in the eye and tell you they are going to take away your opportunity.
“Not just say it in the media or in the Parliament or in their party meetings but come here and say it to you. Because I can’t see any reason why any adult would want to take away what has created this family, what has fired up your aspiration.”
The school, which requires the students to wear a uniform and take part in military drills each day, has no direct link to the Defence Force, although some of the students go on to join it.
The school opened in 2014 and has roll of 180.
English and his wife Mary joined several students afterwards to talk about what they liked about the discipline of the school.
One student, Ashley, who lives in Papakura, leaves home at 5.45am each day for the trip to school which entails a bus link to a train, a train ride then two more bus rides.
English went on to the AUT Millennium Institute in East Coast Bays where he and Mary met up with NZ Olympic medallist and pole vaulter Eliza McCartney as though they were old friends — which they are. McCartney’s mother went to medical school with Dr Mary English.
Bill English began the day at the University of Auckland’s Photon Factory where Professor Cather Simpson showed him how laser research was being used to sort bull semen into male and female products.
Bill English