Jim Hopkins: DIY answer to creating 'OM' sweet home

It's simple, actually. So damned simple even a simple damned columnist can see how simple it damn well is.

Put simply, we change things. Not them, us. We don't wait for the poll-fettered politicians and bureaucrats. We do it!

We tell all the policy analysts and ideologues, every last one of them sloshing at the gunnels with the inviolate wisdom of academia, that it ain't working no more!

The prof would say: "There is some anecdotal evidence that we could moderate the paradigm to sustain its fundamentals while implementing a strategic architecture of reform to mitigate unintended negative policy effects."

The rest of us would just say: "Stuff it! Let's try something different!"

A bright geezer once said: "The people are the real leaders." Well, let's find out.

Want to fix the schools? Simple. Change the bosses. Put parents in charge. Strewth, they pay for the damn places, let them run 'em.

Not the Tomorrow's School way - that was bollocks, as anyone who ever produced one of those meaningless desk warmers, a school Charter, will attest.

As soon as you started, some spotty nodule from Wellington arrived, officiously decreeing there had to be a policy on this and one on that and you couldn't say this or that but, count your blessings, peasants, you could choose what colour paper you wanted! (Puerile purple always looked good.)

None of that tosh. Just put parents in charge. Let them make the rules. Let them set the standards.

Let them decide if there should be corporal punishment or not.

No, don't panic - unless you're silly enough to think everyone else is.

Some schools will choose it, some won't. And everyone will know, including the kids, before they turn up with the machetes, baseball bats and knives that some now "choose to bring to school to deal with [their] problems" - according to the stunningly quiescent PPTA president, Kate Gainsford, in a TV interview this week.

Okay, let 'em! And whack 'em when they do! If the new bosses say so.

Give the Ministry's mind manipulators a lifetime off, starting Monday. Let the country be itself.

Because it will be a mosaic. And we'll all find our own place in it, without the dubious assistance of those who've made Education and Corrections and ACC the shining exemplars of excellence they so manifestly aren't!

Look, the Swedes do it, for Piet's sake. And we don't call them loonies.

They don't pay schools. They pay parents - every year. And the parents choose a school that suits them - some run by the gummint, some not. And it works!

We can do it. If we're brave enough to trust ourselves.

And while we're at it, let's fix the economy as well. Blimey, if a cycle track's the answer, it can't be too hard.

Apparently, every gummint everywhere wants every single, simple one of us to spend more money. Right, give us more money. Scrap income tax. It's just a dumb old 19th-century idea anyway. New century, new crisis, new solution - no income tax, bung a 15 or 20 per cent sales tax on everything and watch us party, party, party.

There you go! You're feeling better already, yes?

No? Well, try this little spiritual pick-me-up from the extinguished Poet Laureate, Mr Jam Hipkins. As luck would have it, he saw the Oscars last month and heard this sound-mixing chappy from Slumdog Millionaire saying how proud he was his country (India) had given the world the magic word, "OM".

And it came upon the laureate that "OM" could be our answer too. If all else fails, including our nerve, "OM" could lead us out of the wilderness.

Heck, it's already embedded in the language. There's an OM in womb - and in tomb.

There's an OM in home and come and coma. And in comma, which is why we just had one.

There's an OM in romp and pomp and prompt, not to mention tomato and omen.

OM is busting out all over. It's an omnipresent, omnipotent, predominant part of our psychic baggage. Even the dyslexic have an OM of their own in words like mop, mob and mow.

So heed ye the Laureate, and banish your gloom. When misery mounts and lamentations loom, just remember ...

Be it ever so homble
There's no place like OM
Or the magical, mystical source
It springs from.
Things cannot be ominous
When there's an OM in us
All threats simply dwindle and fade
All problems are nought
Thanks to cosmical thought
And the promise of OM as our aid.
To heal the economy
Just put an OM in me.
"Come OM" is our cry.
"Have a go!"
All the schools will get A's
All the young mend their ways
And ACC will have oodles of dough.
With a nice OM to go to
When stresses press near
All the gloom and the doom will depart
We will welcome no vice
Omnithing will be nice
With an OM, sweet OM in your heart!!!!

(*Note: OM - Operation Mobilisation Christian movement)