It is highly unlikely the coalition can undertake Labour’s policies for less money. Stuff happens — earthquakes, cyclones, Ukraine war.
Stuff has already happened. Labour let in a record 245,600 new residents in the year to October 2023 — that is nearly the population of Auckland’s North Shore.
The $7.5 billion over four years is a fraction of the cost of the hospitals, schools, roads and housing the net population increase of 128,900 requires.
The only way for the Government to save money is to stop doing things. The Government’s books will return to balance only if the coalition stops spending where the benefits are not worth going into debt.
Experts will claim any reduction in spending is a social calamity. Our Covid response should make us cautious of experts who have no knowledge of economics.
We have been told our Covid response was the best in the world. The lockdowns before vaccines were available did save lives, but it was never feasible to be permanently Covid free.
Among the bad Christmas news is the Covid wave. There were 354 people in hospital with Covid as of December 17, six in intensive care.
Health economists measure health outcomes by mortality rates. Death is a statistic that is hard to fiddle with. Sweden, which did not lockdown, had from January 2020 to June 2022 the lowest percentage increase in mortality in the OECD.
New Zealand, an island nation, had an increase in mortality twice the rate of Sweden.
Lockdowns reduced Covid cases, but being locked down in overcrowded South Auckland houses caused other adverse health outcomes.
Swedish children have suffered no educational disadvantage due to Covid. We have a generation of children who face a lifetime of disadvantage.
The worst pre-Christmas news is school attendance in the third term, in which 54 per cent of school pupils did not attend regularly. The fall in attendance is in every decile and every age group. For Māori and Pasifika pupils, it is catastrophic.
Labour belatedly acknowledged that school attendance is a problem. Attendance was falling pre-Covid and now is one of the worst in the OECD.
Research reveals attendance affects NCEA results. Ministry of Education research shows each additional half-day of absence is associated with a reduction in the number of NCEA credits students subsequently attain.
Māori and Pacific students had the lowest regular attendance rates at 34 per cent. For Pākehā students, the rate was 48 per cent and for Asian students, 58 per cent.
Attendance by itself largely explains New Zealand’s declining educational achievement.
An Education Review Office survey revealed 40 per cent of parents do not think missing a week a term harms their child’s education. A pupil who misses a week of term by the time they leave school will have missed 52 weeks of schooling. Missing the last day of term to get cheaper airfares is paid for in lower NCEA marks.
Educationalists have seized on this finding to blame parents. Despite the Ministry of Education website saying “Schools, parents and whānau are legally responsible for making sure students attend school,” Labour’s June 2022 Attendance and Engagement Strategy says “Parents, caregivers and whānau are responsible for making sure their ākonga are enrolled in school and attend every day”.
In essence, Labour’s policy was to put the responsibility on parents, appoint attendance officers and ask schools to keep better attendance records. The policy was a spectacular failure.
Maybe it failed because schools and public health experts are telling parents not to send their children to school if they are not feeling well. My mother, who was a registered nurse, used to say, “Most of the world’s work is done by people who do not feel very well”.
How children get herd immunity by being kept from the herd has never been explained.
Research has found truants’ parents wanted them to go to school.
Act and National’s coalition agreement makes school attendance a priority. In essence, the policy makes parents responsible, appoints truancy officers and requires schools to keep better attendance records.
Doing the same as the previous government and expecting a different outcome is a frequent delusion of new governments.
Do not fund what you do not want more of. Fund schools for only the number of pupils schools teach, not the number they enrol. Attendance and educational achievement will immediately improve.
