Opinion: I like National’s Education policy. Anything that saves teachers time and money right now and ensures kids are getting the basics of reading, writing and maths right - that seems like a good call to me.
If Labour’s only criticism of the policy was that National hadn’t said where the funding was coming from, then I’d say National’s onto something good. Hopefully, we could see political consensus around this. Though I acknowledge teachers are sceptical.
But speaking of good policy. You may have missed this earlier in the week, there’s been a lot going on, so a quick throwback Friday to our interview with the Prime Minister on Tuesday, where he signalled good policy is coming on dental care - finally!! Thank goodness!!
"What we do in the dental space, we’ve got to make sure we sustain it," Hipkins told me on Tuesday earlier this week.
"Do I think we can do more in dental care area - Yes. Do I think we will make massive progress overnight - no. The reality is, because this is so expensive, we have to work at this over time."
So it’s not going to be universal dental for all - that would be too expensive. Ministry advice from 2019 had it around NZD$1 billion a year, which is actually arguably affordable if we’re spending twice that on a fuel tax cut. But I suppose like the universal fuel tax cut, a more targeted approach with dental is probably better.
So the most likely options are to extend publicly funded dental from up to 18-year-olds to up to 27, which would cost about $110 million. That’s possibly too expensive.
The $30 million for low-income parents is more likely.
And I thought the Prime Minister's language around free, basic dental for pregnant women and new mothers was the most encouraging.
"I'm not taking any options off the table," Hipkins told me on Tuesday.
"I think we should be looking to expand our access to publicly funded dental care but I’m not making specific commitments on that at this point."
So that’s something! I’ll be stoked to see the big parties get behind oral health this election. They’ve promised and broken those promises too many before.
And credit where it’s due to Chris Hipkins too - I had a go at him last week for being too noncommittal, and needing to take more of a stand.
On this, he’s delivered.
Nice to see both the Chrises coming to the policy party this week.
