Most people will welcome Labour’s policy announcement that in government it will fully fund three years of tertiary education for New Zealand students in all settings.
However they will be unimpressed at the tragic timeframe (the policy will be phased in over eight (sic) years following the 2017 election) and the restriction to just three years study.
This means only those children aged under seven now will get the maximum three years fully funded tertiary education when they leave school in 2025.
And what renders the policy as a package almost meaningless is that Labour would have to win three elections in a row to even get the policy up to full speed.
Labour is explaining the policy on strictly economic grounds. They say we need the policy to grow the New Zealand economy towards a “jobs-rich” future – a phrase as meaningless as Labour’s “knowledge wave” of 16 years decade ago which was supposed to deliver the same thing.
Andrew Little would have done much better to argue the policy on principles of justice, equity and fairness rather than some sort of economic necessity.
Setting all that aside though it does represent a break from the stranglehold Labour’s right-wing MPs have had on the party’s tertiary fees policy for almost 30 years.
It’s worth remembering that it was Labour’s Phil Goff who introduced tertiary education fees in the late 1980s as one of Labour’s “Rogernomics” policies. Goff somehow believed it was good policy for students to rack up huge mountains of debt before they entered employment.
Goff was also responsible for the introduction of GST – that notorious tax on the poor – in the late 1980s.
It will be a good day for Labour and the country when Goff quits parliament. It’s too much to hope that before he does Labour will come full circle on GST as well.
Yes, Labour has taken a small step to the left, but it only brings them in line with the centre-right of many EU countries. This policy does not address the debt crisis that exists for many current and former students.
This free education policy couldn’t be more residual – it remains at the edges of neoliberalism. It still considers education to be something that creates productive workers. It is designed to strengthen capitalism, not oppose it.
Like Labour’s ‘affordable housing’, this education policy will be more of a benefit to the Young Nats, than it is to the poor who Labour claims to represent.
How effective this policy is for the marginalised will depend on Labour’s housing, employment and welfare policies. If the housing, employment and welfare policies are not given a more radical overhaul, then this version of ‘free education’ will not close the inequality gap – sadly, it may even widen it.
I think we should give Andrew Little credit for at least changing the tune of Labour’s user-pays education policies, but we should do so with a caveat: this policy is not a solution in itself, we need to see policies that redistribute wealth as well. We can’t just give the capitalists educated workers. We need to redistribute their unearned wealth so that education is about education. Education shouldn’t be for the sake of capitalism. National already do that.
Yes some good points… but at least Little is working towards what we as Kiwi’s once had …and we desperately need much , much more of this. It shows a recognition that the rogernomes aka Goff and their neo liberal nonsense has damaged this country and for so long.
As for Goff , the favoritism extended to him by the party isn’t earned – no matter what justification is given. Goff has been in the forefront of the general neo liberal programme for the last 32 years and to date, – shows absolutely no sign whatsoever of ever acknowledging the destruction this has caused to so many New Zealanders.
1) tertiary education fees
2) GST
3) One of the original architects of the TTPA
These are but a few that this character has endorsed.
We owe this man nothing – and neither do the rank and file supporters of Labour.
+100…and “It will be a good day for Labour and the country when Goff quits parliament”.
i suppose the economic framing is to attract the folks who have a money in their hearts ie; the ‘centrists’.
thanks also for the reminder of the sort of politician phil goff is with his gst and tertiary fees introduction.
despicable.
Of course we could make post-school the first and only priority and not have any additional funding for anything else (housing, healthcare, child poverty etc) but that’s not what we’re about. If we can deliver it sooner, then we will. We are being realistic in our promises, rather than pledging to do a whole lot of stuff that we then recant on later (as has too often happened in NZ’s history).
But, Chris, the absence of “any additional funding” is relevant only because Labour chooses to constrain itself within a fiscal straitjacket of its own creation. Methinks your comment says more about parliamentary Labour’s 30-year-old class affiliation than it does about what’s actually possible in a progressive reality. And this is a shame in and of itself but also on the seat you occupy and on your portfolios because Labour once was an indefatigable warrior for the progressive project. Shame, shame, shame and one more for your asinine comment. Shame. (PS: I’m sure you’re a stand up guy, it’s just your ideology that makes me retch.)
It’s rich you saying that Michael, with you being a National supporter. What’s the latest figures of that unprecedented level of debt that the Key National government have racked up Michael? How much revenue has this country lost with the sale of our money making assets? Can you see the bigger picture of how National has “straitjacketed” this country future? You cannot accuse National of being fiscally responsible, can you?
Words, you assume I’m a National supporter but I’ve never voted for or supported any party further to the right of Labour.
“It’s rich you saying that Michael, with you being a National supporter”
From what I can see Michael is critiquing Labour’s neoliberal philosophy.
Michael stated: “Labour chooses to constrain itself within a fiscal straitjacket of its own creation. Methinks your comment says more about parliamentary Labour’s 30-year-old class affiliation than it does about what’s actually possible in a progressive reality.”
This seems to be a reference to the Fourth Labour Government and Labour’s continuation along the same path. I agree with Michael. Chris Hipkins and Labour must stop framing everything within the bounds of neoliberal thought. “What’s actually possible in a progressive reality” *is* radical change – if we do not believe that then a change of Government will not offer change.
Thanks, Fatty, clearly Words was confused by my words.
But, Chris, the absence of “any additional funding” is relevant only because Labour chooses to constrain itself within a fiscal straitjacket of its own creation. Methinks your comment says more about parliamentary Labour’s 30-year-old class affiliation than it does about what’s actually possible in a progressive reality. And this is a shame in and of itself but also on the seat you occupy and on your portfolios because Labour once was an indefatigable warrior for the progressive project. Shame, shame, shame and one more for your asinine comment. Shame. (PS: I’m sure you’re a stand up guy, it’s just your ideology that makes me retch.)
It’s rich you saying that Michael, with you being a National supporter. What’s the latest figures of that unprecedented level of debt that the Key National government have racked up Michael? How much revenue has this country lost with the sale of our money making assets? Can you see the bigger picture of how National has “straitjacketed” this country future? You cannot accuse National of being fiscally responsible, can you?
But, Chris, the absence of “any additional funding” is relevant only because Labour chooses to constrain itself within a fiscal straitjacket of its own creation. Methinks your comment says more about parliamentary Labour’s 30-year-old class affiliation than it does about what’s actually possible in a progressive reality. And this is a shame in and of itself but also on the seat you occupy and on your portfolios because Labour once was an indefatigable warrior for the progressive project. Shame, shame, shame and one more for your asinine comment. Shame. (PS: I’m sure you’re a stand up guy, it’s just your ideology that makes me retch.)
It’s rich you saying that Michael, with you being a National supporter. What’s the latest figures of that unprecedented level of debt that the Key National government have racked up Michael? How much revenue has this country lost with the sale of our money making assets? Can you see the bigger picture of how National has “straitjacketed” this country future? You cannot accuse National of being fiscally responsible, can you?
Words, there aren’t only two views of the world, Labour and National. Particularly as there is a large area of consensus between the two parties. In any event, my comment was a response to Chris H’s comment not a critique of National. For the record, I am not a National supporter and have never been a National supporter as I would never support a neoliberal party, which is why Labour also has never caught my party vote.
To add. User charges were introduced in universities for the first time under the 4th National government.
Labour’s new policy is definitely a step in the right direction, but more needs to follow, in housing and welfare, e.g. also bringing in a UBI.
As usual National and ACT will rubbish all these new policies, and the MSM will not bother fairly assessing the benefits, and tend to report what National and so say.
Free education does no longer exist in this country, where parents of school kids are also pressured into making extra contributions to schools who can without them not afford what is necessary.
Some tax cuts need reversing, and the challenge for Labour will be to explain the benefits to the voters, and to convince them that what they offer is better.
Sadly the population is in too high numbers now so conditioned after decades of neoliberalism, so that many will even simply say, “oh we cannot have this kind of freebies for students, it is not affordable”. That is nonsense of course, but as long as most think only of number one and settle for the BS we get constantly, and rather want tax cuts than good services and education for all that have talent and the will to study.
The benefits must be aggressively communicated, plus the need for fairness and equal access to education.
[…] blogger David Farrar called it a lurch to the left. However, some on the left are underwhelmed. John Minto pointed out today’s seven year olds would be the first to get the full three years, as Labour is […]
[…] like the one Little announced last week to provide three years of free tertiary education was qualified by so many caveats that it was almost meaningless. Rather than three years free education in the small print we […]
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