Debate heats up over funding

A meeting for candidates to speak on education issues fleshed out the policies of only three political parties.

New Plymouth National MP Jonathan Young, Labour candidate Corie Haddock and Greens candidate Dr Stuart Bramhall met with about 18 people at the Kindergarten House Monday evening and discussed their respective party’s plan on funding, housing, health and education.

The soft-spoken discussion gained volume toward the final round when one guest pressed whether the candidates would sign and support the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa campaign aiming to ‘‘restore funding, decrease group sizes and ratios, and restore a 100 per cent target for qualified teachers’’.

‘‘If we were to decrease group sizes to make it three children to one, you are requiring more teaching staff,’’ Young said against supporting the campaign.

‘‘Then to increase this up to 100 per cent qualified teachers, then there is no affordability to look after the buildings and plant.

‘‘And then if Corie and his mates want to have free tertiary for three years, there are just huge funding restraints.’’

Haddock and Bramhall both said they had already signed on to support the campaign.

Bramhall, who had emigrated from the United States in 2005, said she could not speak on New Zealand education but could draw parallels between its potential trajectory and that of the US and Brit- ain. She said it was now time to make a real hard decision on the funding issue.

Another person asked ‘‘a simple yes or no’’ on whether the respective parties would address ‘‘the funding freeze’’ hitting the education sector.

Haddock and Bramhall both answered ‘‘yes’’ while Young explained current funding systems were adequate.

He said the $386m budgeted for four years ‘‘addressed the question in terms of funding’’.

But the questioner disagreed, claiming all early childhood education (ECE) services were struggling to pay ‘‘the basic bills’’.

Young said charitable ECEs do not pay tax, which gave them an advantage.

‘‘This funding that is $1.8 billion now is projected to be $2b by 2020/1,’’ Young said.

In 1835, two iwi originally from Taranaki migrated to Rekohu and enslaved the Moriori. Finlayson said when the islands were annexed to New Zealand in 1842, the Crown failed to take appropriate action to stop the treatment of the Moriori, despite its pleas for help.

’’The Crown acknowledges Moriori was left virtually landless from 1870, hindering its cultural, social and economic development,’’ Finlayson said.

He said the Crown also acknowledged it contributed to the myths that the Moriori were ‘‘racially inferior and became extinct’’.

The agreement outlines financial and commercial redress worth $18 million along with cultural redress, including the transfer of certain Crown land to the Moriori. Negotiations towards the deed of settlement between the parties will continue in the coming months.