We didn’t know it would be this bad: PM

Schools aren’t looking in much better shape than hospitals as the Government warns the country needs to lower its expectations ahead of the Budget.

On Monday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Finance Minister Grant Robertson began to build the case for big spending in core areas like health and education, while seriously dampening down expectations in others.

Ardern said yesterday there were ‘‘high expectations of us as there should be but what we want to say is this Budget will be about rebuilding, reinvesting and making sure we balance the books’’.

The scale of the issues in the health system are far worse than Labour anticipated when it came into Government and as a result Ardern said she had to ‘‘dampen down’’ her own expectations for spending.

‘‘We didn’t know it would be this bad,’’ she said.

Education Minister Chris Hipkins started to paint the picture in his portfolio yesterday, saying, ‘‘I knew that we’d face some significant cost pressures but they have probably been larger than I envisaged, particularly around population growth’’.

He said there were at least a couple of hundred million dollars worth of school buildings that were not fit for purpose.

‘‘Some of them aren’t useable,’’ he said.

‘‘In most cases where those buildings are in an abysmal state, they’ve been closed up and they’re not being used.’’

However, National Party leader Simon Bridges has labelled the Government’s case-building as ‘‘spin’’ due to ‘‘over promises’’.

‘‘This is why you’ve got a prime minister who said she would be better than playing politics who is now looking to drip feed examples.

‘‘It seems to me effectively what you’re going to have is officialdom out there in our schools and our hospitals looking for doors that don’t shut properly - this is ridiculous,’’ Bridges said.

‘‘They have options - they’ve got billions of dollars to play with that they’re putting into free fees, a political slush fund for the regions...well they’ve got choices.’’

Hipkins stood by the Government’s decision to fund free ter- even tiary education as part of their 100-day plan when the education sector is facing such huge infrastructure and service delivery costs.

‘‘We made that commitment during the election campaign and we’ve delivered on that,’’ he said.

Where there are more students in the system there are more costs, and Hipkins said there was certainly a ‘‘significant spike in the school age population’’ that the Government was having to prepare for.

That also means doing a lot more work around ensuring there’s enough teachers in the system.

‘‘Across the board we’re finding the Government budget is stretched. We’re having to deal with population pressures, costs pressures and pretty run-down systems. It’s going to take more than one budget to get on top of that,’’ he said.

Suggestions the Government was paving the way for tax increases were brushed off by Ardern yesterday, who said, ‘‘it’s not about that at all’’.

‘‘This was all about saying we know we need to prioritise what is available to us and we’re starting that with this Budget.’’