Schools and hospitals in poor state

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 such as health and education, while seriously dampening down expectations in others.

Ardern said yesterday that 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 were far worse than Labour anticipated when it came into power, 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.’’

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 $200 million worth of school buildings that were not fit for purpose.

‘‘Some of them aren’t even usable,’’ 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 are going to have is officialdom

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

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 have got billions of dollars to play with that they’re putting into free fees [and] a political slush fund for the regions.’’

Hipkins stood by the Government’s decision to fund free tertiary education, despite huge infrastructure and service delivery costs.

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

Where there were more students in the system, there were more costs, and there was certainly a ‘‘significant spike in the school-age population’’ that the Government was preparing for.

‘‘Across the board, we’re finding the Government’s Budget is stretched. We’re having to deal with population pressures, cost pressures and pretty run-down systems.

‘‘It’s going to take more than one Budget to get on top of that,’’ he said.

Suggestions that 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.’’