Inside National’s party
Pledge six years after Nats forced into humiliating backdown
National will reduce primary class sizes if it comes into power in 2020, leader Simon Bridges says. The announcement to lift the number of primary school teachers in New Zealand — an issue which once badly damaged National — was the centrepiece of Bridges’ speech at his party’s annual conference yesterday.
“All our kids should get the individual attention they deserve,” Bridges told an audience of about 600 party members at SkyCity Conference Centre in Auckland.
Schools currently got one teacher for every 29 students aged 9 and 10.
“It’s lower than that for younger children. Those ratios should be reduced.”
The call on class ratios comes six years after National was forced into a humiliating backdown on class sizes when it was in government.
It was also an issue championed by former Labour leader David Cunliffe, but Bridges said Labour had never delivered on the policy.
National would also require early childhood education centres (ECE) to lift their quality or face closure.
Bridges has placed strong emphasis on the economy and law and order since becoming leader. His championing of social issues and children in yesterday’s speech moved him into rival Jacinda Ardern’s territory and voting base.
Bridges denied he was poaching from Labour’s playbook, saying he had long believed education was a “leveller for society”.
Education union NZEI said it was encouraged by National’s about-turn on class sizes and commitment to better funding for teachers. It also welcomed Bridges’ plans for ECE, while noting National’s funding freeze for the sector in 2009 contributed to a fall in quality.
Education Minister Chris Hipkins was more scathing, saying National’s U-turn was “just not believable” because of its record on under-funding education.
Bridges was introduced at the conference by a video in which he played drums, spoke about his family, and admitted to “falling in love with a leftie” — wife Natalie. She joined him onstage, as did his three children Emlyn, Harry, and new baby Jemima.
Former Prime Minister Sir John Key was watching on.
Key said Bridges had not asked him to appear at the conference or endorse him.
He was there because he was a National supporter “until the day that I die”.
Now the chairman of ANZ Bank in NZ, Key spoke about worrying economic concerns in the United States, China and Europe, which he hoped could be avoided by New Zealand.
“If it doesn’t, then I think the right political party won’t be the one that’s currently there,” he said.
Earlier, deputy leader Paula Bennett told the conference organised attacks on Bridges by Government parties showed he had them rattled.
“There is barely a day where the staffers [aren’t] at the media trying to run Simon or me down. Why put that much energy into us if you weren’t worried?”
She urged her party to stay united in the face of the attacks.
Bennett, the party’s women’s spokeswoman, criticised the Government on gender equality, saying women should not be entitled to senior roles because of their gender.
“I get that argument and trust me I do want to see more women on boards.
“But the ones I lose sleep for are the women who are getting up at three in the morning to clean hotels and leaving their kids at home.”
All our kids should get the individual attention they deserve.
Simon Bridges