Christopher Luxon found a new gear in his State of the Nation speech on Sunday where he announced a childcare rebate for families, writes political editor Jo Moir
National’s quarter of a billion dollars’ worth of savings for households struggling with childcare costs sounds like something out of the Labour Party playbook.
It was just November last year when the then Labour Party leader Jacinda Ardern announced $190 million over four years to extend childcare subsidies to cover more than half of all New Zealand families.
Those savings start in just a few weeks on April 1. But before they’ve even taken effect, National leader Christopher Luxon has promised families a rebate on their childcare costs of up to $75 a week ($3,900 a year) for families earning up to $180,000 a year.
This package is on top of the announcements already made by Labour.
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Labour’s initial response to Luxon’s promise is weak with Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni saying it doesn’t target low-income families.
It’s unclear what she’s basing that on when Sunday’s policy applies to all families regardless of how many children they have, up to the income cap of $180,000.
Even left-leaning commentators and elected representatives couldn't find fault, with several even endorsing the policy.
The more obvious criticism of the rebate is that it wouldn't save parents anything and would only lead to providers upping their prices.
It was that exact line National threw at Labour’s policy to increase student living cost assistance by $50, which meant landlords simply put rents up.
Luxon seems to think his policy will escape the obvious because childcare is a “competitive market” with his deputy, Nicola Willis, saying, “I think early childhood education providers will know that if they try and pump-up fees, they will lose families”.
That seems a tad naive, especially considering reporting from Stuff on the same day as National’s policy was released, which revealed $450m a year of taxpayer funding goes to for-profit early childhood providers and into the pockets of private investors.
These childcare chains serve the biggest number of children, and critics say they also have some of the highest parent fees and little oversight, Stuff reports.
In some communities, fees are so high childcare is now completely unaffordable for many low-income families.
National plans to pay for the policy by cutting the number of consultants on the public service “gravy train”.
The $249m needed to cover the policy annually will initially come from the $400m in savings from cracking down on consultant spending.
Luxon told party faithful and other invited guests that the latest data shows the annual spend on consultants is now $1.7 billion – up from $1.2b.
He wants public sector bosses to get already-employed public servants to do the job instead and put an end to them leaving ministries only to return as consultants and be paid double the hourly rate.
This isn’t the first time National has attempted to cut some of the public service fat – early on in John Key’s tenure he put a cap on the size of the public service during the financial crisis.
That resulted in more consultants being employed to get around the cap on public servants, which in effect cost more money.
In 2018 Chris Hipkins, in his role as public services minister, lifted the cap to encourage the public service to hire more public servants and save the Government money, but in reality bosses have just continued to hire more expensive consultants.
It’s not entirely clear how National will look to adjust the new rebates in line with inflation in the future, with Willis saying they’ll remain at the level set out on Sunday for National’s first term in government, but no decisions have been made beyond that.
When Labour announced its childcare assistance package in November, it was only the first step, and since then a review of the entire sector has been underway and is near completion.
Sepuloni has more announcements coming this year, which might pop up as early as May’s Budget or perhaps closer to the election in October.
National’s offerings on Sunday could prompt Labour to go even further if it thinks voters will struggle to see the difference between what the two parties are offering.
Luxon finds a new gear
While the contractor cut and childcare rebate were the focus of Luxon’s speech on Sunday, he also used the opportunity to spell out National’s agenda over the coming months.
For the first time in his 16 months as leader Luxon stripped away the business language and looked comfortable in his own skin.
Much of his speech still focused on what Labour was doing wrong, but it did have some sprinklings of what he’d do differently.
He kept simple the attack areas National planned to angle in on – the one receiving the largest applause was restoring law and order.
While Luxon’s speech was the big drawcard, arguably the most interesting part wasn’t what came out of his mouth, but what was to come afterwards.
Interestingly, other than getting rid of gang patches in public places there hasn’t been any substantial policy from National in that space yet, unless you include police spokesperson Mark Mitchell challenging Police Minister Stuart Nash to a fight in the boxing ring.
Parliament’s Question Time already has a reputation for resembling a bunch of pre-school children scrapping it out in the playground.
To have a senior MP only reinforce that by telling media this weekend he wants an opportunity to literally punch his counterpart in the face in the name of charity is anything but helpful.
Less time scheming up ways to flex muscles and more practical policy for communities feeling threatened by crime would be a better use of time – something Luxon might want to reiterate to his caucus when it meets on Tuesday.
Willis introduced Luxon to the stage on Sunday and gave a bit of insight into her relationship with the leader.
She described him as someone who sends her messages of support ahead of an interview she’s nervous about – a colleague who has quickly turned into a friend and one of her biggest cheerleaders.
Willis offered a tiny bit of insight into the person who has largely remained hard to read.
While Luxon’s speech was the big drawcard, arguably the most interesting part wasn’t what came out of his mouth, but what was to come afterwards.
In a closed session away from the media was a feedback and Q+A session following the announcement where party members would offer their critique of Luxon’s announcement.
Following that former Prime Minister Sir Bill English delivered a speech on social investment and then National’s newest MP, Tama Potaka, spoke to those gathered about how to work out the relationship between the National Party and Māori.
National has recently announced it is going to contest the Māori seats this election.
Harete Hipango confirmed last month she wouldn’t be running for the Whanganui seat to instead free her up to contest Te Tai Hauāuru after incumbent MP Speaker Adrian Rurawhe said he wouldn’t stand again.
It’s an interesting move by National given it has a long-held position that the Māori seats shouldn’t exist and hasn’t run a candidate in them since 2002.
Hipango is unlikely to win the seat but nonetheless it is sending a message to party members that the new leadership sees a place for the electorates when other leaders (excluding Judith Collins) haven’t.
While there are some question marks about Luxon’s policy announcement on Sunday, they certainly aren’t as big as the ones hanging over the party’s alternative to Three Waters, which was announced the week before.
Luxon was schooled up on Sunday and across the details – a big shift from his understanding of how the water services policy would work and how it would affect ratepayers.
With just seven months to go until the election, Luxon needed to find his feet and on Sunday he put some steps in the right direction.
