2020 Election: Will Labor Ditching ‘Free Fees’ Help the Greens Cross the Line?

OPINION: Has Labor, the ruthless political machine, finally dropped the ball on something?

The question must be asked after the party unceremoniously abandoned the extension of one of the flagship policies that led to the 2017 elections: free education yesterday. That policy, which began in 2018, gave the first year of college tuition free. It was originally going to be extended to the second year in 2021 and the third year in 2024.

Now it won’t be, but rather the Labor Party “will target our additional spending on tertiary education in areas that are critical to the country’s economic recovery in the post-Covid environment.” Labor estimates, probably rightly, that vocational training and apprenticeships will be more important. The free rates already cover two years of professional training.

Given all the Covid revolving around politics, it may have been forgotten, but this was basically the distinctive politics identified with Jacinda Ardern when she took control of the Labor Party shortly before the 2017 election (even though it was her predecessor Andrew Little). When it was quietly abandoned, Ardern was not in sight. By contrast, yesterday Labor Education Minister Chris Hipkins ruled out politics in Porirua.

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This could just be the boost the Greens need to get back across the line and into Parliament. Although no one under the age of 18 can vote, freshmen can and the parents of many people can. There would have been more than a few budgets within families looking forward to the fact that the government paid more than the first year of college or other study.

Also, during recessions, study rates tend to rise as people who are out of work seize the opportunity to upgrade their skills.

In a way, it was always a strange policy. The national opposition could not decide what they liked least about him: the fact that the children, mostly middle class, now received an even higher subsidy to go to university, or that the acceptance of the plan was considerably lower than expected. that the government calculated. The government “blamed” this on the growth of the economy that generates many jobs: why study immediately?

Was it too expensive for the taxpayer or were there not enough children accepting? The Nats couldn’t decide.

And when Labor found its foot in government, after unexpectedly taking over the treasury banks in late 2017, it also seemed to find that the scheme didn’t really fit in with what it realized were its priorities (and it turns out that its point strong): accelerate the apprenticeship system and prioritize vocational training. Workers quietly formed the pretty sensible opinion that New Zealand had more than enough graduates with average degrees that gave them little advantage in the job market and that they probably should have done something else.

This contradicts a left-wing view apparently formed in the 1960s that universities produced not only better job outcomes, but better people. If everyone could go to college and protest, and free love and Marxist discourse, the world would be a better place! But aside from middle-class snobbery about what makes a person respectable, not everyone is cut out for academic life. Lots of people have great skills that are simply better channeled (and ultimately better paid) elsewhere. Hipkins’ work has focused on this.

The Greens, for their part, have criticized the changes, and Chloe Swarbrick said that “it is regrettable that the Labor Party is now moving away from facing one of the austerity measures of the old National Government.”

For most voters, not expanding this scheme will make sense. But it may only take a couple thousand votes to divert them from Labor and pass the Greens back to Parliament.