Kerre Woodham: There is no entitlement, no automatic right

Christopher Luxon finally got to make his State of the Nation speech yesterday, in which he berated Labour for its many, many sins. Highest inflation in 32 years, only 46 per cent of kids attending school, regularly falling standards of education, the increase in violent crime.  

Christopher Luxon then made promises that a National Government would turn things around with youth military academies for serious youth offenders, getting young people who can work off welfare and into work, lifting tax brackets to give the average earner more money in their pockets and restoring discipline to Government spending.

And he also used the speech to announce the Family Boost child care tax rebate to make early childhood education more affordable. The plan will target lower and middle income families, about 130,000 of them, and parents will receive a 25% rebate on their early childhood education expenses, up to a maximum of $3,900 dollars a year.

It will be a rebate, not a grant, and will be paid fortnightly by IRD into parents bank accounts. And how will the country afford that? Christopher Luxon says it will be fully funded with the money this current Government is currently wasting on contractors and consultants - $1.7 billion per year. Not over the government's lifetime, per year. And he said the good thing about the Family Boost policy is that it will give New Zealand families choices. 

How much would getting 25% of your costs back, let's round about to $4000 a year, mean to you in terms of how you're trying to juggle the family finances? When it comes to getting 75 bucks a week extra back into your pocket, I would argue it make a huge difference to young families. It would certainly have made a huge difference to me at the time.   

So absolutely I liked Christopher Luxon's speech.

I like the fact that he believes in New Zealand, that he believes that we'll get our way out of the trouble that we're in because of who we are. You know, playing into that New Zealand daring do #8 wire innovation and hard work and enterprise.

And I did like the particular comment, he said. ‘Whatever we want our standard of living has to be earned. Only a strong competitive economy can afford the services that New Zealanders expect. There is no entitlement, no automatic right to live as a first world country.’

Amen. 

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