Recent media coverage of Labour’s Ready for Work policy brought back memories of the beginning of 2014 where Labour’s Fresh Start policy was attacked mercilessly but National’s education policy which ultimately failed was lauded. Remember the $300 million policy to incentivise teachers?
The last couple of days have involved Andrea Vance claiming Labour’s costings for its ready to work policy do not add up, and Phil Twyford responding by questioning her professional standards.
Basically the policy is for six months job training being given to ten thousand participants each year. The estimate is that the policy will cost $60 million. The assumption is that each participant would on average receive 4 months training and then because of various factors, such as them getting a job or a change in personal circumstances, they will no longer continue with the course and that the average time they spend on the course will be four months.
This is not an illogical assumption. Only a fool would assume that every participant would spend the full six months on the course.
Labour could have assumed that everyone would spend the full time on the course and that the policy would cost $90 million a year. No one would have blinked except then National would have attacked Labour for being reckless with taxpayer money and claim that the scheme will be too expensive. And the media would have joined in.
So Labour went for the more fiscally conservative assumption cost of the programme. Surely they could not be criticised for doing this.
But Andrea Vance and the country’s broadcaster, the employer of Mike Hosking, claimed that Labour’s figures do not add up and are short by $35 million a year. She clearly had been talking to Steven Joyce and repeated unquestioningly his analysis. North Korea would be proud of this sort of control of the media by the Governing Party.
The Herald chimed in by allowing John Key comment on the situation to be reported uncritically. Clare Trevett’s name is on the article which contains this particular passage:
Labour’s campaign chairman Twyford has accused 1 News’ Andrea Vance of “unprofessional” and “biased'” reporting around the costing of Labour’s new jobs scheme policy.
Vance had said Labour’s numbers did not add up after Labour admitted the $60 million costing for its proposed six month job scheme was based on the assumption people would take part for an average of four months.
Key said it was not the first time Labour had presented incorrect costings.
“The Labour Party are clearly in a bit of a meltdown. They turn up, yet again, with a policy that is incorrect. I’ve got their policy and it says ‘six months.’ It is not funded that way and they can attack the media all they want as a distraction but the truth is, yet again, they got it wrong.”
Asked how National would cost such a policy he said “if we are funding something for effectively four months, we say it.”
So in every future policy there should be no analysis of uptake just an assumption of the worst possible scenario?
Compare this with the media’s handling of National’s urgent announcement to address the housing crisis that apparently does not exist. With no analysis whatsoever National’s figure of a $300 million spend was continuously repeated, even though a third of it is a loan, $20 million is for some undefined slush fund, $71 million is to be paid to social agencies that would then pay the money back to the Housing Corp, $10 million is for public servants so that the job was done and it is all spread over five years so it is not as impressive as it may have first appeared.
But where was the reporting of this sort of analysis? National’s spin was reported without analysis or criticism but Labour’s was not only misanalysed but misrepresented.
Morgan Godfrey expresses my frustration very well.
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