Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s claim that ‘there is simply no more money to go into the [education] sector” is a lie, according to Social Credit Party Leader, Chris Leitch.

I challenge him to explain to teachers and parents why he would rather pay $6,000,000,000 dollars every year to bank shareholders and PPP scheme financiers, yet refuse teachers, support staff, and principals the funding needed to provide children with the best education possible.

That’s the amount paid out of taxes every year in interest payments on the government’s borrowing – sourced from the private sector, when it could be sourced from the country’s central bank.

Our government is putting wealthy bank shareholders ahead of children - the next generation of wealth generators – which is exactly what National’s finance ministers did.

Finance Ministers in Japan and China access funding from their central bank at no interest and use the money saved on interest payments to benefit their citizens.

That approach was recommended by an International Monetary Fund report released in 2012, which the government has chosen to ignore.

The Chicago Plan Revisited said this – “Allowing the Government to issue money directly at zero interest, rather than borrowing that same money from banks at interest, would lead to a reduction in the interest burden on government finances and to a dramatic reduction of (net) government debt…..”

Grant Robertson could stave off the forthcoming teacher’s strike overnight if he was bold enough to ignore the reaction of the “markets” and put kiwi teachers and children first.

The European Central Bank was creating credit at the rate of $35 billion Euros per month through its quantitative easing programme, without any sign of inflation, so there’s no reason why the Reserve Bank here couldn’t fund our government in a similar way, without charging interest.

Putting bankers ahead of children shows that Labour’s economic policies are no different from National’s.

Ends

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