The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming Labour’s announcement that the second and third year rollout of its headline ‘fees free’ policy will scrapped.

Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, “Prior to the 2017 election, we published a report on the failures of similar policies elsewhere. It was a waste of money then, and it remains so.”

“Labour’s u-turn on this policy is an admission of failure. The Government had to change the way it measured the policy’s success when tertiary enrolments decreased after the policy’s introduction.”

“Moreover, throwing taxpayer money at a group of New Zealanders disproportionately likely to become wealthy was always a regressive, luxury election bribe. It’s a shame it took a pandemic to make the Government re-evaluate its priorities, but we’ll still celebrate this as a win.”

The Taxpayers’ Union’s briefing paper Robin Hood Reversed uses evidence from Scotland to demonstrate how a fees-free policy will subsidise tomorrow’s rich and limit low-income kids’ access to tertiary education. The paper is available at www.taxpayers.org.nz/robin_hood_reversed
 

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