Live: 300 more classrooms funded in pre-Budget announcement

The Budget is funding an extra 300 classrooms around the country.

It adds to the 2700 classrooms funded since 2017.

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and Education Minister Jan Tinetti made the announcement from a Wellington school on Monday morning.

Tinetti told the children at the school the funding was a “further step to ensuring more young children, just like you, are able to learn in fantastic conditions, just like this one here”.

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Hipkins said the funding would “ease the pressure on school rolls, both in the short term with the immediate establishment of 2200 places, and in the long term, with funding for a further 4400 places to account for future roll growth”.

“Targeted funding of $300m from Budget 2023 will fund this further to support the sector’s needs, with $200m for permanent roll growth, and $100m to address shorter term pressures on school rolls.”

It is expected to be the last pre-Budget announcement before Thursday, when the government opens the books.

It comes a day after the government earmarked $1 billion to rebuild roads, rail, schools, invest in child mental health support in Hawke’s Bay and Tairāwhiti, and flood defences, as the regions recover after Cyclone Gabrielle. On Saturday, the government also put nearly $75m in the Budget to grow schemes it hopes will help stamp out family and sexual violence,

A Newhub-Reid Research poll also released on Sunday had Labour at 35.9% and National at 35.3%. Both would be looking to the minor parties to form a Government come October’s election.

ACT released it’s ‘alternative budget’ this morning, describing it as “steeped in ACT’s guiding principle that people can make a difference in their own lives”.

The party promised to cut down the five income tax rates to two, reduce the number of public servants “and remove whole departments” and increase defence spend to 2% of GDP.

In 2019, Labour promised $396 million for improving school property, worth $693 per state school student, with each school receiving a maximum of $400,000.