Maori education success due to targets set to previous government - National's Todd Muller

February 7, 2018

Labour's Kelvin Davis says they are still not 'seeing any of that progress in the community'.

The National Party are saying recent progress made by Maori in education is due targets they set while in they were in government. 

National Party’s spokesperson for Crown/Maori Todd Muller told TVNZ1's Te Karere that in 2008 "Maori were leaving school, about half of them just on 50 per cent with no NCEA level 2 qualifications."

"We said that it had to be a focus, we put it in a better public service target and now that's a 75 per cent."

He said setting targets was the root of the success. 

"Firstly, the debate here is around these – what we call – better public service targets and we hold the view that if you actually want to change the conditions for people you need to actually have a very explicit target that you want to drive towards."

But Labour Party deputy leader Kelvin Davis says despite Mr Muller saying Maori were doing better in education, "we know that many of them aren't getting jobs, many of them are not mentally well, and many of them are committing suicide". 

The amount of unemployed Maori has decreased to nine per cent, but Mr Davis says they are still not "seeing any of that progress in the community". 

In the area of law and order Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says so long as rates of Maori in prison is disproportionate "to everyone else ... we have failed".

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