The first of National election promises

[king1]

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I think we need a law which prevents any politician going within 4 feet of any child not actually their own.....

You have to wonder about their parents too.

Agree with you on that one from MANY angles.

My reading of the promise is that it doesn't reflect numbers of kids at all. If the family is within the income range then the agreed proportion of their total childcare fees will be provided. So all families are being treated equally no matter how many kids they have. And it's only a proportion capped at 25% so still causes problems for those who can't afford the 75%. But at least it's a help.

Re the consultants, I remember when the council I worked for at the time moved from in-house staff to consultants for things like, engineering, maintenance, building consents, etc (at least 25 years ago - probably more). So all the in-house staff started up consulting companies so that the same people then cost twice as much to do the same work. Even if they only charged a fair rate for their overheads, it still cost the ratepayers heaps more. At least the use of consultants means that the government department concerned has some choice in who will supply the service, but many have ongoing contracts, etc so even that doesn't work. A move back to hiring experts and tradies as staff would be better, but would be very difficult to implement now that we are so far down the rabbit hole.

The argument for using consultants does have some merit as inhouse staff require annual leave and holiday pay, sick leave, kiwisaver contributions, and they're harder to get rid of etc  
For roles that are used infrequently or not so many hours per week it can be beneficial to outsource at higher cost, obviously at some point of billable hours worked it would be more beneficial to have them on the payroll