Announcing the policy in Nelson this afternoon, party leader Judith Collins said it was about getting New Zealanders back to work and developing a stronger economy.
The policy:
•SkillStart scheme: would pay tertiary training providers $4000 for every unemployed person they retrain and get back into full-time work within a year - $120m
•Small Business Builder: A 12-week business training and mentoring programme to provide essential skills for starting a business - $25m
•Small Business Accelerator: A dedicated fund to deliver $5000 subsidy for management training to small business owners - $20m
•Under 25 Job Coach: A specialist position within Work and Income, tasked with working with Kiwis under 25 who are on the JobSeeker benefit to develop personalised, intensive 'path to work' plans
•Skills and Jobs Hubs: Expansion of National's model using purpose-built centres to deliver wraparound services and match unemployed Kiwis with jobs in the party's long-term infrastructure upgrade plans - $10m
•Vocational education: Reversing the government's "expensive and distracting" restructuring of the vocational education sector to "ensure our tertiary system is focussed on frontline education and delivering skills"
•NZ Tech 2030: Boosting the supply of tech-related skills through scholarships and dedicated ICT graduate schools, to help in National's plans to double the size of our technology sector by the end of the decade - $28m
•1000 STEM scholarships - $10m
•PhD recruitment programme - $12m
•Total cost: $250m
The party said it would ensure the social welfare system is geared towards supporting and encouraging people to move from welfare back into work.
It estimated the SkillStart scheme would help at least 30,000 New Zealanders into full time employment. The scheme would apply to programmes between three months and a year in length, and existing tertiary providers with good track records would be fast-tracked on programmes based on industry need, it said.
It would not apply to school leavers, and students would need to have been either unemployed or on a benefit - excluding JobSeeker Student Hardship - and keep their job past the 90 day trial period for the provider to be eligible.
Collins said it would target many sectors and "will see more New Zealanders get back into the driver's seat".
"National knows that training providers, properly incentivised and working with the employers in their regions, are in a much better position to identify where the new jobs are going to come from and what skills are necessary to fill them."
The party expected its 12-week business course would help 5000 New Zealanders start a business. The Business Accelerator was estimated to with $5000 subsidies to 4000 people.
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Funny how they are all about training etc now they are out of govt. This is the party than canned the apprenticeship scheme, canned the adult learning centres , removed the training allowance, removed tertiary post year 3 , will remove the one years free trade training etc etc .
Wouldn't believe this lot after they spent a decade canning or suffocating they very areas they are promising to boost now . We are currently paying for the cost cutting austerity that the National govt produced last time.
While unemployment has increased of recent times because of Covid19 all the signs are that this is temporary and employers will start recruiting again as the economy warms up. Unemployment will not be a major issue in the longer term so this promise is really an empty one as crusher knows.
If she wants to fix a real drain on our economy she should tell us what her policies are, and how much she is going to invest in, tracking down and prosecuting tax dodgers. The "jobs for cash" brigade, the GST fraudsters, the fake business expense claimers. These people, generally National voters, are defrauding NZ of an estimated $1.2 billion each year, yet National ignores them. Is National going to continue the Labour Govt increased funding to IRD for this purpose? What do you think?
Seems you don't read so good (or refuse to), I suggest you look again at the policy/s that have been printed on here ie she has already told you some of their policy's and your refusal to look at them is irrelevant.
I read everything crusher presents. She has never presented any tax enforcement policy, ever, and is not likely to attack her friends in that way. Everything I've read so far is typical election BS said to appeal to the National base and is largely whast the current Govt has already introduced and/or been proposed by ACT. No new ideas, no clue.
“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
― Margaret Thatcher
The thing about Thatcher was that she never grasped the difference between Socialism and a social programme. If public money was spent on it it was bad if her rich and powerful backers made a fortune off it it was good. And we can all see just how successful that has been for Britain today. Rule Britannia! Yeah Right!
Without a healthy population we would have no realistic chance of economic recovery afterall we are still in the midst of a worldwide pandemic. Our healthcare system has been run down by successive governments for years and would have been easily overwhelmed. The problem with Capitalism is it places inanimate objects above people. Those same people who help to keep capitalism afloat.