July 4, 2014 2:00pm by David Farrar

Cunliffe being tricky with figures again

“Would slippery John like to confirm why the education budget is 2.3 percent lower today when he took office?” rebuts Mr Cunliffe.

I thought this couldn’t be right, so I checked.

In 2008 Vote Education was $10.78 billion.

In 2014 Vote Education was $10.12 billion.

So maybe David Cunliffe is right. Has National cut education spending?

Nope.

A bit of detective work determines that in 2008, Vote Education includes tertiary education. In 2014, it is a separate vote. Very tricky, eh.

So what is Vote Education in 2014, if you include tertiary education, as was done in 2008.

That adds on $3.04 billion to make it $13.16 billion. That is not 2.3% lower. That’s 22.1% higher!!