The Associate Minister of Education has confirmed that this clumsy and incompetent Government has failed to deliver on the Prime Minister’s 2018 promise to reduce early intervention times for young children, National’s Education spokesperson Nicola Willis says.

In April 2018 the Prime Minister promised to reduce waiting times from an average wait of 74 days, saying ‘in the life of a little three or four year-old child who's hungry to learn, that's 74 days too long’.

“The Minister confirmed during Question Time today that children are now waiting an average of 104 days for early intervention support. For a four year old who is less than 1500 days old, 104 days is far too long.

“Early intervention times were trending downwards under National but despite bold promises by the Prime Minister things have just gotten worse under Labour.

“Labour hasn’t delivered on its promises and has a track record of failure. Kiwibuild is a disaster, they have made no progress on infrastructure and child poverty is getting worse.

“This is a huge let-down for thousands of families and teachers who had their hopes raised that their children would get extra help sooner. What matters to parents is the services their children receive – not the Prime Minister’s empty promises.

“The earlier we help young children out with services like speech-language therapy and physical therapy the better those children will do at school. Every day matters in a young child’s life.”

Attached is data from written questions showing the increase in waiting times for early intervention