Christopher Luxon says "all options need to be on the table" to improve New Zealand's "abysmal" attendance rates, and he's not ruling out going after bad parents and principals.
Last week in an AM interview, the National Party leader said some of the blame should fall on school leaders who weren't doing a good enough job at getting children in the classroom.
"There is a mixed standard of leadership across our schools and across our principals that actually means they're not focussing as strongly on getting kids to school as they can," Luxon said last week, comments which sparked calls for an apology from some in the education sector.
On Monday, Luxon pointed the finger at parents and had no time for their excuses.
"You chose to have these kids, you have to wake up at 7am, get your kids to school at 8am," he said.
"You have now got subsidised free lunches, free breakfasts, subsidised period products, subsidised school uniforms. There is no excuses. What we have in New Zealand is a culture of excuses."
It came after figures showed just 40 percent of children went to school regularly in term two this year.
Luxon told AM on Wednesday the Labour Government has created a "culture of excuses".
"What I've been saying is it's the responsibility of three actors, it's the responsibility of the Government to make sure that there are resources in place to support the schools as they cut down on absence and truancy," Luxon told AM co-host Melissa Chan-Green.
"We've got abysmal outcomes on attendance … there are some principals that are doing an exceptionally good job of being able to drive attendance, let's learn from them, replicate that in other schools.
"My final most important point has been that parents need to take responsibility. Wake up, get the kids to school. You want your kids to have more opportunities than you had. So that's what our parents did for us and that's what we expect parents to do for their kids going forward."
Asked by Chan-Green if National will introduce "specific policies to penalise bad parents and bad principals," Luxon said "all options need to be on the table".
"What we're doing now, [National's education spokesperson] Erica Stanford and I have been looking into this issue for the last six months or so, even a bit longer, and we'll come out in the new year with a policy on it that's pretty detailed."
"What I want to say to you is all options need to be on the table, for parents, for schools and for the Government," Luxon said.
"There is nothing more important than getting our kids into school. If we cannot get them into the gates of the school, they cannot learn. They cannot get ahead. As I've said before, it's a moral crisis. It's a social crisis, but it's an economic crisis as well."
Luxon the COVID-19 pandemic was no excuse for New Zealand's "abysmal" attendance rates.
"We cannot go forward as a country, we can't realise the opportunities that we have ahead of us," he said.
"We can't get higher paying jobs and salaries which we want for all New Zealanders. We can't make ourselves fundamentally wealthier if we're not going to educate ourselves well."
Watch the full interview with Christopher Luxon above.
