Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: National's winning on education - and parents agree

So I reckon there was one moment in that leaders' debate that would have worried parents up and down this country, and it was this one.

Chris Hipkins conceded that, if Labour were to win the election, he would scrap the one hour of reading, writing and maths for primary school kids.

It's weird to me that Labour wants to do this because, anecdotally, I keep hearing from parents that they can see the difference Erica Stanford's reforms in primary education are making.

Often, the story I hear is that one child started school before the reforms were introduced and struggled to learn to read, while the second child started school after structured literacy, structured numeracy and the one hour of reading, writing and maths were introduced, and they just nailed everything immediately. The difference is stark for parents.

The data says the reforms, especially structured literacy, are working. A couple of weeks ago, I was doing a speech with a guy who's quite deep in politics but he's also a dad and he said the single greatest threat, in his mind, of Labour winning the election is that Labour would undo all of the education reforms Erica Stanford has introduced and stop our kids from learning properly again.

And I agree with him.

The big threat is that she's only halfway through what she's doing, and it all stops in its tracks and gets unwound. In fact, I agree with him to the extent that I think National may want to go harder on exactly that point.

National is not winning on the economy because it doesn't have a credible story to tell when the cost of living is hurting as much as, if not more than, it did before, and when Nicola is spending far more than Grant ever did. But National does have a serious point of difference, and a good point of difference, on education.

It is not an exaggeration to say Erica Stanford is the best education minister we've had in decades, if not ever, in this country. Kids are finally learning to read and do maths again. She took phones out of schools and it's made a huge difference. By the way, even Chris Hipkins said he wouldn't get rid of that. He acknowledges how successful it has been.

It is genuinely scary for some parents to think Labour would stop the hour of reading, writing and maths while also keeping the disaster that is NCEA.

National should be using education a hell of a lot more than they are in their campaign.

Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and radio broadcaster who hosts Newstalk ZB's weekday Drive-Time Show – where this article was sourced.