New spending announced?

I've been informed from Chris Carters office that Carter is going to announce a multimillion dollar policy that will add more money into early childhood in South Auckland, assisting 450 kids.$9m actually - that's $5,000 a child for each of the next four years. Great. It will be even better if 20 hours free was actually free.

The policy will pay for early childhood centres that are located on school property. The idea is that if preschoolers go to preschool on a site that is located in primary school grounds, then kids will be more likely to go to school when they are five instead of waiting until the legal age of six.

I asked if it was new spending. The person in Carters office said it was - until I mentioned that Helen Clark said that she was not going to announce any new spending before the election. She then said it probably wasn't new spending. Perhaps $9m or so is not significant enough to be classed as new spending?

So, I`m none the wiser. But you`d think the staff in the ministers office would know.