If we were in charge after the General Election, how would we use New Zealand's money?
As we've been taking part in the Kids Voting programme through the Electoral Commission over the last two weeks, we've had time to think about what really matters to each of us.
Today we were given ten different areas of government spending (education, health, transport, social welfare, environment, etc) to allocate a certain amount of funds. We were buddied up within our numeracy groups, with many of us being allocated different amounts of money to spread out over the ten spending areas. Groups had between $1,000 and $1,000,000,000 to use.
We decided to simply use our minds, pens and paper. Some pairs were able to agree on most decisions, however many groups had to negotiate on certain things. The sharing session we had afterwards was controversial, as Mr K deliberately tried to create counter-arguments for all of our decisions. We have learned that everyone has their own opinions and cares more deeply about different things, which has helped us make connections to the electoral process and how decisions are made that impact our communities.
I liked doing this because we had to use our brain and really think about what was more important to us.
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