Goldsmith Paul: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Goldsmith Paul: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 27 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3434. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) 
: 
 I guess before I start my speech with a name like Goldsmith I suppose I must make the point I was not at all impressed by the comments yesterday from Megan Woods on the other side of the House. It sometimes makes you think that the Labour Party is a party of haters. If anyone does not agree with it every now and then the bile comes out and I do not think that was the appropriate way to be talking in this House. 
On the weekend I had the opportunity to be an MC for a fund-raiser for my local school Remuera Intermediate. It is a great school—well led. Under the decile system it has to raise its own funds. The parent teacher association is doing a great job of raising money and it had the idea of getting the children to contribute in such a way as doing a painting. The teachers helped them. They put on an auction to see what sort of money we could raise. We thought we might get $100 a painting or maybe $200. In the end the result was we raised $26000 as the parents dug deep. Those children at the local school where I send my kids are blessed. The parents are involved they are supportive they are active and they are determined that their children will succeed. 
Since strong families are the key to that success I want to pay tribute today to the many New Zealanders the mums and dads who are on school boards and parent teacher associations around the country putting in a huge amount of time and effort and that is so important. Most schools in most communities are active and most parents are active in their schools encouraging their kids. But the reality is that unfortunately not all children have that advantage in life and there are many children in this country who do not have much support from their parents. Their parents are not around or they do not care and they do not encourage their children in their education. The Government cannot force mums and dads to care about their kids and it cannot force them to take an interest but we can and we must do everything we can to help those children who do not have strong support. Governments across both sides of this House have poured in resources for decades without to be frank much improvement at the end of the scale where achievement has not occurred. The previous Government poured large resources in thick and fast through the 2000s but had no real clear plan and certainly no fundamental rethink about what we were doing. 
This Government has taken a different approach under the leadership of John Key. It is open to a new set of ideas and willing to rethink to step beyond the slogans and the easy answers of just pouring more and more money into the problems and to think genuinely about what works and what does not. So in education Hekia Parata working closely with Bill English and the rest of the team has set the Better Public Services targets in education about boosting skills and employment and I am very pleased to be part of a Government that is finally setting some clear sets of achievements. 
 So we are looking to ensure that 85 percent of 18-year-olds will have National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 by 2017 and that is a very difficult target and one that we will do everything we can to achieve. We will also ensure that 55 percent of 25 to 34-year-olds have qualifications at level 4 or above. And why is it important to set these targets? Well we can keep on drifting we can keep on pouring resources in but at the end of the day you have to ask “Is it working or is it not working?” and these targets that we are setting here will really put the heat under the Ministry of Education and all those involved to make sure that what we are doing actually works. 
Another one of those 10 targets that we are focused on and announced in the last little while is supporting vulnerable children to ensure that 98 percent of children starting school in 2016 have participated in early childhood education. If we can achieve 98 percent we will be making a huge difference to this country and to the next generation. 
So that is what we are on about. Delivering better public services within tight financial constraints is National’s priority for this term. It is part of our plan for building a brighter future. That is the sort of stuff that we will be looking at. We want to ensure that we are delivering results in areas that matter to you and to the people of New Zealand and their families while at the same time ensuring that our public services are more productive and efficient. We make no apology for having high expectations of the public services that we provide. We want New Zealanders to know that they can rely on public services that they need and that those services will make the difference to their lives because we have high expectations. Thank you very much.