Hipkins Chris: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 28 January 2014. Volume:696;Page:15569. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): If we needed a clear statement of the lack of enthusiasm and lack of ideas that permeate this National Government we just had it. We just had it from that member Nathan Guy who talked about the research and development tax credit. Well I have a question for him. Who cut the research and development tax credit? Who was it that removed the financial support for firms to invest in research and development? Oh that would be the current National Government.Of course Nathan Guy argued that by providing $60 a week for families who have newborn children we are going to be encouraging people to have a whole lot morebabies. It is like saying that because New Zealand superannuation is universal more people are going to get old. No that simply does not compute. It simply does not compute. Is the Government arguing for means testing New Zealand superannuation? If it has a problem with providing universal support to New Zealanders is it going to means test New Zealand superannuation? Because that is the logical extension of what it has been arguing. Nathan Guy talked about Transmission Gully. After 5 years in Government not one sod has been turned for Transmission Gully but I will tell you what—there will be a sod turned inŌtaki at the next general election. There will be a sod turned in Ōtaki at the next general election—you can mark my words—because Nathan Guy’s term in this Parliament will be coming to an end.I want to talk about the fantastic announcements in the education area that David Cunliffe made in his speech yesterday. We will be extending free early childhood education for 3 and 4-year-olds to 25 hours per week. That is something that I know parents all around the country are going to be looking forward to and will welcome. We have said that simply extending access is not enough however. We have also said that we want to increase the quality of early childhood education in New Zealand and that means that we will reinstate the commitment to having a fully qualified and registered teaching profession in early childhood education. That is something that this Government has moved away from.It is interesting that Government members are willing to talk about quality teaching in schools which is something that I support but they are not willing to talk about quality teaching in early childhood education. In fact they do not see that as a priority. Giving kids the best possible start with their education—and that means investing in quality early childhood education—is one of the most progressive things we can do for the education system. That is why I am absolutely proud that Labour’s commitment to increasing the number of hours that children can access is being accompanied by an absolute commitment to increasing quality by funding fully qualified teachers in early childhood centres.We also have to recognise that there are some parts of the country where the funding model has been one of the contributing factors to a lack of provision because the current model that we have has seen most of the growth in early childhood education in the last decade or so come from the for-profit early childhood sector and that has meant that in many communities—or in a small number of communities but vitally important areas—there is underprovision because the for-profits do not see a profit-making opportunity in it. We actually have to get serious about that and that means that we will put money in. We are unashamedly saying that the Labour Government will put money into building new centres where there is underprovision because underprovision is—particularly in many poor communities—one of the contributing factors to those kids not getting access to early childhood education. That is the third leg of the stool of Labour’s early childhood policy that David Cunliffe announced yesterday and I am really really proud to stand behind that.It is a pretty clear contrast to the things that John Key has been talking about—John Key’s six-page apology for Hekia Parata which he made last week. This of course is the same Minister of Education who brought us school closures in Christchurch; who thought that increasing the quality of education was going to rest on having bigger class sizes; who brought us Novopay—if they are talking about increasing the pay for teachers there are still teachers around the country who are waiting to be paid at all as a result of that botch-up—who brought us charter schools that do not have to have qualified and registered teachers; who brought us national standards which of course have been proven to be neither national nor standard; and who is now saying that the Government wants to focus on the quality of teaching.Well I thought that was a very interesting argument because I think that quality teaching is vitally important but I do want to pick up the comment by Graeme Aitken the Dean of Education at the University of Auckland who said in an opinion column that there is an “Everest of research that shows that socio-economic status is the strongest predictor of achievement.” When the Government talks about quality teaching being the strongest predictor of achievement it is not actually correct. Quality teaching is the strongest in-school predictor of student achievement; there is no argument about that. But it is simply wrong for that Government to bury its head in the sand and claim that all of the things that happen outside the school do not have an impact on kids when they get through the gate. As Graeme Aitken has argued the changes that the Government announced last week will have “limited impact if they are not accompanied by bold initiatives to address social inequality and poverty.” That is exactly what the Labour Party has done this week with our Best Start programme that David Cunliffe announced yesterday.I also want to quote—because I think this is actually really important when considering the package that John Key announced around teaching last week—Graeme Aitken on paying good teachers more. How is this Government going to decide what a good teacher is? If it is going to decide it based on national standards and the National Certificate of Educational Achievement then it is setting our education system up for failure. As Graeme Aitken has argued here: “Top teaching is not about cramming for results”—Hon Gerry Brownlee: What about the member’s own thoughts?CHRIS HIPKINS: —“on limited measures of learning. It is about leaving students with greater enjoyment of reading writing and mathematics and feeling confident about new learning in these areas. It is also about opening students’ minds to the rich curriculum offered in the arts sciences languages technology health and physical education and the social sciences.”I say to Gerry Brownlee that I agree with him. My thoughts are very very similar to his. I think he is absolutely right when he says that we cannot simply narrow the definition of success in our education system into cramming kids to pass a couple of tests in a few areas. We actually have to give them a broad well-rounded education. That includes subjects like woodwork. Some kids do quite well in woodwork—probably not the ones who had their educational opportunities completely hamstrung by having the misfortune to have Gerry Brownlee as their woodwork teacher but many kids do quite well in woodwork and they do find that a bridge to other opportunities in education. Kids learn quite well in context and I actually think if we are talking about numeracy that kids doing woodwork quite often find woodwork a very good context in which to learn better numeracy skills. They have to learn skills around measurement and around all sorts of things; it is a good context.But this Government does not seem to think that is important. It thinks that instead you should be cramming kids full of literacy and numeracy alone without the rich context that comes from a broad curriculum which is what I think we should be focused on in our schools and that is certainly—Moana Mackey: Where’s the science?CHRIS HIPKINS: “What about science?” I hear Moana Mackey saying. Science of course is a vitally important part of the curriculum as well. There are no national standards in science. It is not a priority for this Government. Well I think—Hon Annette King: All that stuff from Nathan Guy.CHRIS HIPKINS: After all that stuff from Nathan Guy about science it is a shame that National does not seem to think that science is important in schools. I think employing a Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister was a very very good idea. Ithink that listening to him would be an even better idea and that is certainly not something we are seeing from this Government.Instead of course we have John Key and his dance of the desperate and dateless. It is like political speed-dating over there on the National benches. We have got Colin Craig John Banks and Peter Dunne. Peter Dunne is now restored to be a Minister of the Crown. I am really interested to know from John Key and from the National Government who leaked the Kitteridge report. Who leaked the Kitteridge report? If it is happy to have Peter Dunne the prime suspect for leaking the Kitteridge report back in the Government it must think that somebody else did it. How could John Key sack Peter Dunne last year for leaking a Government document and then turn round and reinstate him without actually establishing if it was not Peter Dunne who it was?Carol Beaumont: Who done it?CHRIS HIPKINS: Of course—who done it? But we know that this is nothing to do with principle. This is everything to do with the desperate clinging to power by this National Government which is out of ideas and which is out of energy. It is time and in the coming election it will be replaced. It will be replaced and there will be a Government with a commitment to ensuring that all New Zealanders share in the economic recovery that is taking place—all New Zealanders get their fair share of that. That is not going to happen under this Government which is committed to the trickle-up theory that sees all of the wealth concentrated in fewer and fewer New Zealanders while those in the middle get squeezed and those on the lowest incomes get absolutely clobbered.The days of those policies are coming to an end. We have to bring in fairness. We have to restore the balance. We have to restore a fair and just society in which every New Zealander is rewarded appropriately for their efforts every child in this country gets the best possible start in life every school is a great school and every teacher is a great teacher. This is not about picking winners; it is about giving everybody their fair opportunities in life.