Martin TraceyHon TRACEY MARTIN (Associate Minister of Education): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the bill. First of all it is a little confusing the rhetoric coming from the National Party. On one hand they say that they will not work with New Zealand First at all that they don't trust New Zealand First that they cannot do any sort of working arrangement with New Zealand First but then on the next hand Dr Shane Reti wants me to go into a $3 billion business with him and the Hon Nikki Kaye pleads with us to vote with them on this piece of legislation. I really really need some clarity around the messaging because you know Dr Reti that we will always work with people who are reasonable and practical and responsible when it comes to the direction of New Zealand. So as long as the National Party can get their colleagues together and decide which message they're actually after then come and let me know—come and let me know Dr Reti.The next thing ladies and gentlemen about this piece of legislation and what we've heard so far is first of all I'm not sure whether I've heard the National Party admit it or not yet: I heard the Hon Nikki Kaye there say that there were some challenges and so they merged some polytechs but I'm not sure whether I've heard them actually admit that this Government when it came into power found that we had to pump a hundred million dollars in the first year to keep polytechs alive in 13 out of the 16 regions.The other thing that's very telling is in all of the meetings that I have been in around this topic and with the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) not once was there a solution by the previous Government on the table. Not once was there a solution for how to make this industry sustainable how to make sure that the regions of New Zealand and the young people and actually just the general population had access to vocational training.So this Government needed to be inspirational. It needed to be visionary because we could not keep pumping taxpayers' dollars into a broken system. I have not heard anything from the National Party in their opposition to this bill that suggests that they have a plan. They are actually saying they're going to keep part of this plan. They're talking about undoing bits and pieces of it but they're talking about keeping some of it.The Hair and Beauty Industry Training Organisation (HITO) the hairdressers of New Zealand—your representative group—came in to see me. We whiteboarded this up. They told us where their issues were where the barriers were during the discussion period. We have addressed those issues. The legislation changed between the discussion document and what is now about to pass through this House.When we talk about the workforce development councils we talk about industry through the workforce development councils having the capacity to direct 80 percent of the TEC's funding in vocational training. Never before has industry had such an opportunity through the workforce development councils to direct Government funding into the skills that they need to produce the New Zealanders that can walk into their workplace and start on job and most of that training will be delivered on job. One of the problems that the industry thought was going to happen was they thought that everybody was going to be put into a polytech classroom. That is not what is going to happen. We have combined the work that we've been doing around the future of work where we need to train un-train and retrain constantly our workforce. That includes our 40-year-olds our 45-year-olds our 60-year-olds our 65-year-olds because there is no retirement age in this country. People are allowed to and should keep working as long as they wish to work. It keeps them healthy and it keeps them connected. We are aware that most of that training and retraining will need to be done on job. There is a lot of scope. It's a visionary picture that the Minister of Education has put together and industry is excited about it. Educators are excited about it.But I understand about patch protection and I understand that change upsets people. I do understand that but as we have worked through—I whiteboarded it with Māori business I whiteboarded it with the HITO with the electricals with the master plumbers. We have been through these conversations and changes were made. New Zealand First is confident that we can get our polytechs and our regional provision on to a solid footing and we will finally be able to deliver through workforce leadership through workforce planning given back to industry the right skills to New Zealanders to be able to deliver for business the skills that they need to grow their businesses.I'm going to sit down in a minute but I want to say one last thing around the protection of assets. The Minister had already come out prior to this legislation coming into the House and said that assets that were given to polytechs that were raised by community funds or had been gifted and so on there is a way to ring-fence those assets. I would say to the National Party: you are not talking about giving away assets that were purchased with taxpayers' dollars. Surely that is not what the National Party is saying. So the Minister has already said there is an opportunity to ring-fence those cash assets so that they are spread back into the area the polytech currently has. The Minister also gave concessions around those assets—and I mentioned the Invercargill Licensing Trust and the Auckland campus when I was talking about the Southern Institute of Technology.Sarah Dowie: Keep your hands off their money too. Keep your hands off their money.Hon TRACEY MARTIN: So if there have been—Ms Dowie let's have a constructive conversation rather than screeching across the House—assets that have been given by the Invercargill Licensing Trust or assets that have been gifted by other means there is an ability to ring-fence those for that polytech. But if those assets were bought with taxpayers' dollars they are taxpayers' assets and surely—surely—the National Party is not talking about putting into private hands or into a private trust taxpayers' assets. Surely they are not.So New Zealand First will support the bill. We'll continue to work with industry we'll continue to work with the Minister because something needed to be done. The National Party had absolutely no idea. They left behind a complete disaster and this Government stepped up.