9. Question No. 9—EducationHon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) to the Minister of EducationQuestion No. 9—Education9. Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) to the Minister of Education: Does he stand by all of his promises in education?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Yes I stand by the promises this coalition Government has made which include ending charter schools making the first year of tertiary education free increasing student allowances and living-cost payments scrapping national standards funding schools to stop asking for parental donations the largest ever increase in property funding for New Zealand schools by a Government restarting Te Kotahitanga developing a 30-year strategic plan for New Zealand education support for gifted learners and developing a school leavers' toolkit among many others. We've also removed NCEA exam fees provided over half a billion dollars in funding for learning support including 600 learning support coordinators and provided the largest amount of increase in funding for teacher supply initiatives in a decade.Hon Nikki Kaye: Does he stand by his promise to ensure that schooling is genuinely free given his decision that disadvantaged families in deciles 8 9 and 10 schools are excluded from the donations bill and are being denied an opportunity to have reduced costs?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes. When the Labour Party costed the policy in Opposition we were clear that we had costed for uptake of the policy by all decile 1 to 7 schools. We had to start somewhere and of course we targeted the policy deliberately at those schools that had the highest concentration of disadvantaged students which are the lower decile schools.Hon Nikki Kaye: In light of his promise what does he say to the New Zealand Principals Federation who have said that schools feel short-changed" by being excluded from the donations policy and why has he proposed such an inequitable policy in legislation?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Once upon a time the National Party were decrying this Government for not targeting additional funding enough. This policy is targeted at the schools that have the highest concentrations of students who are disadvantaged and whose parents can't afford to pay. A cursory analysis of the amount of locally raised funds that schools generate suggests that deciles 8 9 and 10 schools raise significantly more funding through locally raised funds than lower decile schools are able to.Hon Nikki Kaye: Will he admit that he has broken his promise to provide incentive payments for all State and State integrated schools in exchange for their agreement not to ask for parental donations?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I don't think the member listened to my original answer. If she listened when we announced the policy we were very clear that the policy costings were based on decile 1 to 7 schools taking that policy up. In the future it may well be that we're in a position to extend it to other schools. That's of course a decision for another day.Hon Nikki Kaye: How can parents rely on his promise to modernise school buildings in New Zealand given he's overseeing the largest ever underspend in school property and shown he can't even deliver on projects announced by him and the last Government?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: They can rely on us to deliver on that because we're getting serious about dealing with the critical skills shortages we face in the building and construction industry which has been one of the major constraints to Government building projects across the board. We are actually tackling that problem so that we can be certain that we can deliver on school property projects. One of the things that we've done in this year's Budget is move to a four-year allocation for school property so that we can better plan the pipeline of property projects which will allow the building and construction industry more certainty so that they can be more certain of being able to deliver.Hon Nikki Kaye: Why has he failed to deliver on promises including all students having access to digital devices the uncapping of Ongoing and Reviewable Resourcing Scheme (ORRS) funding for children with complex needs reduced teacher-child ratios in early learning free driver training in schools personalised career advice for—SPEAKER: Order! I just want to check that these are all commitments that the Minister of Education has made—[Interruption]—not the Opposition spokesperson on education.Hon Nikki Kaye: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think that is being slightly pedantic because he's actually—SPEAKER: No not—[Interruption] Order! Not at all pedantic. It's what the Minister has responsibility for.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. An interesting intervention from you but surely it would be for the Minister to make the distinction when it comes to answering the question in which case his answer might be a very short answer.SPEAKER: It could well be. It's one of the problems that you have when you have someone in the Chair who is vaguely familiar with education policy. I don't want to get back to the way that some previous Speakers ended up as coaches but there's a pretty simple way of doing the question and that is: "Does the Minister agree with …". Hon Nikki Kaye: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Minister in his previous answers actually addressed in my view—he was given a long leniency at the outset to list a range of promises and from my perspective he's already addressed some of his promises that have been made as Opposition spokesperson. So he's already gone there. SPEAKER: Right OK. We're now getting to the last chance. I think I've given the member who is now a relatively senior member some advice as to how to phrase her question to make it in order which is "Does the Minister agree with X Y and Z which was said by the Hon Chris Hipkins before the election?"—that would be in order. Hon Nikki Kaye: Does the Minister agree with Chris Hipkins who promised all students having access to digital devices the uncapping of ORRS funding for children with complex needs reduced teacher-child ratios in early learning free driver training in schools personalised career advice for high school students additional funding for 100 percent qualified teachers in early learning restoring postgraduate students' eligibility to student allowances and the more than 40 promises not delivered so far? Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The member that the member is quoting is in fact very visionary when it comes to education and so I do agree with the commitments that he has made. I note that we're only halfway through the parliamentary term and that many of the initiatives that the member raises are currently being worked on and progress is being made on some of them. I did of course notice the uncharacteristically petty statements that the member who was asking the question made about the—SPEAKER: Order!"