O'Connor Simon: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
O'Connor Simon: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 12 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8446. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tamaki) 
: 
 Thank you very much. I will just project my voice. Why not? Let us just talk out loud. It was great to hear what we have heard from the Maori Party and I think it will be very pleased to hear the work that is happening around the partnership schools which is going to allow our families to engage. I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Do I need the microphone? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Yes. You are not going out over the networks. 
SIMON O’CONNOR 
: We will have to start again. Thank you Mr Chair. To the World Wide Web listening in I am now online. I think the Maori Party will be pleased and this Committee should be too because with partnership schools we have heard in select committee meeting after select committee meeting whanau family from Pasifika communities and Maori communities saying: “We want this.” That puts the left in a terrible terrible bind. To someone like me it is quite funny to watch but they said person after person whanau after whanau that they want this opportunity. I think that is really important to hear. 
One of the things about education is the importance of having a broad education so I actually want to turn the attention back to the tertiary sector. I noted that the  
Listener 
 recently picked up on a number of us including the Minister who were at the O-Weeks. The National Party was certainly out in force in the O-Weeks supporting our young people who have been signing up hundreds of people who are committed to that brighter future which National is interested in. One of the things that I have found as someone who goes through the tertiary sector quite frequently and not just in O-Weeks is the optimism we have in our young people. Arguably some of that can be accounted for by the successes that this National Government has had. 
So I want to pick up and continue—broaden if you will—what the Minister was outlining earlier around successes in education to talk about the successes in the tertiary sector. Between 2008 and 2011 course completion rates in New Zealand increased from 76 percent to 82 percent and qualification completion rates from 64 percent to 71 percent. These are undeniable facts and realities. This has been the commitment of the National Government from 2008 and we have seen an increase in completion rates. We have seen an increase in qualification rates—measurable success in the tertiary sector. We have seen with student loan repayments that these have increased by 11 percent. The initiatives that this Government has put in are breeding success—tangible measurable success. The scientific method if you will: you can test it you can show it you can prove it and that is what the National Party is doing. 
We have seen that the cost to the New Zealand taxpayer to the Crown has come down. It used to be 47c before this Government took power for every $1 lent. That was the cost of the student loan scheme. Now it is down to 39c—tangible real visible facts around what this Government has achieved. We know now too there are 1000 more engineering places in our universities and our institutes of technology in 2013. We are on track to make sure we are producing an extra 500—that is 500—engineering graduates by 2017. This is incredibly important. 
I had the great privilege last week of going out to an amazing New Zealand company called Altitude Aerospace Interiors which is leading the way in interior design. It is an excellent excellent company—hey I can turn right around with this microphone; this is great—doing amazing work with aircraft engineering designs. The company is crying out for further engineering graduates from this country and it wants them. It knows that graduates from the likes of the University of Auckland are fantastic graduates as they are from other institutions throughout New Zealand. This Government has heard that cry and is putting money where its mouth is. 
I have had a lot of—again I have mentioned it in this Chamber before—friends and others in my electorate talking around student allowances and so forth around the changes there. We have seen the spending on student allowances. Context is important. In any discussion like this we can pick up on absolute particulars and exceptions and try to argue from it but the context is important. Our expenditure has increased significantly. In 2007 and 2008 the Crown spent about $385 million in student allowances. In the last year that was $620 million. Whether we like it or not this is simply not sustainable. So this Government has worked to promote an allowance system that focuses on giving that opportunity to those in low-income families in early years of study and I think rightly that these are things we can be proud of. 
Report noted.