Lee Melissa: Budget Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Lee Melissa: Budget Debate 
[Sitting date: 31 May 2012. Volume:680;Page:2790. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
MELISSA LEE (National) 
: 
 What an honour it is to speak after these fantastic Ministers who have spoken with passion and lots of animation as well. It is a great pleasure to rise to give my support to the Appropriation (2012/13 Estimates) Bill. But before I get on to some of the topics I would like to give a little bit of perspective on the education topic that a lot of speakers have talked about in this House today as well.  
I am originally from Korea. I was born in the 1960s after the Korean War when Korea was a very poor country. It was an aid-receiving country. In those times I was in primary school in Korea and there were at least 65 children in one class—65 kids. Because I was one of the youngest kids in the class and the smallest often I was No. 65 and I always had to take the last turn. Considering that I come from a country where there were 65 kids in one class I do not think it actually did me any harm. Having moved from Korea to Malaysia where the class sizes were about the same and not speaking a word of Bahasa a word of Chinese a word of Tamil or a word of Hindi and being in a class where none of the things that the teachers were talking about made any sense until I was about 15 the quality of teachers made a difference. It was not the class size that actually helped a non-language speaking non-English speaking non-Malay speaking child in a foreign country; it was the teacher. It was the quality of the teacher. It was the care of the teacher who paid attention to me that made a whole lot of difference. Now having actually started learning the language at the age of about 15 I like to think that I speak a bit of English—hopefully better than a little bit. I am bilingual and I am very proud of that.  
Until I became a member of Parliament when people talked about the Budget it was relevant only in the way it affected my life my personal life but having been in Parliament—and I am now in my second term—my perception has changed dramatically. I would like to say what a fantastic job our finance Minister the Hon Bill English is doing and has done for this country by producing a Budget that is for our times. The burden is on all of us—not just on the Government but on all of us as citizens.  
A lot of people have dubbed the Budget many things but I would like to just acknowledge the brilliance of the zero new money Budget in managing to provide and invest in better front-line services as a priority. Considering there is no new money spent on this investment we must acknowledge how good the National Government is in managing our finances when our predecessor the Labour Government in its 9 years managed to deliver less in much better economic times in a much better economic climate than we currently have. As previous speakers have said we have not had such a bad time economically for 70 to 80 years and we are delivering for New Zealanders. We are delivering more than Labour’s 9 years ever did.  
Going back to class sizes and teacher numbers let me just say that in the last decade the number of teachers—the growth in teacher numbers—has increased by 12.7 percent or something close to that amount but the roll growth has been only about 2.5 percent. Did the smaller class sizes over the last decade mean that we actually achieved better outcomes for our children? Absolutely not. We have not. It plateaued and it did not grow. What we are doing is innovative ideas to improve the outcome. That 20 percent of our students leave our school education system with an inability to read write or do maths is an appalling result. It is an appalling situation that this country is in. Creating a situation where we are providing better quality education for our children is something that I am sure all of us in this House agree on. Education is very very important.  
There have been many speakers in this Budget debate and Chester Borrows and Simon Bridges were among them. Another one that actually caught my attention was the impassioned speech by my colleague the Hon Tau Henare. He spoked about the—he spoke about the—I almost made that mistake about the English language that the Opposition does sorry. 
Hon Chester Borrows 
: Be careful. 
MELISSA LEE 
: Thank you. He spoke about the Opposition members who were willing to wave goodbye to their whanau who are leaving for mining jobs in Australia—I think that is what he talked about—but were not happy to say yes to mining or oil and gas exploration that would create jobs that could keep people in this country. Yet the Opposition members keep on harping on about “Where are the jobs? Where are the jobs?”. Well if they did not oppose every growth initiative this Government has proposed perhaps that question might have some credibility. If they had not opposed every single restraint we have made to get back into surplus they might have some credibility but maybe the words “credibility” and “Labour Party” do not quite go together. Maybe that is the problem. If they did those members would not oppose growth nor would they oppose jobs nor would they oppose responsible fiscal management. They would be supporting this Government to get back into surplus and actually grow this country and provide more jobs and better opportunities for all New Zealanders.  
Having moved to the Social Services Committee in the 50th Parliament I am very pleased about what our Minister for Social Development the Hon Paula Bennett is doing in Vote Social Development. I would like to say that as a New Zealand citizen I am very proud that we have a welfare system that is there for those who are in need. Our welfare system will always be there to support those in genuine need; that is what it is supposed to do and that is what it was created for. But our welfare system in New Zealand is actually failing many. The cost of our welfare system is around $8 billion to pay benefits to 351000 people. That is 13 percent of our working-age population and that is one in eight people on a benefit.  
Welfare is necessary but too many people have been on benefit for far too long. In fact 170000 have been on welfare for most of the last decade 220000 children are currently growing up in welfare-dependent homes and 33000 women on the DPB are having subsequent children on the benefit. We know that young people who come on to the benefit early stay on a benefit longer and long-term welfare dependency is in fact destructive trapping vulnerable young people into a life of limited choices poverty and poor health. We want to support young people to make better choices and to stay in education training or work. Talking about the children who are growing up in welfare-dependent homes I say that the outcomes for those children whether it is health outcomes education outcomes or social outcomes—all outcomes for those children—do not compare to those for children who are not growing up in a welfare-dependent home. They are not performing as well and we are doing something about it. The other day I was speaking to the Hon Paula Bennett and I actually said that she had balls tackling this issue and that Labour when it was in Government did not have the balls to fix this problem. We are getting on with the programme.  
This Government will deliver a surplus in 2014-15 this Government is growing jobs and this Government is making sure that the finances of this country are managed responsibly and pragmatically. Thank you.