Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you Mr Speaker because there isn't much to thank the Government for. I just want to start by talking about the cost of petrol which is around $2.20 at this stage in the Pakuranga electorate and to think that this Government has added 24c of tax per litre of petrol every single time people in my electorate go to fill up their cars—12c in increased excise and 12c through the Auckland regional fuel tax. I can say thank you Mr Speaker but not thanks to them. To think that this Government and the Minister of Transport wanted to take his opportunity in this general debate to talk about letters! I noticed that the Hon Poto Williams thought she would also take the opportunity to talk about letters because it seems that this Government has problems with letters at the moment. They've got letters which they don't want to have released—letters between Ministers which clearly are about particular transport programmes which they don't want released—while at the same time allowing letters to come out of our prisons which should never ever see the light of day. This Government is a shambles and is failing New Zealanders. So I'd like to talk about a letter. I'd like to use the letter F and I'd like to talk about that in the context of the Government's reforms of the vocational education sector.Firstly I'd like to talk about funding. How are the changes to the vocational sector being funded? The response and the answer to that is that it's being funded through the fees-free flop—that's the three Fs of funding for the vocational education changes: $197 million underspent because fewer students went to tertiary education than was expected even though the policy was designed to increase participation in tertiary education. But even that won't cover the full cost of funding these changes. It's going to need almost twice that $197 million just to pay for the establishment of the country's single nationalised institute of skills and training the mothership which will run our vocational education sector in New Zealand. But the costs are more: it's going to cost up to $1 billion in ongoing costs. Treasury even said the costs will outweigh the benefits by three to one. The benefits will be a third of what the cost will be for those changes and the increased costs of running our vocational sector will be approximately $50 million per year to the New Zealand taxpayer.Secondly I'd like to talk about fewer apprenticeships because that's what those changes to vocational education will actually do to apprenticeships—18000 fewer learners in industry training according to the programme business case and 2300 fewer apprenticeships which will be available to help with the building and construction needs that our country desperately has at a time when we desperately need more people going into the trades at a time when we have houses to be built which this Government can't build. We need more tradespeople but this Government is failing New Zealanders through the changes to vocational education which will only lead to fewer people going into vocational education.Finally these changes are failing our regions. There are Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics across New Zealand which will lose their autonomy lose their local ability to make decisions as to the courses that they will deliver and they will lose control over the assets which they have built up through their communities. While the Government has said that they will ring-fence some of the cash reserves some of our polytechs have invested in buildings and infrastructure which have been funded by the community. I'm sitting here next to Hamish Walker the MP for Clutha-Southland who is a champion for the Southern Institute of Technology alongside Sarah Dowie and they know the impact that it will have on the Southern Institute of Technology and the wider economic impacts on the region of Southland and the people that it will bring throughout that community.I leave with a final remark with the letter F. These changes will be a fail a fail for New Zealanders a fail for our vocational education sector a fail for apprenticeships. The Minister of Education needs to take a hard look at the changes he's proposing before New Zealanders give him a letter F.