Tolley Anne: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Tolley Anne: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:648;Page:17509] 
ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast) 
: 
 I want to pick up on just a couple of things. The Minister in the chair the Hon Chris Carter can stand in the Chamber and hurl as much personal abuse as he likes but the facts are quite clear. We had a major announcement from the Prime Minister in answer to John Key’s announcement of good National policy. Labour has cherry-picked that policy and then produced some of it in a consultation document that went out to schools and it had more questions than it had answers. There is nothing in the Budget about how it will be funded. There is no evidence of any detailed analysis leading up to the announcement of that policy. A figure of $170 million has been tossed into the air with no justification. 
The Minister said words to this effect to the select committee: “We have made it quite clear that there would be a new appropriation of funds to meet the costs but at this point in time we do not know how much that will be. The Prime Minister in her launching of the policy gave a figure of $170 million as a rough estimate of what we think it might cost but that is why dialogue with schools is so important—because there is no cost to it at the moment but there is going to be and we need to know what it will be.” In other words the Government had no idea. It made it up and plucked the figure out of the system. 
Let me go on to the second of the four initiatives—Ka Hikitia. What did we get with Ka Hikitia? After expenditure of about a quarter of a million dollars in order to improve Maori literacy and success in the education system some badges were produced for teachers to wear. The badges had “Wassup!” or “Nice!” written on them. This was supposed to raise the level of Maori literacy. Tonight I read the letter that went out with all that material to the teachers some of whom have written to me to say how insulted they were that they were asked to wear badges like the “Wassup!” badge. It is not even a Maori word—it is not even an English word! The letter to the teachers states that the ministry is “delighted to present you the teacher with resources”. What are those resources? They are bookmarks and a term-date card that were developed to support Ka Hikitia. For heaven’s sake! If we are serious about raising Maori literacy then the last things we need to be supplying teachers with are fancy badges bookmarks and a card telling them what the term dates are. 
The letter goes on to state that the measure will help transform the performance of the system for and with Maori. I ask the Minister whether he is saying seriously that presenting teachers with that sort of rubbish which costs an enormous amount of money—a quarter of a million dollars—will help Maori literacy. That money could have been put into the operations grant or the teachers themselves could have undertaken one of a number of initiatives that are going now and will address seriously the issue of Maori literacy. Wandering around a schoolyard wearing a badge that says “Wassup!” waiting to be approached by a student will hardly lift the levels of Maori literacy. 
I heard one of the Labour members talking earlier about the achievements of this Labour Government in terms of the raising of literacy rates. Yes there has been a small improvement in Maori literacy rates—a very small improvement. But I put it to the Minister that even with that small improvement—a 2 to 3 percent increase per annum—if we are to look at the percentages of Maori students who continue to fall out of the schooling system with no qualifications to enable them to get even semi-skilled employment then they will be fully grown adults and well out of the school system before they have anywhere near caught up. 
I ask the Minister why he does not look at the successful Te Kotahitanga programme which is operating in schools throughout the country. It is having a huge effect on the levels of Maori literacy and numeracy and it is enabling so many more Maori girls and boys to achieve the levels that they need to achieve if they are to take their place in the wider world and contribute to the economy and the community of New Zealand. Why does the Minister insist on putting out this sort of rubbish which is an insult to both the teachers and the students and does absolutely nothing for Maori literacy?