Hipkins ChrisCHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): They say a week is a long time in politics—in fact the phrase was coined by a former British Prime Minister—and a week must have felt like a very long time in politics for the National MPs who have never appeared more despondent and lifeless than they have over the past week. The contrast could not be greater. While the National MPs are busy staring at their feet dreading the forthcoming election we on this side of the House are feeling upbeat and excited about the forthcoming general election. We cannot wait to get to the polling booth because we are excited about the future and we are very much looking forward to the election campaign and the choice that New Zealanders will have to make. The person who let the mask slip the most last week was the Hon Gerry Brownlee when he decided to attack the media for being too sympathetic to Jacinda Ardern. He went out there and he said that Paddy Gower was a cheerleader because he had described Jacinda Ardern—he had told the truth about her—as positive energetic and in command which of course she is and Gerry Brownlee cannot handle the fact that someone is saying something nice about somebody other than him. But I think that really highlights just how far out of touch the current National Government has become and it is another illustration of why it is time for change in New Zealand. This year's Budget which we are giving the final reading to today is yet another example of that. The contrast is very clear: National which has run out of ideas simply wants to try to buy votes by giving people back a little bit of their money in the form of tax cuts. Labour is the only party in this House that is saying that health education and housing are more important than tax cuts. We have voted against tax cuts from the very beginning because we do not believe it is responsible for a Government to be cutting that vital funding when our social services are so in need. It is only the Labour Party that has a plan to address the housing crisis—a real and concrete plan to address the housing crisis—and a plan for how to pay for it: by cracking down on overseas speculators by building 100000 affordable homes for first-home buyers through KiwiBuild and by increasing State housing. Let us remember that State housing has been at its most affordable in New Zealand's history when the State has played an active role in building State houses and not only will we make sure that we build more State houses but we will ensure that all rental accommodation is warm and dry for those New Zealanders who cannot afford to buy their own home. This Government does not address any of those issues in this year's Budget and that is another reason why New Zealanders will be voting for change in the coming general election.Only the Labour Party is willing to pump an additional $4 billion over the next 4 years into our education system which is crying out for extra investment under this Government. While the Government boasts about the fact that it is spending more on this than ever before—more on early childhood education than ever before more on schools than ever before more on tertiary education than ever before—what they do not say is that is because there are more people in the system than ever before. There are more New Zealanders than there have ever been before and when actually you look at it on a per-child basis early childhood education has been cut every year that this National Government has been in office. When it is calculated on a per-child basis—Hon Hekia Parata: That is not true—about 60000 students a year. Rubbish!CHRIS HIPKINS: I say to the former Minister of Education over there that shrieking is not going to change the fact that under her watch every year that she was the Minister early childhood education was cut. The funding for early childhood education was cut. In the school sector funding was pretty much flat-lining for the entire time that that Minister was in office—flat-lining flat-lining during the tenure of this National Government. We are saying that the education sector needs additional investment. It is one of the most important investments that we can make in New Zealand's history and that is why the Labour Party is saying that education is more important than tax cuts.So let us look at what those tax cuts are going to deliver. What has Steven Joyce promised New Zealanders—the man my colleague Kelvin Davis described as being as authentic as a $3 bill? His tax cut package gives the wealthiest New Zealanders an extra $35 dollars a week while the lowest paid get just over $5 a week. Someone on the average wage apparently gets $11 a week but wait—there is a catch. They then take $10 a week back off the person on the average wage if they happen to live alone. They penalise single people by removing the single income-earner tax credit. So basically that $11 shrinks down to $1 which of course is why we are describing this move as the One Dollar Bill Budget" from Prime Minister Bill English. I found a picture of a $1 bill to symbolise this year's Budget because for many hard-working New Zealanders that is what they get; they get an extra $1 as a result of Bill English's and Steven Joyce's Budget. One-dollar bills coincidentally were phased out in New Zealand in 1990 the year that Bill English became a member of Parliament when he made his transition from Treasury to being a parliamentarian. Anybody who says that somebody at the age of 30 does not have enough real-world experience to be a member of Parliament or perhaps Prime Minister of New Zealand should look at our current Prime Minister who fits that description exactly. They should think very carefully about whether they think that that is a criticism that they should be levelling at others because it is certainly one that I have heard coming from the National benches in the past few days and by implication those members are simply criticising their current leader.The Labour Party has been clear about its priorities for investing more in education. There are huge and emerging challenges in the education system—in the early childhood system the schooling system and the tertiary education system—that this Government simply is not addressing. One of the big ones is the looming teacher supply crisis. We know that we have a huge proportion of the teaching profession in New Zealand who will be retiring in the next decade. Schools in Auckland in particular are already saying that they cannot recruit teachers and fill vacancies in Auckland and other parts of the country where it is becoming too expensive to live. That problem is only going to get worse over the next decade as increasing numbers of baby-boomer teachers near the retirement age move out of the classroom and schools will struggle to be able to fill those vacancies. The Labour Party has put forward a comprehensive plan to deal with this looming teacher supply crisis. We are the only party so far to have done so. The National Government has failed to address the issue of school overcrowding and the fact that our school facilities are very very rundown. Some schools are doing pretty well. They tend to be the schools in areas of population growth which also coincidentally happen to be the wealthier-income areas while schools in poorer communities are being left to rot into the ground. We have a plan to bring all of our school facilities up to scratch by 2030 at the latest and the current Government is simply refusing to give a time frame—Hon Nikki Kaye: How much did you spend on it in the last Labour Government? You left us with rotting schools. CHRIS HIPKINS: —on upgrading the schools that do desperately require work. The current Minister of Education chirps in. What year—this is a simple question and I am happy to yield the remainder of my time if she wants to give an answer. By what year will the National Government ensure that all school facilities are upgraded to a modern standard? Hon Nikki Kaye: Well we have been upgrading them. CHRIS HIPKINS: But what year—what year? Hon Nikki Kaye: We have been upgrading them. CHRIS HIPKINS: There is no year. We have said that by 2030 all schools will be upgraded to a modern standard. They will no longer have cold mouldy leaky classrooms and the current Government will not give that kind of commitment because it knows that the capital budgets that it is allocating will not be sufficient to bring schools up to scratch even within a decade—even within a decade. An entire generation of young people will pass through our school system with the shoddy buildings that this National Government will have left us with before it would even think about getting all of the schools up to scratch. That is not good enough. We have said that within 13 years—by 2030—we will have that problem addressed. We will make sure that schools are up to date. We will also make sure the financial pressures that parents are facing are dealt with. Early childhood education fees have risen on average 25 percent under this National Government. We will deal with that by ensuring early childhood education services are properly funded. The so-called voluntary donations that parents are asked to pay by schools have increased by 50 percent under this Government. We will make sure that those voluntary donations are done away with by ensuring that schools get the funding that they need to deliver the curriculum. In tertiary education the Labour Party will deliver 3 years of free post-school education for those who are leaving school and going on to further study because we know that that is an investment in our future. Labour is prioritising increasing social spending on health education and housing over tax cuts. We know that that is what New Zealanders want to see. They have a real alternative at this year's election and it is the Labour Party."