Kaye NikkiHon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): Look I'm very pleased to speak in this general debate. I just want to start by following on from the member that we've just heard Paul Eagle. [Paul Eagle gestures to another member] Why doesn't that member—SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume her seat please. That sort of action between two members is not appropriate within the House. If the members want to carry on that way they should leave the House.Hon NIKKI KAYE: I just want to follow on from that member and ask that member if he really would turn up to the tens of thousands of teachers in New Zealand that have said they're going to be striking at the beginning of next year and tell them that this Government is about hope and heart given that we have had not only three offers that have been rejected by the teachers but also that this Government has what I consider to be a bit of a five-step plan for those people that disagree with them.The first step in that plan is to blame National. Despite having billions of dollars in surplus—billions of dollars in surplus—they will blame National even though we had the global financial crisis and the earthquakes. We see that on every issue. We're 13 months in. There is no responsibility whatsoever taken by one single Minister. Every time they get up—and we hear it from the members of the public—it's always National's fault.The second thing that they do is they run a mile from their promises. So in education alone as I said before we have got strikes looming. They made huge commitments. They said they were going to end donations. Chris Hipkins went and told Hilary Barry he was going to end donations in the first Budget. It hasn't happened. They promised that there'd be a special education coordinator in schools. They've scaled that back. They promised that they were going to modernise every single classroom. Again we don't hear anything about that. The third thing that they do is they run down anyone that criticises them. And we see that all the time in Opposition. An example of that is these videos that have appeared around the strikes. We've never heard of this before: Ministry of Education propaganda videos around the Government's offer. But again they run down those people that criticise the Government because that is part of their strategy to stay in power.Let's look at this particular issue. If you're a teacher that thought that you were promised more than 19 education promises that haven't been delivered—what they then do is they give their money to their coalition partners. So who's getting money? In November alone we have seen—and I take the Minister's point—somewhere between $700 million and $900 million more expenditure. Who is that going to? It's going to Shane Jones and other members to ensure that the Government stays in power. It's going into trees and racehorses rather than supporting teachers around their workload and pay. The reality is that that is part of their plan to stay in power and that is a bad culture.Look many members in this House—as I've said before—come here to make a difference. We want to support teachers. The reality is that there are teacher shortages at the moment. National did an amount but we need to ensure that through this collective bargaining we do support teachers. This Government has billions of dollars in surplus and it is not OK to say—like Chris Hipkins said—that there's no more money when more than $700 million has been announced in the last month alone; when $2.8 billion has been given to tertiary students and might I add that that is a failed policy because we are not seeing the participation and we are not seeing disadvantaged groups being helped. So it's quite right for a number of teachers to be out there saying What about us? Why are we not the priority?" And I'll tell you what parents support them. The conversation that I'm hearing at the school run and the conversation that I am hearing on the ground is that this Government rode into power with a group of coalition partners that promised a kinder country and the people that they are not supporting are teachers. When it comes to pay and workload at a time when we've got larger choices they have the least priority.Trees are a priority racehorses are a priority tertiary students are a priority but what does Chris Hipkins say? He basically calls them greedy. He goes out there with a propaganda campaign. Well here's my message to the Minister: people remember broken promises. You have a once-in-a-generation chance to ensure that we do the right thing around workload and pay. Teachers have sent a very strong message with three rejections of the offer. Get back to the table—unlike what he told us today—and provide another offer so that we can ensure that we've got teachers in classrooms and that we don't continue to have the disruption that we've had.This is a Government that runs down critics. This is a Government that doesn't prioritise areas like education. This is a Government of failed promises."