Kaye NikkiHon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): Can I also take a moment to acknowledge the Acting Prime Minister because he has been incredibly successful in securing cash. The reason that the Minister of Education can't actually promise class sizes is because Winston's got the cash. SPEAKER: Order! Hon NIKKI KAYE: Winston got the regional—SPEAKER: Order! Hon NIKKI KAYE: It's because the Acting Prime Minister got the cash. The Acting Prime Minister got the regional slush fund. The Acting Prime Minister has got hundreds of millions of dollars for diplomats so the reason that the Minister of Education won't answer the question as to whether there will be smaller class sizes is because he doesn't have any money because Winston took the cash. SPEAKER: Order! If the member breaches one more time—Hon NIKKI KAYE: OK. SPEAKER: —her speech will be terminated. Hon NIKKI KAYE: The Acting Prime Minister has the cash. Look Chris Hipkins campaigned on a Valhalla a heaven—a world of education where everything was free where all modern buildings would be fixed where 30000 buildings would have huge investments and where donations would be scrapped. He raised massive expectations and what did he deliver? Nada—zero. Now the commitment around modern learning environments is a vision statement. When he went on Hilary Barry's show and said There will be no donations in the first Budget." it was there because the reality is that New Zealand First and the Greens are getting the cash in this Government and it's teachers who are missing out. We know also what's actually happening in the real world when Chris Hipkins says he's doing a whole lot in education. The first cheque that he wrote out was to the students. That's why we have parents who will be disrupted and we have teachers' strikes—because $2.8 billion went to students to buy their votes instead of to teachers in New Zealand. To put that in perspective it's about double the primary teachers' package. So the primary teachers' package on the table that the Minister didn't want to answer the questions on today—the reality is that he doesn't want to walk in and tell those primary teachers that you could pay that package twice over because he's spent it on students. In the real world this was a Minister—I don't think there's ever been a Labour education Minister that has seen the compulsory sector share of the vote in New Zealand decrease under his watch. Why has that happened? It's happened because the money's been spent on the students or it's been spent on regional slush funds. We make no apologies. Under National we absolutely prioritised education. You saw an $8 billion education vote go to $11 billion in the middle of the global financial crisis and with the Canterbury earthquakes and we unashamedly are saying we now have other choices. National is being very clear: we do want to ensure that teachers are paid more and that we see reduced teacher-pupil ratios and smaller class sizes. We can do that because we have choices that we didn't have before. The reality is that when I look at what the Minister has to deliver we know he can't confirm there will be smaller class sizes. We know that there are strikes under way because there are more than 18 undelivered broken promises. He didn't fully cost his education promises. That's why there's a very clear contrast in this House between a party that focuses on the things that matter—resolving teacher shortages reducing class sizes paying teachers more—and a Government that came into power with false promises that are being broken and that basically is seeing cash go to his support partners to prop up that Government. It is only National that can make credible promises in this area because Chris Hipkins knows he's run out of cash. He's prioritised students instead of teachers and it is National that is focused on the issues that matter in education."