Parata Hekia: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Parata Hekia: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Sitting date: 30 January 2013. Volume:687;Page:7628. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education) 
: 
 Tena koe e te Mana Whakawa otira huri noa i to tatou Whare i tenei ahiahi. Nga mihi nui ki a tatou me nga mihi mo te tau kei mua i a tatou. Tena koutou tena koutou kia ora tatou katoa. 
[ 
Greetings to you Mr Speaker and indeed throughout our House this afternoon. Huge acknowledgments to us and for the year ahead. Salutations acknowledgments and salutations to you and us all collectively. 
] 
Can I just make a few remarks to the outgoing Speaker to acknowledge the comprehensive thorough and courteous yet emphatic way that he has managed our House and to wish him well in his future. To all of us I am absolutely delighted to be speaking today to follow the Prime Minister’s statement and to follow all of my colleagues who as part of this debate have shared with you and with New Zealanders our ongoing record of achievement as a Government and our commitment to getting even more done. 
I am going to talk about education— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Just a chicken. Didn’t have the guts to front up. 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: It would be quite nice if I had the opportunity to be heard. New Zealand does indeed have a world-class education system. That has not happened by accident and it will not continue without attention. It has happened off the backs of many many New Zealand educationalists teachers in classrooms principals who have led schools boards of trustees who have committed many hours of voluntary time to that researchers and academics and predecessors who have created the legacy that we have inherited and we have a responsibility to ensure that the education system is even better. 
Our Government and our Prime Minister have talked about what our four priorities are. They are about getting back to surplus they are about reducing debt they are about building a stronger and productive economy they are about better public services and getting better value for the taxpayers’ dollars and they are about rebuilding Christchurch. Education is absolutely critical to each and every one of those priorities. Our Government recognises that education is not just the transformative power for a young person to get an educational qualification and be able to lead a better quality of life but also about strengthening the cultural and social background of our many and diverse communities that make up who we are as a nation. New Zealand is a small country; it has a small population. We will never out-procreate those countries with whom we seek to have strong trading relationships but we can out-create we can outsmart and we can out-think and the quality of that is going to be dependent upon the quality of education that each and every learner each and every child has in our education system. 
There was some wondering this afternoon about what I meant when I said a whole-of-life learning. Well here is the thing. The education system might be organised according to sectors because that is how it works for those providers—early childhood education primary school intermediate secondary school secondary-tertiary transition—but for every kid going through our system they are simply having their learning experience their education. We know as a Government that getting greater success at the end of that pipeline—that is kids able to get a better job or not kids able to do more training or not kids able to set out on a strong career pathway or not—absolutely relies on the quality of education that they have had. That starts at early childhood education and that is why our Government has set a Better Public Service target that 98 percent of new entrants in 2016 will have participated in a quality early childhood experience. Whether parent-led whether home-based whether centre-based we are agnostic about that. But our kids having the best possible start in life is absolutely critical to the quality of education they go on to have and this Government is committed to that. 
Under that previous Labour Government more and more money got poured into early childhood education with nary a change in the actual level of participation and the quality of achievement. This Government? We have not stinted on resources with $9.6 billion in Vote Education this year the biggest ever of which $1.4 billion is dedicated to early childhood education. We want every kid to get the best possible start. We know that kids who start behind too often stay behind. When they get into primary school we want to know their parents want to know and they want to know how well they are doing and what more needs to be done to help them to be successful. National standards are a way of monitoring and reporting that. Parents love knowing every 6 months and indeed more regularly how well their child is doing and what more they can do to help. For the first time ever that was reported last year. What we know is that on average 70 percent of our kids are at or above the standards for reading writing and numeracy. That is not good enough. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: And what does that tell a parent? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: And what does that tell us? That that previous Government sat on its hands for 8 years and did nothing with that information. That is what it tells us. This Government is not prepared to do that. We are prepared to confront the fact that it is not good enough to consign 30 percent—30 percent—of 8 9 10 and 11-year-olds to follow the rest of the system. We know that kids who fall behind too often stay behind. We know from the first year of national standards reporting that about 70 percent are at or above the standards but we also know from that that too many boys are trailing girls and that Maori and Pasifika kids are trailing— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: And we’ve known that and published it for 5 years. 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: “And we’ve known that …” the former Minister of Education is saying—and what did he do about it? Sweet nothing. He did nothing about it. He shut 280 schools in fact and has the record of any Minister of Education— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: 180—get it right. 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: Two hundred and eighty-one schools to be exact closed under the previous Labour administration. This Government and I as Minister have been charged by our Prime Minister in being relentless in delivering achievement and that is what I am about. So yes this year the second year of national standards reporting we will want to know in the charters what the targets of each school are in order to continue to raise achievement because far too many kids are disengaging at years 9 and 10. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: And they’re already published in the annual reports. 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: Look the Opposition wanted to hear how and why I communicate but instead wants to shout all the way through. I am learning about what the challenges of keeping us as a world-class education system are. I am seized of those I am focused on those and parents want that for each and every child. 
By the time children get to secondary school they have 4 years to secure the minimum qualification of level 2 of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA). Under this Government we have seen an increase in the last 3 years of between 4 and 7 percent—in 3 years—in NCEA level 1 NCEA level 2 and NCEA level 3 and university entrance. So Opposition members can talk all they like but this Government does. It does and it delivers and it puts its resources behind its commitments. Our kids are passing NCEA levels 1 2 and 3. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: It drops standards—it drops standards. 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: These scurrilous allegations have no substance in fact but that is what the Opposition deals in. It is just prejudice and allegations and assertions. We deal in facts. We have got more kids leaving school with the opportunity to go into better training—14000 apprenticeships announced. In fact tonight in Porirua the Samoan congregational church will be celebrating the 300 Pasifika kids who last year won trade training apprenticeships many of whom have gone off to Samoa to volunteer in the repair after Cyclone Evan. Why? Because they have been equipped with real skills out of real apprenticeships delivered last year by this Government and we are committed to delivering more. We are committed to doing more and I can tell you now that Pasifika communities are absolutely delighted about that. 
We recognise that we are heading into different challenges in the 21st century. So as well as delivering a core education of literacy and numeracy for our kids we are investing significantly in digital literacy. This Government right from the beginning in 2008 came in and said that ultra-fast broadband was not a desirable; it was an essential contribution to 21st century learning. This Government has spent $200 million on connecting schools to ultra-fast broadband. This Government has committed $400 million to the Network for Learning because we understand that digital literacy—e-learning—is part of a future that we need to equip our young people for. This Government understands the evidence and the research and it understands the challenge that our young people every one of them have to have the best possible education in order that they can be powerful actors in their own lives contribute to their own families whanau and aiga and build strong neighbourhoods and communities upon which this country will blossom and grow. This Government understands that. 
We know that it is not just about little populist policies that that Opposition squandered—squandered—9 years of surpluses on. This Government in the worst global financially challenging times has nevertheless made substantial measurable and real change and it will continue to do so under the inspired leadership of John Key because it truly does believe in delivering a brighter future for every New Zealander today. Thank you.