Yates Dianne: Budget Debate 
Yates Dianne: Budget Debate 
[Volume:608;Page:5893] 
DIANNE YATES (NZ Labour—Hamilton East) 
: 
 Health education housing and jobs—at every election that has been my mantra. That is what Labour stands for that is what people expect of Labour and that is what we see in this Budget. Money is going into health education housing and jobs. 
As the member for Hamilton East I am particularly pleased that money is going into health. We have a total rise in health spending of $711 million next year to $9.6 billion. As my colleague Helen Duncan has said extra money is going into education. We have 774 teachers going into early childhood primary and secondary education. We can say “x billion” “x million” and so on but people cannot generally conceive of what those billions or millions mean. They do however understand 774 teachers. In my electorate they understand that they are getting 13.5 more teachers and as my electorate has seven secondary schools they are particularly pleased about it because they also know that teachers want non-contact hours in which to prepare and work. Those extra teachers will help out in our schools making class sizes smaller and allowing teachers to improve their skills and have more preparation time. So in education we have extra funding—close to $167 million over 4 years—to provide those 774 primary and secondary teaching positions. 
As I have said one of the consequences of that will be the introduction of a 1:20 teacher-student ratio for students learning te reo Maori bringing an extra 155 full-time teacher equivalents nationwide. The improved ratio applies to Maori students who are taught in Maori and more than 12.5 hours per week at Year 11. That is particularly important in my electorate. 
I have heard people on the other side of the House scoffing at the amount of money going into Treaty education. The feedback I have had from the Hamilton East electorate is that people are particularly pleased about that and are saying it is long overdue. Treaty education is something that we have to do in each generation. When we had a Labour Government in the 1970s we had a good deal of Treaty education but it has been neglected. Certainly the Leader of the Opposition should be one of the first to enrol for one of the courses so that he will learn a little more about the Treaty. I think many of his colleagues would benefit from some of that training as well. 
Money is also going into youth training. There is a package of initiatives worth $56 million for the 15 to 19-year-olds involved in education and training. There are leaving-age packages going into Gateway programmes. In Hamilton we have a particularly good Gateway programme which is enabling young people to move from schools into jobs. We also have the Modern Apprenticeships training scheme which is a most popular programme particularly with young people and parents. I hope that we will be able to get more publicity out about that programme. In my electorate in particular we have many young people on that apprenticeship scheme and I am pleased to say we had the Apprentice of the Year as well. 
Having worked on the weathertightness of buildings inquiry I can say that one of the major demands that came out of that inquiry was that we have qualified apprentices going particularly into the building trade but into other trades as well. People ask why we did not have those trained people and I can say it is because of 10 years of National Party ignorance and neglect of our young people. That has bounced back on us. I heard a whack at the Government from the other side over weathertightness. It was Mr George Chapman of the National Party the chair of the Building Industry Authority in 1998 who received the first letter from Prendos about a problem with building in this country—and he did sweet nothing about it. I will not accept that George Hawkins and other people in the Labour Government should accept the responsibility for that problem a large part of which was due to lack of training and lack of apprentices. 
We are addressing that problem as quickly as we can. We are introducing regionally based programmes across the country which target early school leavers. There are youth training programmes and I am particularly pleased about the $85 million over 4 years that is going into industry training which will train people on the job. That is particularly important and very popular with both employers and young people. 
So there is a good deal going into health and education but let us look at the third one—housing. In my electorate 90 State houses were built in the last year or acquired by Housing New Zealand. That Opposition sold 13000 State houses and that is why we have people on waiting lists trying to get into State housing. I thank the Minister that over 3000 State houses will be built to cope with that and to build up existing stock. That represents many people. We hear New Zealanders say that their parents had a State house and that that gave them a start in life. Many of those who are now heading our universities and some of our major organisations in this country are people whose families had stability because they had State houses. 
When we brought in income-related rents and the acquisition of State houses I had feedback from our local schools that families were more stable and that their kids were staying longer at school and getting better results. That is because of the State housing scheme and the fact that we are now building houses as fast as we can build them. At this stage I particularly want to thank Mark Gosche who has been Minister of Housing for the work he has done and for his devotion to his job—despite his personal difficulties and the great trauma his family has had. I think everyone in the House can thank the Minister for the work he has done while he was Minister of Housing. We owe him a great debt and I think this House also expresses its sympathy for his wife and the situation his family is in at this present time. 
We have looked at education health housing and jobs. They are the four pillars of any Labour Government and are the things that the people of this country look to from a Labour Government. They are what Michael Cullen has delivered in this Budget. We all know the international situation—people in this country do not have to be told. We know of the wars affecting this country. We know what is happening with oil shortages. We know what is happening with the severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic and its effect on tourism. Everybody in this country knows that and they know that this is a realistic Budget that looks at New Zealand as it is situated in the world at the present time. 
Coming from the Hamilton East electorate where at least a third of the electorate is in some way involved with one of our nine research institutes I am particularly pleased about the additional $140 million that is going into research science and technology. That is particularly important not only to our primary industries to our biotechnology and to the value added to those primary industries but also to the creation of jobs. The money that has gone into such things as the Innovation Park in Hamilton which will create 2500 jobs is particularly pleasing and we look forward to further such developments occurring throughout New Zealand. In the electorate of Hamilton East in particular we are extremely grateful for that money. 
We are also grateful for the money that will go there not only through Pete Hodgson the Minister of Research Science and Technology and through Technology New Zealand but also through our Progressive partner Jim Anderton in his roles as Minister for Economic Development and Minister for Industry and Regional Development. At last we will have money going into regional development. For 9 years we had a National Government that purported to support rural New Zealand that purported to support the regions and it let our regions run down. I am very pleased that this Budget and this Government are supporting regional development in New Zealand and those of us who live south of the Bombay hills. I am pleased that it is supporting the development of New Zealand as New Zealand and not just Auckland.