1. Question No. 1—Prime MinisterHon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime MinisterORAL QUESTIONSQUESTIONS TO MINISTERSQuestion No. 1—Prime Minister1. Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her Government's statements policies and actions?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes.Hon Simon Bridges: Has her Government's fees-free policy for tertiary students been less successful than she envisaged?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No.Hon Simon Bridges: How can she say that when her Cabinet believed 80000 students would get to tertiary education last year and in fact it was only 50000 that enrolled—fewer even than the year before?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Of course when we put in estimates around the potential cost of fees-free we wanted to make sure that we projected at the upper end so there was no chance of being caught short. The 50000 people who have taken up fees-free actually represent a halt in declining numbers under that Government. One of the areas where we have particularly suffered in those declining numbers has been education and teacher recruitment where we are now having to pick up the pieces of declining enrolment for people training to be educators. We are stemming that tide. [Interruption] SPEAKER: Order! Before I ask for the next supplementary question I want to say that I have received quite a lot of correspondence about noise across the Chamber especially from my left. I would have intervened on that occasion other than the fact that it was being wound up by the Minister of Finance. Hon Simon Bridges: Stop writing to them Grant.SPEAKER: Order!Hon Simon Bridges: Does she call 2500 fewer students than the year before a halt"?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: There's no question that we had experienced declining enrolment particularly in vocational training and some of the initiatives that we've undertaken to turn that around I'm particularly proud of. We're not letting for instance our polytech sector continue to fall behind and decline in service provision. We have introduced for instance Mana in Mahi which is all about supporting employers to take on apprentices and they get the equivalent of the dole in order to do so. It has been incredibly well received by employers and is exactly the kind of initiative we need to get more people into vocational training and ultimately into work.Hon Simon Bridges: Wasn't the whole point of the policy to get more people into tertiary education and on that basis isn't it a clear policy fail?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The goal of fees-free was to make sure that we reduced the barriers for vocational training for apprenticeships and for post-secondary education. One of the things we're doing now is working actively with the Business Advisory Council to make sure that that fees-free policy is made accessible for those already in the workforce. Unlike the last Government we are focused on the future of work making sure that those who are already in workplaces who are vulnerable to the digitised economy and may potentially lose their jobs are retraining on the job. So we welcome the fact that businesses have already pledged to in some cases double their on-the-job training allowance and that is something that we will keep working with them on—to use fees-free in the workplace to make sure people are retrained.Hon Simon Bridges: Will she confirm her policy of ensuring further years of fees-free past the first year of study?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That's certainly the policy but of course those are all intended to be rolled out in future Governments not in the term of this Parliament.Hon Simon Bridges: Why then did Grant Robertson last week take the Phil Twyford "neither confirm nor deny" stance?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: He said exactly what I've said: that it's not something that's implemented in this term of office. Hon Simon Bridges: Did she ask her Minister of Finance to put the $200 million underspend from fees-free into resolving the teachers' strike?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member will probably well know that the fees-free policy is being used to equally support additional work around vocational training because ultimately the goal overall of this policy has been to get more people into vocational training into private training enterprises (PTEs) and into wānanga ultimately for life-long learning and that is what the funding has been used for.Hon Chris Hipkins: Can the Prime Minister confirm that without further investment by this Government some of our vocational education providers our polytechs and institutes of technology would have faced further financial difficulty in the coming year because of the situation we inherited from the last Government?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I can and we were not satisfied with a system where we continued to bail out the sector instead of actually looking to put them on a footing that ensures they can provide for regional training and education which is exactly what our communities are asking us to do.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can the Prime Minister confirm that until the Government stepped in to address the $100 million fiscal hole of polytechs the opportunity for people to go to polytechs was being seriously challenged?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes.Hon Simon Bridges: Does she accept that fees-free is a policy fail just like KiwiBuild and a host of others and how's her "year of delivery" going so far?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No I do not. I absolutely don't accept that and I take that then as a concession that the member will get rid of the fees-free policy.Hon Chris Hipkins: Does she think it will make it easier or harder for a young person to save for a first home if they don't have to borrow for their tertiary study?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Absolutely. In fact we've already seen a considerable decrease in the debt that young people are carrying as a result of fees-free. Of course we're very encouraged that in terms of those who are first-home buyers in the housing market we've seen an increase from 18 percent to now 24 percent of the market being made up of first-home buyers. The work of this Government to stop ownership by foreign buyers—SPEAKER: Order! Order! That's gone too far."