Carter Chris: Budget Debate 
Carter Chris: Budget Debate 
[Volume:655;Page:4322] 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Labour—Te Atatu) 
 This Budget which this House has just passed—not of course with the votes of the Labour Party and other Opposition parties—fails to address the critical issues that face New Zealand. These are issues like jobs with 1200 New Zealanders every week losing their jobs. It also creates deaths by a thousand cuts. These thousand cuts are taking place in virtually every Government department. The last 9 years saw a Labour-led Government that did amazing things in this country. There is not one area in this country from housing to conservation and education to health that was not enhanced expanded and developed and that was not innovative cutting edge and about building a stronger New Zealand an interesting New Zealand and a New Zealand where people were proud to live and proud to go out of our country and say that they come from New Zealand. This is a country that is cutting edge in social policy cutting edge in economic development and cutting edge in environmental issues. 
Opposition members think back to the jobs that they had in Government. I think back to the ministerial portfolios that I had. The Department of Conservation which I was privileged to manage for 5 years as Minister of Conservation has had $54 million cut out of its programme. I think the Department of Conservation is the most beloved agency in this country. It manages one-third of our nation and looks after the protection of our unique biodiversity. It has had $54 million cut out of its budget. 
I think of Enviroschools. I was lucky enough to be Minister of Education for about 14 months until the last election. Education in New Zealand is among the best in the world. Our schools feature incredibly highly in any OECD scoring. In the Programme for International Student Assessment for all 15-year-olds our students are top in the English-speaking world. The programmes that are taking place in our schools are amazing. Educationalists from all over the world come to look at them. A whole host of these programmes have been cut in this Budget. 
We heard during the election campaign from National that it was on an education crusade. What has this crusade involved? Well it has involved discredited national standards in primary schools. League tables for 5-year-olds are ridiculed all over the world among leading educationalists rejected in the UK and rejected in the US where Bush’s No Child Left Behind programme has been discredited. 
This is the great crusade on education of Mrs Tolley the new Minister of Education. We must not forget of course her wonderful cutting out of healthy foods from schools! Thirty percent of New Zealanders face obesity. There is a growing obesity epidemic among our teenagers. The contribution of Mrs Tolley—a woman who has herself battled obesity and undergone radical surgery to deal with it—is to bring in a new regulation that throws out the healthy foods and lets schools sell Coke lollies and pies. The message we give to schools is that junk food is OK yet 40 percent of New Zealand teenagers face obesity. This is the crusade on education! 
Today in the House during question time we learnt about what was not part of the crusade on education. Children with severe physical disabilities are having their funding cut. I say to members of the House that that is part of National’s crusade on education. We learnt from the Associate Minister of Education Mrs Roy that these poor most vulnerable pupils who are very severely physically disabled are losing all their funding. We also heard that this coming week is the week for acknowledging and celebrating gifted and talented students. It is a week to acknowledge the special needs of gifted students in our schools. What has happened to their funding? We learnt today that that has been cut as well. That is part of the crusade on education that we heard so much about from the National Party in the election campaign. 
We have also heard this week about the funding for Enviroschools. Twenty-five percent of New Zealand schools are Enviroschools. That money has completely gone. That is part of National’s crusade on education. What was so important about Enviroschools? New Zealand has such a strong reputation as an environmentally conscious country. Children have had amazing educational programmes and amazing learning programmes happening in schools around environmental education. Last year as Minister of Education I visited over 300 schools. I wonder how many Mrs Tolley has been to in the last 6 months; I doubt whether it is even 30. I went to over 300 many of them Enviroschools. The learning programmes—in which children were learning about nutrition about measurement about biology and about cooperative learning—were incredible. They were cutting edge. Educationalists came from Chile Britain and the United States to look at our Enviroschools programme because it was considered cutting edge in the world. But the money for it is gone. 
We heard a lot in this House last year about funding for information and communications technology in schools. I was asked lots of questions as Minister of Education. What has happened to the funding for professional development for information and communications technology? Strangely enough that is gone as well in this Budget. That is part of National’s crusade on education. What about the programme extending higher standards across schools? 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: It is a pleasure to resume the debate as we discuss this year’s Budget. The Budget which I explored at length before the dinner break shows that the so-called crusade in education that we heard so much about from the National Party before the last election has turned out to be just $35 million for private schools. Cuts have been made to programmes for physically disabled children and information and communications technology in schools. The Fruit in Schools programme is now at risk; the Enviroschools programme is gone; and the information and communications technology development programme that we heard so much about before the election from the National Party is now gone. The Extending High Standards in Schools programme has also gone. During the election campaign we heard so much about extending standards in education but that programme is gone; it has been cut. It was a fantastically successful programme that explored best practice between schools. It was a chance for schools to share their successes with other schools to build up the professional competence of teachers and to develop a better educational outcome for our students. That has all gone in the so-called crusade for education that we heard so much about. 
I have been promoted from education to foreign affairs and I would like to— 
Hon Bill English 
: Demoted! 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: I heard the incredibly successful Mr English. He is the man who in the 2002 election got 20 percent support. He said that I was demoted from education to foreign affairs. Well if that is a demotion I think lots of us would like such demotions. I was very proud to be the education spokesperson— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: He knows all about demotions. 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: Yes that is right. Was he not once the leader and he got 20 percent of the vote in an election campaign? He is such a success himself. 
I was delighted to be Labour’s education spokesperson but I welcomed the challenge of foreign affairs. I am very interested to see that Mr Key will be travelling to the Pacific on the annual Pacific trip in a few weeks’ time. He will be visiting four countries in 3 days. That must just about be a record. I guess it also shows the commitment that he and his Government have to relationships with the Pacific. Our Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr McCully will not be accompanying him and I think that is just about a first. I went with our previous Prime Minister Helen Clark on her Pacific trip in 2004 when I was the Minister of Conservation. That trip took over a week and a half. We spent about 4 days in Papua New Guinea a country with which we have an important relationship. It was a country where we spent quality time developing a whole series of linkages in aid conservation education and so on. 
In speaking of aid I point out that New Zealand has had a proud record in its engagement in the Pacific. Mr McCully Mr Key and their mates in the National Party have changed all of that. They have absorbed NZAID back into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Unlike the 14 countries in the OECD that have made poverty alleviation their primary aid objective those National members have made economic connections their primary focus. There is not a single country in the OECD that has that as its primary function of overseas aid because aid is about helping one’s neighbours it is not about making a cheap buck or anything like that. 
I am ashamed of what Mr McCully is doing in foreign affairs. Our country was a small country but a proud country in the world. New Zealanders could go anywhere in the world and say “We come from New Zealand” and people would say “Nuclear-free; didn’t involve yourselves in the Iraq War.” It was a country that we were proud to be citizens of; we were proud of our actions as an international player. Indeed the promotion of our previous Prime Minister to be the head of the United Nations Development Programme is a part of the tribute that the world has paid to New Zealand. What sort of pride do we have now in a country that has reduced aid that has made aid just an arm of business—what a surprise—and a country whose Prime Minister can visit four Pacific countries in 3 days? That is something we will change when we regain Government in 2011.