Tinetti JanJAN TINETTI (Labour): Kia ora Mr Speaker. It's my first time speaking since my maiden speech and I'm delighted that I have the opportunity to speak on something that I'm absolutely passionate about. And I'm going to take the opportunity to speak about fees-free education for our students and our adults as well.I'm actually going to change this up a little bit because I heard about how there was a we can't live on hope alone." That really concerned me and I started to sit here and I was thinking about what I normally do at this time of the year before I had this position of being here in the House. For the last many many years I have been a school principal and at this time of the year we're preparing for the saddest time of the year: to say farewell to our year 6 students. Over this time we take them through possible career options that they can have as they're getting older and moving through their lives.Even though the children that I worked with came from the most disadvantaged backgrounds around and were predominantly Māori and Pasifika who had lost touch with their cultural heritage those children had hopes and dreams like anybody else. Those children wanted to have a variety of different career options. They wanted to be teachers. They wanted to be nurses. They wanted to be doctors. They wanted to be builders. They wanted to be plumbers. They had hopes and dreams like anybody does.But I'll tell you the really worrying thing that happened for those children along the way. In 11 years the number of children that I had that went on to post-secondary education from the many many that I had go through my decile 1 school amounted to 3 percent of that roll. And I find that a horrific statistic.So I wanted to find out what were the main reasons that that was actually happening. What were the barriers to them? And there are a variety of reasons but predominantly what would come through is that "We can't afford it whaea. We just can't afford it. It's something we can't do." or "I'm not sure I can do it and I don't want to take the risk that I won't be able to pay that money back." They felt so unconfident about their abilities because that's what society had done to them.This is what this fees-free policy can do for these children. It gives them hope and hope is good for them. It is a policy that is for all New Zealanders. And not only does it give them hope but it gives their parents hope because it is not only the children who were missing out on education but also their parents. Out of my roll of parents I would've had about 5 percent of those numbers—and I'm not exactly sure but it's around between 5 and 10 percent of those parents—who had post-secondary qualifications. Every single one of those parents had dreams and hopes and aspirations for them beyond what they were doing in their lives—every single one of them.But again the biggest barrier to them was the cost and the fees and this policy will turn that around for them. This is a policy for all New Zealanders. This will help everybody into education.Chris Bishop: That's an argument for scholarships not for universality.Hon Ruth Dyson: Oh let them eat cake!JAN TINETTI: Yeah exactly. Those people did not have scholarships available to them Mr Bishop. You need to get real. You need to find out exactly what is going on for those people.Many of them have dreams now that they did not have before and only last night I was contacted by a 17-year-old who said to me "Do you think that I could now become a teacher? I never thought that I could do this but I've looked I'm eligible and now I want to become a teacher." I am so excited for that young woman because in 27 years of teaching she is by far the brightest student. She's stanine 9. She is the brightest student I have ever ever taught and that's in high- and low-decile schools and she has got dreams now that she didn't have before this policy was announced yesterday. So it is a very very very exciting policy for all New Zealanders. Thank you."