Borrows Chester: Budget Debate 
Text is subject to correction 
Borrows Chester: Budget Debate 
[Sitting date: 31 May 2012. Volume:680;Page:2796. Text is subject to correction.] 
Hon CHESTER BORROWS (Minister for Courts) 
: 
 I am pleased to be able to take a call in this debate and I am pleased to be able to have found at least one thing I can agree on with the previous speaker Moana Mackey and that is that education is important. In fact education is extremely important. I am very very disappointed though not surprised to hear that she wants to keep on referring to this Government as being anti-education.  
I come from a part of the world called South Taranaki and Whanganui. In my electorate in one very small part of the electorate I have got 10 schools that were shut by that party over there when in Government and none of those members raised a squeak about it. You can still drive down State Highway 45 and see a big billboard on the side of the road with a picture of a duck on it that says “Open season on Mallards”. It was 2002 when he shut those schools—2002. Labour came in and it shut schools and I will pick on just one of the schools. One of the schools it shut was Te Kiri School. In the year that it shut it three of the students from Te Kiri School were duxes in Taranaki high schools and it shut it down. So those members want to talk about a National Government that is anti-education; it is Labour that is not prepared to be creative enough to look at education and see where those improvements can be made.  
Labour members think that the only answer—the only answer—is class sizes. They do not even believe in the people they consider their own in the teaching fraternity. They do not even believe in them enough to understand that it is about creation and innovation. It is about looking at those young people who are sitting in front of them and dealing with the concerns that they have. For instance no one in the Labour Party wants to concede for one moment that we have a 20 percent tail within our education system or wants to look at who those people are. That 20 percent tail was there in 1999 when Labour came into Government and that 20 percent tail was still there when it left in 2008. It had done nothing with those people.  
I reiterate that they are people. They are people and Labour wants to keep treating students in this country as a commodity. That is how Labour treats them; it does not believe they have got faces and names and parents and addresses and a future. Labour members want to treat them as a commodity. They want to treat them only as voters and they consider them their commodity and their voters. The reason why people on this side of the House talk about the politics of envy is the way that Labour members treat those people. When you have listened to the last three speakers from the Labour Party what have they talked about? They have talked about protecting the rich and doing nothing for vulnerable people—absolute rubbish!  
Let us go back to that 20 percent I was talking about. I was visiting a school in my electorate not too long ago Manaia Primary School. The headmaster came to me and said: “Look here is the tail that you’re talking about.” Who are these people? These people and these students are the people whom Labour members would consider their voters.  
What Labour has done with these people through the welfare system and through the education system is say: “We are going to lower class sizes.” Well what we know is that the target that this Budget sets as far as class sizes go is exactly the class sizes that there were in 2005—exactly. What we know is that in the period of the Labour Government the number of teachers within the education system went up about 12.5 percent so class sizes went down. What happened to that tail we talked about? Nothing—nothing. What we also found was that in the same time that those teacher numbers went up by 12.5 percent the number of students went up by 2 percent and that explains why those class sizes were down.  
What we also know is this. There are those people whom the Labour Party claims as its own and as its voters those people who snuggle up to the teacher unions and tell them how hard-done-by they are because when you go into every school classroom what do you find on the noticeboard? The latest press release out of the education spokesperson from the Labour Party. That is the deal. But it is interesting because what happens there is this. Just like under Labour those schools are funded for 15 students per teacher in the first year of education. But how many kids are in those classrooms? There is not only 15. What do they do with those extra teaching places? They are the ones who are trying to look after their votes.  
Let us have a little look at private schools because Sue Moroney mentioned private schools. Apparently in respect of everyone on this side of the House their kids go only to private schools. Those members just want to lump National voters and National politicians together. Apparently we have all got a bach north of Auckland as well or there is another bach apparently at Pauanui or wherever you get to if you ever go over the Potu—whatever that bloody bridge is. The point is what did Labour members do with private schools in their term of Government? Trevor Mallard said: “Yep help yourself.” When he was approached by his mates in the Exclusive Brethren who said: “We want to open a whole lot of independent schools.” Trevor Mallard said: “Yep help yourself. But we are not going to give them any more money at all.” The cap on private schooling went so far down and that was it. The National Government came in and saw a need and saw the contribution that private schools make to our education system to our communities and to our ongoing economy so that was when that cap was lifted.  
What we do know is that along with our 50000 teachers who are operating within our schooling system there are another 35000 people working in the classrooms and in the schools on that payroll. 
Andrew Little 
: Oh disgraceful! 
Hon CHESTER BORROWS 
: Mr Little over there would like to say they are all cleaners. No they are not. They are people working in classrooms adding to the educational benefits of young people who are in that school. On top of that there are 2500 principals who are working in that system too. So that has built up over time.  
What we are doing here is we are saying this: we do not believe that the only answer to educational achievement in this country is to do with class sizes. I think that if you went and spoke to the average New Zealander they would agree. They would say it is important but they would not say it is the only thing. They would say: “Look my kid was in a class last year. She had a teacher who did this. She had a teacher who did that.” Every one of us can look back on our schooling and we can think of a teacher who made a huge difference to us. I can think back to a teacher I had in standard 4. He was an incredible guy. I had him for two terms. His name is Gary Exeter. He was teaching at Nayland Primary School and he was only 22 years old. He is an absolutely fantastic teacher. He is still making a difference in the lives of people today because he is still in the classroom and he is still teaching.  
Every one of us too though can think back on a teacher we would rather not have again. We could think back on a teacher who probably was not happy in his job. Maybe he bit it off too early; maybe the decision that we make sometimes as 18-year-olds 19-year-olds or 20-year-olds to go off and do a teaching degree is not the decision we would make if we made it now. There are teachers within the education system probably just like there are police officers panel beaters people in the newspaper industry and politicians who some days think: “Maybe this was not for me.” That is maybe what Mr Shane Jones is thinking today.  
But in any event what I want to say is this. The difference between Labour and National on this issue just this issue is that Labour thinks the answer is class sizes. National believes it is about innovation. It is about creativity. It is about people who want to get up in the morning and go along to work and do what pushes their buttons.  
What Labour hates is this. Those members hate the fact that National is prepared to look at an issue and deal with it creatively. National is prepared to look at the welfare system and realise that we can do more than just throw money at it and walk away. National believes that we should treat people who happen to have a vote as individuals. Labour believes the only way it can maintain its vote is to treat people as a commodity and if it does not keep them poor and pissed off they will not vote for Labour.