Simmonds PennyPENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Thank you Mr Speaker. In the dying stages of this 53rd Parliament I want to talk about the perfect storm that our tertiary education sector is experiencing. Whether through wilful neglect or just hapless incompetence from this Labour Government our universities wānanga polytechnics private training organisations and industry training organisations are suffering from a combination of domestic student decreases high inflation impacting on operating costs international student numbers not recovering fast enough and wasteful spending by a Government more intent on progressing fanciful ideologies than funding actual education delivery.Domestic student numbers have dropped as students flee New Zealand for studies overseas and many of those who remain have to try and find work to support their families rather than study. In Wellington where the cost of living is particularly high students are fleeing the city and therefore its universities and polytechnics.International student numbers have not recovered in a way that they have in our competitor countries such as Australia and Canada because this Government didn't open the borders soon enough didn't get out and effectively coordinate a successful marketing campaign to attract students and didn't have immigration policies which align with and supported international student recruitment. In fact we even had the Minister of Education at that time Chris Hipkins and the chair of Education New Zealand Steve Maharey—also a previous Labour Minister of Education—saying maybe we don't need to get back to pre-COVID days of international student numbers that maybe we should be doing more offshore delivery. That certainly did not send the signal to international students that we want you back and it also ignored the many and broader benefits of internationalisation on our tertiary sector and the New Zealand communities where they live work study and then graduate into.The cost of living crisis is hurting the tertiary providers just as it hurts individuals families and businesses. Increased costs of resources materials fuel power and all the other resources increases tertiary providers' operating costs.Then we look at this Government's wasteful spending of hundreds of millions of dollars on their ideological centralisation of polytechnics and industry training organisations into Te Pūkenga which has resulted in a dismal and catastrophic failure and put our whole vocational sector at risk. What Government with even an ounce of fiscal understanding would have embarked on spending hundreds of millions of dollars to centralise 16 polytechnics and eight industry training organisations without doing the due diligence to know it would cost around another billion dollars to put the systems and programmes in place to make it operable and then not be able to fund that leaving them high and dry?It is hard to believe just how much damage this Government could do to our valuable tertiary education sector in such a short time and that is without even starting to talk about the carnage they have inflicted on the early childhood education sector. Grand ideology-driven ideas public money spent unfettered and a lack of self-reflection to know what they don't know" have enormously damaged our tertiary and early childhood education sectors.If we have the privilege of being in Government after 14 October we will respect the independence and autonomy of our education providers. We will work with them to find a practical long-term solution not band-aids and we will restore the international standing of particularly our universities and polytechnics. The damage must be undone. Thank you Mr Speaker."