Tolley Anne: Budget Debate 
Tolley Anne: Budget Debate 
[Volume:654;Page:4172] 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 I am delighted and proud to stand in this House today as Minister of Education and to speak about the amazing Budget for education. Budget 2009 shows that this National-led Government is committed to investing in education because it provides the biggest-ever increase in education spend despite severe economic restrictions in our economy. That is a real win for the sector and a real win for New Zealand. Of course we all know how passionate our Prime Minister is about education and about ensuring that every single New Zealand child gets an excellent education. He has made it a primary function of the Budget to deliver National’s vision for an excellent education system. 
We believe that education is an investment in our future and we want to stay focused on providing a quality education and training sector in order to ensure that New Zealand is positioned to take advantage of the economic recovery when it comes. 
Sue Moroney 
: So why did you cut all the professional development programmes? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: I remind Opposition members who seem to be lacking in some numeracy skills that this Vote Education spend increases the $10.5 billion that Labour outlined in 2008-09 to $10.8 billion in 2009-10. That is an increase in anyone’s numeracy language. 
But I say to members opposite who used to occupy the Government seats that their pet projects have been cut. They should get used to it. When we looked at some of those pet projects we decided many were photo opportunities for Ministers. They were opportunities for Ministers to go out and dish out some dollars. Members opposite had no priority; they put jargon out there. They had no cohesive strategy for addressing an increase in the level of student achievement. Just a week out from the election the previous Labour Minister of Education Chris Carter signed a memorandum of agreement that promised to give funds to a group of educators in his own electorate. He promised them some funding; did he make sure that funding was available? He did not. Was that a responsible thing to do when it was so clear that the member would be going out of Government? No; that was duplicity. Labour promised things that those members not only knew they could not deliver but also made no attempt to deliver. The previous Minister for Tertiary Education went around the country with a pocket full of dollars and $178 million was poured into propping up tertiary education institutions. They were propped up with little pots of money here and there which kept them going but stopped them from making the sensible decisions that needed to be made. So it is time to get real. Members opposite must get used to their pet projects going. They must go because this Government has a vision for education. 
Let me take a few minutes to outline our vision. We are absolutely committed to raising the literacy and numeracy achievement of young New Zealanders because that is the foundation. If they do not learn to read write and do maths then they have no options in the rest of life. Our national standards formative assessments and reports to parents showing where their children are achieving where their strengths and weaknesses are and how parents can get involved in that process will help our teachers raise those literacy and numeracy standards. We are absolutely committed to increasing the number of students who leave the education system with qualifications. We must ensure that we have our young people engaged at school which is why we have put more money into combating truancy. We must have children involved in school which is why we are putting money into trade academies; we will get that interface between secondary tertiary and the workplace. We are determined to fund high-quality and relevant tertiary courses that create job opportunities and economic growth. 
Members opposite have been carping on about early childhood education cuts. That is quite right. We have stopped the increase of ratios because that would have cost $175 million and it would not have got one more child into early childhood education. Not one more child! In fact it may well have seen centres close because there was such a shortage of teachers. The previous Government left office knowing that it had left an enormous shortage of early childhood teachers so that centres were struggling to find staff. Centres would have closed if we had brought in those ratio changes. 
We are meeting our promises to increase participation. We are expanding the eligibility of children able to participate in 20 hours’ early childhood education to those in playcentres and kohanga reos. We are doing that because we trust parents. You see the previous Government believed that only teachers could provide quality early childhood education. I say to members opposite to get out and look at what is happening in playcentres around the country. I say to them to go out and look at what is happening in kohanga reos. Excellent education is happening in those institutions. We will provide 20 hours’ early childhood education to those children. We will also allow 5-year-olds who might not be ready to go to school on the day they turn 5 to stay on at early childhood education centres until they are ready to go to school. From July 2011 we will get rid of the 6-hour limit the previous Government used to try to tell parents the hours when they could use or not use early childhood services. We will get rid of that. So that is early childhood education; its cost is $70 million extra. We recognise parental choice and that there is more than one type of early childhood education. 
In relation to schools I tell the House that we have committed more than $500 million to expand and future-proof existing schools and to build new ones. I will talk a little bit about schooling in Upper Hutt. I went there and looked at the four schools that had had their capital funding frozen. I am not sure whether that was for 5 or 7 years; I know that to the schools it seemed like an enormously long time. They were not allowed to build any classrooms and they were not allowed to do any upgrades while that previous Government messed around with a whole lot of proposals and promises and delivered nothing. That previous Government promised those schools $90 million worth of funding for schooling and delivered them $14 million worth of funding. But the first thing this National-led Government did was to say that we would put in $30 million. We are putting $30 million into those four schools. I can tell members that the boards of trustees of those schools are beavering away now with their plans to redevelop those schools. The previous Government was quite content to leave a whole cohort of children in mouldy leaking disreputable old classrooms for their schooling. Labour members were quite comfortable in doing that but now they have the temerity to stand in this House and complain when we cut some of their little pet projects. 
What else are we doing? We are putting $51 million more into special education. I say to the spokesperson over there for tertiary education that we were faced with the decision to put $50-odd million extra into special education to look after those kids as against putting $50 million into courses like growing plants in the wind or making concrete shell mosaics. One person wrote to me and said that we were cutting funding for Scottish country dancing classes. Hey look I think it is great if people go to Scottish country dancing classes. I think it is fantastic. It is fantastic to learn how to grow plants in the wind. But why expect the taxpayer to fund those courses? Why should we expect taxpayers to fund those courses instead of supporting kids who need special education in our schools? I say there is no choice so that is why those changes are being made. 
We are putting $36 million into supporting the national standards. Up and down the country principals and teachers have been saying to me that the previous Government rolled out initiatives. One principal said: “Every month I would come into my office and there would be another glossy brochure on my desk. It was something else I had to implement in my school.” Was there ever any funding with it? No! The only funding that was ever made available was contestable. It took pages and pages to apply for it and it took hours and hours of resources. Then it had to be reported on. Well this Government is putting into place national standards that will lift the levels of literacy and numeracy.