Willis NicolaNICOLA WILLIS (National): I rise to speak on the Estimates for Vote Education Vote Education Review Office and Vote Tertiary Education. Now these appropriations which we examined at the Education and Workforce Committee have some good things in them. There's some additional funding for learning support for students in need. There's additional funding for property for our schools. There are things in here that members on this side of the House support. But the question then isn't What is in this that we support?"; the question is "What is missing?" The thing that's really really upsetting to the sector that supports some of the policies that were promised is that they're not here. After years of rhetoric of promises of big talk so many promises have not been delivered. Instead what we've had is a Minister who has done many things to explain why he can't deliver on his promises. One of them is "I've got the whole sector under review". Thirteen different reviews in education and we're invited to imagine that this isn't some sort of delay tactic. Then we had the explanation that it was a bit of surprise that there are some demographic pressures that the population is growing and that more education services might be required and the Government might be required to fund it. Then we've got the excuse that there are coalition partners and somehow the coalition partners have stopped these promises from being delivered.The thing is in the end when you're a politician and you get up and you promise things on the campaign trail it's your responsibility to deliver on them. And this Labour Party which Chris Hipkins is a member of was incredibly specific about one of its promises and that promise was that they would introduce additional funding so that all teachers in early childhood centres were 100 percent qualified. And so specific were they about this. The National Party was sensible enough to say "Well we're not sure you've costed that. We're not sure that you've actually allowed for the fact that that's going to cost a bit. We're not sure that you're really sure of the commitment you're making." So Labour said "No no no—don't worry; we've got it all sorted. Here it is. It's in our fiscal plan." Remember this document—you may not be familiar with it any more members opposite. It was something that your finance spokesperson said was a Bible and that it was going to show your integrity.Well in this fiscal plan I want to draw your attention to the line that says "Increased funds for 100% qualified ECE centres." And then it's got the Budget year "2018/19"—that's the one to which these appropriations relate—and it says that there will be $33 million provided. So then we go to the appropriations and we say "Is that $33 million there?" No; it's not. So we ask ourselves: why isn't it there? Well we know that some things did get an awful lot of funding didn't they? There was $2.8 billion found for free fees for tertiary students for example. So if you were the Early Childhood Council or if you were the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) and you were saying "Actually ECE needs a lot more attention."—that's what they said after this Budget Mr Hipkins—or if you were saying that this Budget forces down quality it would be fair to say that actually tertiary students were prioritised over children in this Budget by Labour. The funding for them was more of a priority. The pledges made to them were more of a priority than the pledges made to early childhood education.And so what we can do when we look through these appropriations is we can have a sense of what the priorities really are—not what the rhetoric is but what is actually there in the black and white in the money that will be delivered. And I was really interested at a recent early childhood education conference when the Minister got up and he said not only was he "hopeful" that 100 percent qualified would be delivered in the next Budget but maybe it would be in the Budget after that. And I say to the members opposite: have a conscience about the promises that you made up and down the country the pledges you signed the NZEI that you promised you would be delivering on things to. You were quite happy to sign it but now in the actual reality of Government having to make priorities that is not the priority that you are making.So then we say: if it wasn't this year and it might be next year or it might be the year after that then are these appropriations that can be said to be delivering on what the Government said it would do? And the answer is very clear: no they can't. And I've only talked about 100 percent qualified teachers let alone the lower teacher to child ratios the lower group sizes and the general lifting of quality that were promised. We will judge you on your actions and your numbers not on your words."