Tinetti JanJAN TINETTI (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's very fortuitous to follow behind that speaker Lawrence Yule as I can give him some assurance from his area because I have here in my position a letter written today actually from all of his mayors—one two three four five Hawke's Bay mayors—who actually say in this letter We understand the reform is necessary as elements of the sector need addressing." Wow. The member over there was really concerned about the reserves and the mayors go on to say "We have taken comfort in the assurance that the cash reserves held by EIT will remain for the region and the current funding will stay so the current services will be maintained." So I hope that member has some assurance that his mayors have been consulted. I also suggest in the recess Madam Speaker that that member goes and talks to his mayors about this particular piece of legislation.We've heard so much here in this debate and I believe from my perspective that much of this has been wrong from the Opposition and that they need some help actually interpreting the bill. I know it does take an extended reading age of about 16 to comprehend and I'm willing to help in that area. People do need some help with that. But what I'm excited about with this is that this bill is another part of what this Government is doing to tackle the long-term problems that are facing this country. We are fixing the problems and we are up for challenge of fixing those problems and the mess that's accumulated over many years.Now we heard it called out and I was probably one of those people who interjected and said "What is your plan?" because we heard about National's plan many times. We heard Dr Parmjeet Parmar say "Well we've got a plan. We're just going to get rid of this." Actually I thought about that and I thought long and hard about it and I thought so what did National do? If we got rid of this what would that look like then? So let's go back a bit. If we took up the previous Government's approach of doing nothing with this sector that would have risked our polytechs altogether. That previous speaker certainly would have concerns about the Eastern Institute of Technology because we wouldn't have been able to sustain them and the polytechs as a country. Contrary to what was being said on that side of the House we have been forced to bail out several polytechs over the last couple of years because nothing was done in that sector—$100 million has been spent over that time to bail them out. That was something that has forced our hand to step in and help those polytechs out. Something had to be done.The scaremongering that we're hearing from the other side does have the potential to hurt the sector. That's why it is really important that we tell the truth of how important this sector is into the future of New Zealand. This was a rather interesting comment that was made by the Hon Dr Smith. He said he challenged—he challenged—Hon Andrew Little: He never made sense with his comments.JAN TINETTI: Oh the Hon Andrew Little listen to this it's what he challenged us to do. He challenged us to tell him where centralisation in education has ever been any good. Last time I looked we had a really good centralised schooling network within this country which is a critical part of our education system. So it follows that we could centralise education and be really strong. I challenge Dr Smith to actually tell us what's wrong with centralisation of the schooling sector because to my mind and what I know is it has worked incredibly well.We've heard about identity. We heard some really big stories here this afternoon about identity. We've heard from the Hon Michael Woodhouse that this was just going to take away the identity of those polytechs and they wouldn't have those names on the certificates. Well we actually heard from our colleagues—Mark Patterson from New Zealand First who has worked with our colleagues Liz Craig and Chlöe Swarbrick from the Greens—that they've met with those people from those different polytechs. They've had working groups to make sure that their concerns are being heard and they're looking—I have to say that I have heard that the outcomes of those meetings have been really positive because I too have a vested interest. I have nieces and nephews at the Southern Institute of Technology and I too have that vested interest but I'm absolutely in favour of what's happening here and very much reassured with what is happening in this sector for those particular polytechs.But I am looking forward in engaging with those different polytechs in the select committee process. I'm really excited about hearing from them. Dr Parmar said that she hoped that they would be making those submissions; so do I. I hope we hear from lots of people from all different sides of this debate. That way that's the select committee doing its job and listening and all ears open to what's actually happening and what people are wanting including those mayors in the Hawke's Bay.This particular bill is a really good piece of legislation. As I said it is tackling those long-term challenges. We do have a skills shortage and it's really across a lot of sectors. We haven't had a training component that has been wholly responsive to that skills shortage. This is about actually addressing that bringing that together and finding out what is really important in those particular regions where we need to see where the skills shortages are.It wasn't that long ago that I met with some people from the clothing manufacturing industry. In fact one of those particular clothing manufacturers was a large New Zealand company based in Invercargill. They were telling me of the fact that they have a really huge shortage of machinists. There used to be a qualification here that was delivered through our polytechs that machinists were trained through the polytech system but it has been a long time since that has been actually delivered in the polytech systems anywhere in this country because competition has forced those polytechs to stop offering that course any longer. That is the issue with competition in the regional polytechs. That was what was hurting our regions was that competition couldn't actually be responsive to what the needs were in the sector. The reason that they couldn't offer is because they weren't getting the enrolments at the level that they needed to sustain the courses. So they might have only got 12 people who were actually enrolled in those courses but that wasn't enough for those particular polytechs to run it in isolation. So a national polytech would actually help a course like that—a more specialised course.They did go on to tell me that fashion industry was something that a lot of the polytechs offered throughout the country that there would be 250 people—around about that—that would be enrolled in that particular course and that was because people were excited about going into the fashion industry but there would be less than five jobs nationally that would come up from that. There is a real mismatch in those figures and that's exactly the sort of story that we are trying to address and the skills shortage that we are trying to address in this country.We've talked here this afternoon and I won't go into it in any great length about the split in vocational education systems that we have had up until this point and the disconnect between the two. Each has had its own type of funding and there has been this disconnect where industry and the polytech trainings have kind of really not been working together in that particular space and industry has felt disconnected from both sorts of training. This unified system will create one unified regulatory framework which is essential to building those skills within the sector.I can see that I'm running out of time. I had so much more to say. I started with a blank page and ended the day with lots of notes that I made from people's writing on there. We are proud to be a Government that's building a New Zealand we are proud of. I am so proud to be the last speaker in this first reading of this debate and very very proud to commend this bill to the House."