King Colin: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKing Colin: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee[Sitting date: 17 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18555. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]COLIN KING (National—Kaikōura):It is a pleasure to talk about the achievements of the Government and the Tertiary Education Commission at this particular time. Just for those who are listening we are talking about the Tertiary Education Commission which fundamentally provides the stakeholder funds to the universities the wānangas the private training establishments the industry training organisations and the polytechs. It has been very important to appreciate that on coming into Government National recognised that that area was grossly over-supported but without the products and results coming out. So the Government is to be commended for the wonderful job that it has done in focusing especially the training providers into being accountable to the taxpayer for the dollars that are invested in there—the better part of $2 billion. That has been the work of the Government and the Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment in focusing those particular providers on the job at hand.It is very important that the taxpayer dollars are spent wisely and that the intention of the tertiary education strategy is implemented and we certainly see that over the last two Budgets that has certainly been the case: further improvement. I cast my mind back to when I heard a comment in one of the interviews that we had with the Minister with regard to how much more blood you can screw out of a stone. I thought to myself: “What a wonderful analogy.” That is the difference between the Opposition and the Government. The Government on this side of the Chamber has extracted better value for the taxpayer dollar out of the tertiary education sector—not only in one area but across the whole gambit within the Tertiary Education Commission. It is also focused very much on what the Government can do to pull levers to stimulate and attract people into those areas that are very important for the continual growth in science and innovation of our economy. That is what it has been doing.There has been further investment in those “STEM” subjects—the sciences the technologies the engineering and the mathematics. All those things are certainly opportunities that should not be missed. We have heard a lot of dialogue today about how we are potentially missing opportunities. I would put it to the House that in actual fact the missed opportunities all happened long before National took office in this National-led Government.In respect of innovation we talked about Callaghan Innovation but one of the innovations that is happening inside the Tertiary Education Commission and funded by the Government is the establishment of the information and communications technology graduation schools. These are going to be established in Auckland Wellington and Christchurch. They are really good strong partnerships with business. These will create internships and research with high-tech firms. It is certainly that indication that we are moving into that really connected environment—that digital environment—and as a country it just underlines the principle that for us to maintain our standing in the OECD as was referred to previously every New Zealander needs the best possible education. It is a very long continuum but at the top end of it the Tertiary Education Commission has been greatly improved and refined. The accuracy and the accountability have been improved. We have only to look at the industry training organisations where the Minister has focused on with legislation to add transparency accountability and refinement so that we get better outcomes for those stakeholder tax-funded activities.But just to elaborate one particular area that the Government will be incredibly satisfied with is the apprenticeship reboot situation. It has moved from a provider-based training situation which occurred immediately after the Christchurch earthquakes where there were an amazing number of provisions for people to take up opportunities for training whether at the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology or with the Southern Institute of Technology or whatever—all of those polytechs. Well what we are now seeing with the growth in the economy with the growth in Auckland with the growth in Christchurch and with the growth in the regions is a far greater uptake of employer-based training. So that is your genuine apprenticeship training model and it is wonderful to see that we have increased that spending by $70 million. This is all very good and it shows that we have got a very appropriately balanced Tertiary Education Commission.