Lubeck MarjaMARJA LUBECK (Labour): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. It's normally a real pleasure to follow on from the previous speaker Parmjeet Parmar in a debate. However after the inspirational sentence that Our plan is to keep things the way they are." I sort of nodded off a little bit and I've missed most of what was said after that so I'll have to find my inspiration from the previous speakers. Let's think about Shane Reti. Shane Reti provided us the best-ever Tui ad or maybe I should just get the T-shirt that says "National is asking 'Where are the unions?' ". I have no idea where that came from; that was totally left field when it was actually a National Government that rode roughshod over workers' employment rights over the last nine years. Did we ever hear the sentence "Where are the unions?" when they removed people's tea and meal breaks? Did they ever say "Where are the unions?" when they refused to give teachers their fair pay increases? Did we ever hear "Where are the unions?" when they cut out film workers from their human right to collective bargaining? Did we ever hear "Where are the unions?" when they dragged Kristine Bartlett through the courts—Lawrence Yule: Come back to the bill. MARJA LUBECK: —to try and prevent care and support workers to get equal pay? And you're absolutely right there—I should be coming back to the bill. But I think this fake outrage about what this bill is doing is absolutely showing that it's obviously a really good piece of legislation and I'd like to commend the Minister of Education Chris Hipkins on bringing it to the House because this Government is doing the hard yards. We are tackling New Zealand's long-term challenges and we are not afraid to do that piece of mahi. We are fixing the problems that we inherited when we came into office and I just mentioned some of those before. Those problems have built up over many previous Governments and they were ignored by the last Government. So what we're doing here as the Minister mentioned is we're building a strong unified sustainable system for our vocational education and training one that meets the needs of the students the employers and the regions. Now there was another mention made of the international students and how important it was to keep doing these international student applications. Well how is it even sustainable to build a whole industry based on getting students from overseas to come in? We are actually looking at that problem that's been created and trying to make something that is absolutely sustainable. That's why I'm so excited to stand here and take a call on this Education (Vocational Education and Training Reform) Amendment Bill. We are tackling these long-term challenges of skills shortages and there's an absolute mismatch between the training that's provided and the needs of the employers out there. So with this bill we are delivering a new vocational education system because what we need to do is we need to increase the number of people in trade training as well as plugging those nationwide skill shortages that we're seeing. It's really important because the system that we have that I talked about before is not consistent or sustainable because we have critical skills shortages all over the country. The Minister mentioned the dual system that we have at the moment which is complex. It doesn't work and it doesn't always meet the needs of those learners employers and regions. Almost every vocational area has duplication of programmes and qualifications and that comes not only with a huge cost but they're actually delivering the same outcome. We heard an example from my friend and colleague Jo Luxton before. She talked about someone who's spending five years of their life studying hard putting in that good work and then coming out basically with nothing because basically nothing matches up. This is one of the examples that we heard as well from the Minister. Apparently there are 19 different qualifications offered to become a truck driver. Qualifications need to be consistent and they need to be portable because employers need to be reassured that regardless of where in New Zealand someone got their learning the standard of skill will be the same and at the moment it is not. There's no consistency. So the changes this bill proposes will result in more options for education and training in the regions and the competition that we're seeing at the moment is just not sustainable. What the competition has done—and we heard it from the Minister before—is that some of the polytechs have suffered from falling enrolments and that in turn has left some of the regions and some of the learners behind. It's not good enough to point to this one or that one and say "Well they're actually doing good." or "This one has been around for a very very long time and so we shouldn't touch it." It's that competitive aspect that has driven everyone down. I saw it on breakfast TV this morning when Paula Bennett and our Minister Chris Hipkins were in a debate on this. Paula Bennett was asked "How would National actually sort this problem?" and the response was "Oh you know we love a bit of competition." and the member Nick Smith repeated that as well—"Oh we love our competition." Well it's that bit of competition that has seen those big challenges for the polytechnics. It's that bit of competition that has eroded their sustainability. So it was during those nine years of neglect that National basically stood back. Like we've heard they just tinkered around the edges they had no real solutions and they were sitting by watching those polytechnics struggling. They watched the 40 percent decline in enrolments—40 percent less people are enrolling. They watched the skill shortages they watched the thousands of job losses and eventually it was this Government that had to basically step in and spend $100 million on bailouts—$100 million—because those polytechs were struggling. National has no new ideas. It's all a bit too hard and the best they can come up with is "Our plan is to roll back whatever you guys are doing and we'd like things to stay the way they are now." Over nine years we have seen National ignoring the social issues. We've seen them ignoring all the long-term challenges. They've allowed vocational education trade training and on-the-job training to basically just drift. So these are the long-term challenges that this Government is committed to fixing. We are doing that over a transition period. It's happening over several years—Simeon Brown: Two years. MARJA LUBECK: —so it's very predictable. I don't know where the member Simeon Brown got the fact from that in two years' time we're closing all the polytechs. Like Jo Luxton said I don't know how that would work. This is happening over several years and it's very predictable. We know the changes are significant so we're taking our time and any changes will be carefully worked through. In the meantime as the Minister has clearly pointed out the current system will continue to be supported as business as usual. Learners can keep learning employers can keep hiring and training and it's basically as I said business as usual. The outrageous scaremongering is really—yeah unusual. Jo Luxton: Ridiculous. MARJA LUBECK: Ridiculous. We are making sure that the vocational education system that we have is ready for the future because people in the future will need to change their jobs and their careers more frequently over their working lives. So unless you're going to make the whole educational system fit for purpose we are just going to see those problems that we've seen over the last nine years more and more exacerbated—not under our watch. People will need to change jobs and careers more frequently as I said so we need a system that will give New Zealanders better opportunities to reskill and keep training. So by making sure our vocational education system is ready for the future we are looking ahead by 30 years and not just three. We are better aligning education with the skills needed by employers. That will support the businesses and it will support the economy but also it will support the overall wellbeing of our communities and that is something that goes really to the heart of our Government. So I guess on an ending note I would just like to say that this Government knows that there is a lot to do. The problems will take some time to sort out but we're taking our time to sort it out. We're making progress but it is about a balanced approach. We're playing catch up in a lot of the areas and we know it's going to take more than one term but under the leadership of our brilliant Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern we are getting on with that work. We are doing the mahi and it gives me great pleasure to commend this bill to the House. Thank you Madam Speaker."