Willis NicolaNICOLA WILLIS (National): On Monday I sat in a school principal's office at Waitara Central School with Vickie the principal there. When I asked Vickie how the school was going her eyes welled up with tears. What Vickie couldn't understand was why she was being asked to lead a school with black mould in the ceiling while up the road the Green School had received a grant of $11.7 million. Her question was how could this happen and who was deciding that this was the thing that needed it most. Then I went up the road and together with our leader Judith Collins I visited Kealy from Marfell Community School. Kealy had written to Jacinda Ardern raising her heartfelt concern at this Government's priorities. She wanted to know why this Labour - Green - New Zealand First Government had decided to give the Green School $11.7 million and she simply asked that we pass on to Ministers this really simple message. She had been told the reason the Green School qualified was because they were shovel-ready and what Kealy said was We are shovel-ready too." These questions are the questions that New Zealanders are asking up and down the country because Kiwis are smart. They know that right now it's appropriate for the Government to be investing in infrastructure projects that will create intergenerational assets and that will create jobs. But Kiwis are smart enough also to know that Governments have choices about which projects they invest in. Government have choices about how they prioritise investment— Marama Davidson: Also smart enough to remember National gutting their public education. NICOLA WILLIS: —and Governments are signing cheques Marama Davidson in our names and they are signing cheques in the names of our children and the co-leader of the Green Party Minister James Shaw chose to sign a cheque for $11.7 million for the Green School. That was his priority and that by the consensus of the Ministers who allowed that to occur is the priority of this Government. What it gives us is a window into the decision-making process of this Government because what we all hope as taxpayers is that the Government has fair processes robust processes and consistent processes about how our money is allocated. But it turns out that actually it's not about what's best for the community—is it? It turns out that it's about who can win the political arm-wrestle because this is how it actually played out. A list of projects went up to a Cabinet committee and due diligence was promised. It was promised that they would be examined. It was announced a week later that all of this would happen and then in late July the New Zealand Treasury raised red flags about one of those projects. It said that the Green School wasn't even registered as a school yet and Treasury said that even if it was registered as a school it would have serious concerns about funding the project. Then we learnt that the Minister of Education said "Well I've got concerns about it too." So what happened next? Did Ministers sit down and say "How can we be careful stewards of taxpayers' money? Are we really confident that we should invest this $11.7 million?" No. What happened next was disgusting. What happened next was that the Associate Minister of Finance James Shaw sent an email to his ministerial colleagues saying that he would not sign off on any of the job-creating projects unless the Green School was signed off and that was the time when you would have expected other Ministers to say "Actually this isn't about you. It's not about the Green Party; it's actually meant to be about what's best for New Zealand." But instead what we've learnt this week is that it is about politics with this Government because who won that debate? Who won that ultimatum? Who won that stand-off? The Green Party did. Politics won the Green School won and New Zealand taxpayers lost and you should all be ashamed of yourselves."