Duncan Helen: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Duncan Helen: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:617;Page:13253] 
HELEN DUNCAN (Labour) 
: 
 This debate on the financial review of Crown entities public organisations and State enterprises certainly points out the differences there are in this Parliament on these matters. This Labour Government is committed to ensuring that Crown entities and State-owned enterprises are working together with communities for the benefit of all New Zealanders. We are committed as a long-term shareholder to the State-owned enterprise model as opposed to the “hold for sales” stance of the previous Government. Shareholding Ministers seek to maximise the value of their companies for the benefit of all New Zealanders. National in contrast could not wait to fob off the family silverware. Just about everything of value to New Zealanders would have been gone by lunchtime under the National model. 
 This applies even to something as sacred to New Zealanders as our public school system. Our party is committed to a strong public education system that meets the needs of all New Zealanders. We believe that most New Zealanders would expect that this was true of all parties but it is certainly not true. After all when Don Brash was asked about it what did he say? He said: “For my part I don’t care who owns the schools.” Well I have news for Don Brash. Most New Zealanders do care who owns the schools. They believe in a viable public education system—a strong quality public education system paid for by the taxpayers because that is what real choice is about. Real choice is about all New Zealanders being able to send their children to good quality schools. We want every school to be a good quality school and every child to have the opportunity to attend a high-quality public education facility. We are not interested in the market model which has been so disastrous in so many areas of New Zealand life. 
In early childhood education what this Government is about is improving both access and quality. We have provided a lot more places in early childhood education and by ensuring that early childhood educators are better trained and qualified we can ensure that the quality of the education that children get is better. We know that the key to quality education is quality teachers. There is plenty of research to prove that. We want to improve the standard of early childhood education so we must improve the standard of the teachers in that area. 
This has met with some opposition from those who espouse the market model and who think that early childhood education is actually about childcare and babysitting. It is not. It is about ensuring that every child in early childhood education is having quality learning experiences that nurture the child and prepare the child for attending school. We are committed to having early childhood teachers who are better trained and qualified and I know that this will ensure the future of New Zealand education and of our children and that we will be thanked for it in time. 
In the primary service the emphasis has been on literacy and numeracy programmes based on strong research to show what is really good for our schools. There are some excellent research programmes particularly at the education department of Waikato University that show what can be done to improve the one area of the education system where there has been the greatest problem and that is with the “tail” as it is called. Eighty percent of pupils in New Zealand schools are doing really well and our education system is providing a really excellent education for them. But everyone in the education system knows that there is a group of about 20 percent of pupils who are certainly not doing as well as we would wish them to. When one looks at the international comparisons that tail in achievement is there. It is there for every other system in the world but our Government is dedicated to getting rid of it.