SpeechPENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Madam Speaker I rise to speak on this Education and Training (Grants—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill and I do so on this Friday when it is Pink Shirt anti-bullying Day. And I say very clearly to the Government: stop bullying our farmers stop bullying our hardworking primary sector which is working to keep this country afloat.Getting back to the theme of the Budget and this amendment this carries on giving nothing to business and middle New Zealanders except telling them what to do. We listened last night to members on the other side of the House one by one popping up and proudly calling themselves socialists. I hope people looked up what that meant because it means people who want to have everything controlled by the State. And here we are seeing more of this. The Government amending the Education and Training (Grants—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill are doing this so they can get the pay parity that they have promised. They are saying to all of the businesses to all of the community groups that own childcare centres or run playgroups Don't you dare think that you can use your business acumen or your business skills to run your business. Don't you dare think that you know best for your early childhood centre or playgroup or the young children that are there." because it is only our self-confessed socialists on the other side of this House who know best for you. They know best for our little Long Bush playgroup and our Roslyn Bush playgroup in Southland and all over New Zealand that are run by communities small businesses groups of mums and dads. But you don't know best you people it is the Government. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): May I remind the member that when she uses the term "you" she's bringing me into the debate. Thank you. PENNY SIMMONDS: I was meaning "you" as in the community group. Sorry. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Please just don't refer to the term. Thank you. PENNY SIMMONDS: I'll be careful. Thank you. So we go back to the Government knowing best and this is a theme that we are seeing through education whether it's at early childhood level or at tertiary level. I noticed in the Budget this year the Minister of Tertiary Education has suddenly been able to find millions of dollars more for the vocational education sector from 2023 onwards. His outrageously expensive Reform of Vocational Education (RoVE)—tens of millions of dollars spent disrupting the whole vocational education sector to get it centralised. It was form before function it was the cart before the horse. The Minister had to get it all nicely centralised so he could have control of it because there was far too much innovation and entrepreneurship being exercised as it was. So he pulled them all together and then hey presto he can magic up millions of dollars more now that he's got it centralised.We're seeing exactly the same thing at the early childhood level. Once they get control they'll put the money in. That money that he made available for the vocational education sector from 2023 onwards could have been made available three years ago for the vocational education sector. Instead he turned it upside down. He caused anxiety right across every polytechnic and institute of technology in this country. But he did it as the most transparent Government in New Zealand's history ever.He said he had to do this RoVE because they were in financial trouble. He said the polytechnics were in financial trouble so he had to turn it upside down and put it in a new form. But now he's found the money to fix it. Well why didn't he do it before he spent tens of millions of dollars on consultants and his buddies in the directorships turning it into a centralised system that he could control far better? So let's see a little bit more transparency in the education sector. Let's see a little bit more money available before you get that centralised control. Because unlike the Minister and unlike this Government we on this side actually trust the people that used to run the polytechnics. It's all run by Hamilton now. We trust the communities and the mums and dads and the business people that run the childcare centres because they've done these things; the Ministers never run anything. I don't think he's run a bath for himself let alone one of these institutions. So we trust people who can run early childhood centres and we trust communities and mums and dads who can run Playcentres. We trust people who used to be able to autonomously run and govern a polytechnic. But this transparent Government doesn't trust anyone out there because nobody out there knows best; you have to be a socialist and run it from the centre. The State has to control it. So here we have those good people out running childhood centres out running polytechnics out running Playcentres—the other side is laughing but actually I've run a polytechnic and I've run an early childhood centre and I did it for years. If you haven't run anything I wouldn't be laughing. So I would much much rather have my faith in those people out there who know how to run education centres. I would much rather have that than the State thinking they know best.So while we will support this bill to the next stage to the select committee stage be very sure that we will be looking very very closely at this because I do not want this to be the thin end of the wedge—having seen what an absolute debacle and mess and unnecessary exercise RoVE was to spend millions of dollars of other people's money. I do not want to see this as the thin end of the wedge for our early childhood sector which is so incredibly important and so incredibly valuable in preparing our young people for the compulsory sector. So we will support it to select committee stage but be very very ready for the scrutiny we are going to give it."