Collins Judith: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCollins Judith: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 27 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:4057. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): I was not going to reply to the comments of my dear friend and colleague as co-chair of the New Zealand - Turkey Parliamentary Friendship Association—such giddy heights have we risen to!Chris Bishop: That member will go no further.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Anyway—what was that?Chris Bishop: He’ll go no further.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: I think he will. I think he will one day get his own chairmanship.Anyway I was not actually going to reply but I just had to. I actually felt a bit sorry for the Labour members after that Budget. There they were listening to Bill English go on and on during the Budget speech—and that is not a criticism of Bill because every Minister of Finance just reads out their speech word for word no problem. They sat there and they listened to us take a huge chunk out of their territory. I thought: “Gee this is going to be interesting. I am going to look forward to Andrew Little’s reply.” and then not a lot really happened actually. I think he remembered that Bill Clinton once used to say that “kiss” is the thing to remember—you know “keep it simple stupid”. Then of course he got himself all tied up with that other KISS character Gene Simmons. I actually felt almost a bit sorry for him. I am not going to fib to the House and say that I did feel sorry for him. I thought: “That has got to be the worst Budget reply speech that I have ever heard Andrew Little.” I looked around at his colleagues on the Labour benches and their little heads were down or they were busy reading things that they needed to read or they were looking anywhere except at their leader and that said to me everything really. This Budget surprised them. This Budget delivered on an area where they had expected absolutely nothing which is actually about really giving some people who are at the poorest end of society in terms of socio-economic wealth a little bit more.It was a bit disheartening to hear Su’a William Sio refer to $25 per week as a paltry amount. Well I guess it probably is if you get the sorts of salaries that we get in Parliament but actually it is not if you are on a benefit. It is actually quite a significant amount of money. I would say that there would not be too many people living on benefits who would say: “Actually I do not want to have that paltry $25 per week.” I reckon that they will all want to have it—and actually probably they need it—and I think that is a good thing. This is of course the first Government to deliver a real increase in benefits in 43 years and that is worth crowing about. In fact that is actually a longer time than most of the people here in Parliament on the other side have been alive.Hon Member: An entire Matt Doocey.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Yes it is in fact an entire Matt Doocey.The other thing that I wanted to talk about in this Budget debate which I am really excited about is the extra funding that is going into special education. I am very pleased to be a member of the Education and Science Committee at Parliament and I would just like to say that we have had a wonderful discussion today around special education particularly for children who have Asperger’s syndrome and autistic spectrum disorders—dyspraxia and dyslexia in particular. We have actually come a long way I think not only as a Government but also generally across parties on this. We are often in danger in that committee of having peace break out which I always think actually that the public would rather have.We talked quite a lot today and learnt quite a lot about what is actually being done and I actually think that over the last few years we have seen some significant improvement. So when the announcement was made by the Hon Hekia Parata that we are in fact going to be allocating $39.5 million to the Ongoing and Reviewable Resourcing Scheme which is also called ORRS and that is support for an extra 500 students. These are kids who in fact do have to learn in a different way often with different assistance but they can often achieve hugely if they are given the right help and assistance environment. It also helps to pay for speech language therapists psychologists physiotherapists and occupational therapists and provides additional teacher time and teacher aide time.We are investing an extra $62.9 million of operating funding over the next 4 years to give kids who have special needs when it comes to learning or who have different ways of learning to be able to learn and to achieve. I am going to speak now to those parents of children who do not have these sorts of issues that they need to work around and who sometimes say: “Oh why are you spending all this money and this time on these kids?”. Well actually if you want to just go and have a look at the movie The Imitation Game you will see Professor Alan Turing. That man clearly had Asperger’s syndrome. Today he would be diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. So much is made of him being gay and being persecuted for being gay and everything else but you could also say that he was persecuted for being different. He was different because he clearly was on the autism spectrum and yet what did he do with that?Louisa Wall: He’s a genius.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Well apart from being a bit difficult to deal with sometimes he was actually as Louisa Wall has just called out an absolute genius. Actually ordinary people like us here and I include myself in this—we are pretty normal ordinary people; we just get a lot of fun in what we do in our work—are never going to invent the computer. We are not made like that. We do a lot of talking we do a lot listening and we do all the social stuff but we are never going to be able to do that. We need people who are absolutely completely different from us who are going to go out and think completely differently from the way that we do and who are going to see things that none of the rest of us would ever be able to see. Sometimes we get to see their work. That movie I would say is an extremely good example for anyone to see the behaviours of somebody with the disorder.Back in the 1940s this was not known as a disorder. He was just really good at maths. Well actually lots of people with autistic spectrum disorder are really good at maths because maths is unlike us—unlike us—completely logical. Also I always reckon that maths is a bit magical really. You can do almost anything with maths. So sometimes—[Interruption] Yes you can—absolutely Mr Assistant Speaker Mallard. You can do almost anything with maths. It is unbelievably magical and the more that we learn about it the more I find it most interesting. But do you know what? Instead of trying to make kids who have different abilities be just like the rest of us let us celebrate the fact that they are different because without their differences we would still be back in the Stone Age.Think about Isaac Newton. If you learn anything about Isaac Newton he was clearly someone with autistic spectrum disorder. This was a man who lived most of his life in the Tower of London—not under guard—but the more I hear about him the more I realise that he was absolutely like that. Einstein—clearly. People say that about Bill Gates—clearly—and Steve Jobs. These are people who often have difficulty talking to people in the normal social situations that the rest of us thrive in. They do not do cocktail parties; they actually make a difference. They do not do chatting about nothing; they actually make a difference. So when I look at this area I would say to all the parents who think that it is not money well spent and to all of those teachers who think “Why do I have to have someone different in my class?” that thankfully we do have people who are different. I hope that now we are getting ourselves intelligent enough—if I could possibly put it in that way—and accepting enough to understand that not all kids are thankfully made the same. If we would only appreciate that we would get more from it.This is the first time that I have seen in one of our Budgets a commitment of this order. If I or our committee has done anything to help bring that along I am very grateful for it. If we have not never mind; we will no doubt try better next time. But I would say that our committee is working very well on this issue and it is a privilege to be part of a team—a cross-party team—that takes this issue seriously. It is an issue because it behoves us to make the best use we can out of everybody in our society and some people are different from most of us. Thank goodness they are; I am very grateful for it.