Upston LouiseHon LOUISE UPSTON (Associate Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment): It is my pleasure to speak for a few minutes in this Estimates appropriations debate on the Government's tertiary education budget for 2016. Unlike Chris Hipkins the member before me I think we are proud to have a whole range of initiatives that support learners throughout their lifetime. My colleague Minister Parata will talk about the primary and secondary sector but I want to focus my comments on tertiary education because in this Budget alone we have seen an investment of $265.5 million over 4 years in tertiary education and that is part of what we have called in an umbrella our Innovative New Zealand package which is worth $761 million. I wanted to just talk about a couple of them because the member before me talked really unfortunately about a group of learners in New Zealand who do have challenges—we recognise that. I think one of the fantastic initiatives of this Government is the Māori and Pasifika Trades Training Initiative. We have drawn down $9.6 million put aside for the Budget last year to provide additional places—2500 young Māori and Pasifika learners—in the Māori and Pasifika Trades Training Initiative. So some of these learners have not done well in the compulsory sector but unlike that member prior we have absolutely not left them on the side of the road. We have made sure that there are educational opportunities that fit the range of learners across the spectrum in New Zealand. I think this is a particularly great initiative that is really delivering not just jobs but careers. There was a young Māori gentleman whom I had the opportunity to meet in South Auckland a couple of months ago and it was clear to me the difference that this Government has made to his life and his future by setting him up for a career—not just writing him off; not just saying that any job is good enough but actually putting him into a position where he has a lifelong rewarding career that supports him and his family. That is what I am proud of as a Minister in this Government. Unlike the member previously we are also looking at foundation education at levels 1 and 2 that are fees-free for eligible learners from 2017. It is $14.6 million over 4 years. So I absolutely refute the comments that the speaker before me made because this is very directly aimed at second-chance learners to gain the very basic skills that they need to progress into higher study or to gain employment. We also look at another challenge—unfortunately something that was left and we have inherited from the previous Government—around literacy and numeracy challenges. But again have we left a large group of New Zealanders unable to cope in our modern workplaces? No. We have said that we will focus on adult literacy and numeracy. In fact New Zealand ranks fourth in the OECD now in adult literacy which is a lift. We are continuing to fund more places for those who are in employment and who need additional assistance. I want to speak about apprentices. In Budget 2016 there is an additional $14.4 million over 4 years to meet what we know very clearly is an increasing demand for apprentices. Up and down this country talking to learners talking to families talking to employers and talking to industry training organisations they are clear about the fact that this is a Government that is supporting those people to learn as they earn with apprenticeship schemes in a whole range of different areas. I thought it was useful just to give you a bit of a snapshot. If we look 20 years ago in 1992 there were only 16000 people in industry training and of course we had no industry training organisations. Fast-forward 20 years and last year there were almost 136000 trainees and 11 fantastic industry training organisations that support them. So we have seen significant improvements in terms of learning outcomes which I think is really important. We have also seen an increase under our Government in completion rates of up to 72 percent and what we are looking at very specifically is the occupation in areas in New Zealand where there is clearly high demand. We have had a couple of examples recently. One of course is primary industries. One of the figures that I am sure lots of New Zealanders are not aware of is based on the industry and is really looking at its future capacity and capability needs along with the Ministry for Primary Industries. It has projected the requirement for an extra 50000 new roles between now and 2025. I think the real challenge though is that there are some who think that the majority of those 50000 jobs are people pulling on gumboots each day and working on a farm. But actually no—they are requiring even higher levels of qualifications and skills which our Government is committed to ensuring that the industry receives whether it is environmental engineers whether it is soil scientists whether it is people who are ready to repair robotic milking machines or whether it is geneticists or pasture managers. Primary industries alone have a significant requirement and they are working very closely with the Tertiary Education Commission to ensure that we support them in that role. Construction—of course I could not talk about skills opportunities if I did not talk about construction because we know clearly that to grow even further we are going to need an extra 10 percent of the current people employed in construction. If we look at specific areas in Canterbury I am really proud of how the Government responded to Canterbury to ensure that it had the construction workforce it required. One of those areas was of course quadrupling the number of women working in construction over a 2-year period which I have not seen replicated anywhere in the world. That is the sort of thing that we are now looking at and saying: Right so if we are looking at South Auckland"—it has got a significant building programme there—"how do we make sure that young New Zealanders who live and have been educated in South Auckland are first in line for those jobs?". That is what this Government is committed to and that is what we are doing. So if we look at this part of the mix is ensuring that young people have good tools to enable to connect them with where those opportunities are. We have seen the design of the vocational pathways and the Occupation Outlook app which means you can very quickly have a look at what the career opportunities are what the demand is what the pay is what the training is and what it will cost. Recently we have also launched MyPath which is another tool to help young people and to support them and how they navigate—very much aligned with where the opportunities are which I think is fantastic.In addition to that of course science technology engineering and maths—STEM subjects—continue to be areas that we are focused on. Whether it is more funding into Engineering—Education to Employment which is the engineering workforce support or whether it is in science with funding things like the Nation of Curious Minds it is all about making sure that we as a country are growing our own and supporting them with the skills they need in the industries that are high-growth high-demand and high-wages through a whole range of different initiatives. Whether it is Callaghan Innovation's Futureintech Techlink or the ICT Graduate Schools of which we have launched three—again it is very very closely connected to industry. This is a Government committed to ensuring that we are delivering the young people who have the skills and attributes and capabilities that our employers have been telling us that they need and we are investing exactly in those spaces.I am also proud of the regional growth study and the work with the programme called Growing Regional Opportunities through Work. That is focused very much on a group of young people who are not in education employment or training in Kaikohe. It is a 12-month project that is very much focused on those whom perhaps the member before me Chris Hipkins would have been quite happy just to leave to do nothing but we have worked really intensively over a 12-month period. And I cannot tell you how amazing it is to meet those young people who have never ever gone to a job interview let alone held down their very first job and brought their very first pay packet home—and that was the pay packet that housed and fed their families. That is the very pointy edge of what this Government is doing. We are tackling the young people who are harder to educate and employ. We are setting them up for a lifetime of opportunity and a lifetime of success. We are unwilling to leave young people behind and equally we are also focused on ensuring that older New Zealanders in terms of their training opportunities are also ready for a changing workforce. We have seen significant growth in adult apprentices which is probably not something that the Opposition would dare to focus on but if you look at the over-35s there is a 17 percent increase on the numbers last year in apprentices and a 25 percent increase on those aged 55 and above. So we are training from one end of the scale to the other."