Benson-Pope David: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Benson-Pope David: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:624;Page:19422] 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Associate Minister of Education) 
: 
 I am delighted to take a call and I begin by thanking Mr Donnelly who spoke a little earlier for the rational contribution he made to this debate and equally Mr Ogilvy. Unfortunately the previous speaker in his second contribution went into the extraordinary hyperbole we have become accustomed to in this House most of it without any connection with reality. I guess that one of the two things Mr English has to face up to is the fact that members of this House and the general public have completely lost faith in the extraordinary statements he makes mostly without foundation. The second thing he has to face up to is the short period he will have in his job when Mr Peachey arrives in this place because as Mr English knows Mr Peachey is a friend of Dr Brash and Dr Brash will make sure that Mr Peachey sits in Mr English’s place quick smart. 
We have heard the most extraordinary diatribe from the Opposition which has been criticising the Government for huge increases in education spending. I shall detail those. We have had the extraordinary position of Mr English criticising the Government for a 50 percent increase in tertiary funding and for—although he never mentioned this figure—a 30 percent increase in Special Education funding. I tell Mr English that that will never be reversed because when National was in Government it did not fund education—in fact it gutted our educational institutions—and that is not lost on members of this community. It is certainly not lost on members of this House. In many years’ time when those on the Government benches sit in Opposition there will be absolutely no chance that they will be criticising that person in Government or any of his successors—Mr Peachey no doubt—for the sort of commitment to education this Government has made. 
It is no surprise that the Labour Party and a Labour-Progressive coalition Government would be focused on health and education. Those areas have always been our traditional focus and they will remain so. That is why I am pleased to tell the House that although we are talking of increases in education expenditure the increases in my particular area of responsibility for schools since 1999 have been a massive $1 billion. In the area of schools expenditure has been lifted from $3.5 billion in 1999 to $4.5 billion in 2005. What an extraordinary contribution and commitment that is to the future of the young people in this country. 
I shall also talk briefly about the comments Mr English made about the shortage of teacher-aides. We are aware of the pressure on teacher-aides. We are aware of the invaluable work they do alongside their trained teacher colleagues. One of the reasons we have such problems with providing enough teacher-aides in the community is the employment situation. It is a problem and we acknowledge that—but what a fantastic problem to have. It is a result of unemployment being at record lows—3.8 percent unemployment. Is it any surprise that people who are not sufficiently remunerated and who need to renegotiate their collective contract—as they are doing this year—are difficult to staff because of better remunerated positions in so many parts of the economy? How different is that from what we inherited in 1999 when the failed National Government with its failed policies of the past had done nothing to provide any workplace continuity? 
My predecessor who spoke earlier about Vote Health alluded to this in terms of the health workforce supply. It is no different in education. One of the greatest challenges for us and one of the reasons for redeveloping and rebuilding the ministry that had been so gutted by our predecessors is that we have to provide the continuity of workforce supply. That has never been done by the Opposition. 
I refer to the operations grant. If one looks at what I think is a quite rational review by the Education and Science Committee—and again I compliment the chair of that committee Mr Donnelly and its membership—one can see that one of the first issues talked about is operational funding. Let me say to members of the Opposition particularly Mr English that since 1999 operational funding has increased by 13 percent—that is if we do not include the $111 million that this Government has spent on software licences on software programmes and on all sorts of things that were never provided for schools previously. Including that expenditure since 1999 the operations grant for schools has increased in current inflation-adjusted dollars by 18 percent. So members of the Opposition should not tell me that we have not kept up with inflation because the consumer price index certainly has not moved in that degree. 
Report noted.