Cosgrove Clayton: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Cosgrove Clayton: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:670;Page:16555] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 That was an interesting speech. 
Jacqui Dean 
: It was a very good speech. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: It was a good speech for the evidence that it provided and will provide to the Opposition. I asked my colleague Pete Hodgson whether this was the first Government since the Lange Government of I think 1986-87— 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: 1987-88. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: —1987-88 which professionalised the whole industry that has believed in cutting early childhood education. I think it is. That member I think failed to acknowledge or did not know what H2O or water was so for that member to stand up in this House bag early childhood education and say that the Government has not cut the funding is absurd. I challenge that member to answer this question: if the Government has not cut the funding why has Swannanoa Preschool which has publicly stated that it loses $100000 per year lost that money? 
Michael Woodhouse 
: Blind ideology. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Well here is another bit of blind ideology. That early childhood education centre happens to be 300 or 400 metres from the residence on Tram Road of the Minister of Labour. Ms Wilkinson came out and said that the Ministry of Education has said that the 34 early childhood education centres that would receive a cut in funding—there were about 54 but 34 would receive a cut which equates to around $800000 to $1 million a year—would lose in total $29500. At least she acknowledged it was a cut! Yet the centre closest to where she lives—as Jacqui Dean has a giggle on a laptop or a BlackBerry—loses $100000 which is three times what the member said the total amount would be. Redwood Early Childhood Centre loses around $70000 to $75000. If it is not a cut in funding can the member with her Cuisenaire rods tell us why those two early childhood education centres are losing a total of $174000? She should get out the abacus borrow the Cuisenaire rods from Gerry Brownlee—I am sure he is still using them—and answer that simple question. Will the member answer me? 
Jacqui Dean 
: I’ve got you going. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: She will not answer the question. Anybody with half a brain—I know that member may struggle—knows that if an early childhood education centre loses in their budget $100000 $74000 or $1 that is a cut. 
I want to talk about abandonment. That member talked about aspiration. I recall John Key a year or two ago talking about aspiration. He said we need to aspire to greatness as a country—we need to pick ourselves up believe in ourselves do better and upskill ourselves. 
Returning to the great early childhood education debate the National policy states that if an early childhood education centre like Swannanoa Preschool which is 300 metres from where Kate Wilkinson lives though I do not think she has ever visited there decides it will upskill and go for the aspiration of having 100 percent qualified staff that does not mean—Jacqui Dean is a silly member—that parents will not take part in the education of their children. For goodness’ sake! Of course they will. But because the early childhood education centre says it will have 100 percent qualified staff what signal does the Government send about aspiration? It says if early childhood education centres are going to go for gold and for 100 percent qualified staff it will cut their funding. 
I ask the member Jacqui Dean whether she would tolerate her children going to a secondary school university polytech or primary school in this country where the principal fronted up and said that about 20 percent of the teachers who are teaching her child will not be qualified. Would the member tolerate that situation get out her Cuisenaire rods and say that she is qualified as a parent to teach children algebra mathematics English or geography and prepare them for the National Certificate of Educational Achievement and all those things? I do not think a parent in the land would accept that. Maybe the Cuisenaire rod expert at the back of the Chamber would accept it but I do not believe that any parent—and I have talked to many parents—would accept it. 
So we had the politics of aspiration. What are the politics of aspiration from John Key 2 years down the track? There is $2.5 billion worth of tax breaks to the top 10 percent of income earners and 1000 Kiwis a week are leaving the country. Remember the election campaign? Everybody was going to come home. Everybody was going to aspire to greatness and come home to New Zealand because John Key and National were in office. Well we know the immigration statistics: 1000 people a week are leaving the country and 158000 people are unemployed. What a great statistic of aspiration that is for the member over there as she has a wee giggle. Every week $120 million is being borrowed to fund a tax cut primarily for the top 10 percent of income earners. I ask the member to show me something that is aspirational about those statistics. They come from the member’s own Government departments and agencies. 
Then we come to the doozy that is State-owned enterprises. The person who has played the most ghost-like role in the whole State-owned enterprises debate the person who has been transparent absent AWOL and not in the debate at all has been the Minister for State Owned Enterprises Simon Power. He is a smart guy. I will tell members why. This guy does not want his fingerprints on anything that is negative anything that the people do not like— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: He’s focused on the future. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: He has an eye to the future as my colleague Mr Hughes says. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: He’s got a 3-year plan. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: He has a 3-year plan. Do members remember the “three strikes and you’re out” legislation? It was a justice bill but the member Simon Power was invisible. The legislation was reasonably popular with some in our communities—especially with David Garrett of course. We know where he ended up although he is back on the ACT payroll Trevor tells me. Now we have the State-owned enterprises debate. If we go round the communities we learn that people have worked it out. People say “Hang on a minute! Mr English says generously that the National Government will be so benevolent that it will offer State-owned enterprises which the punters the community already own to Kiwis ordinary men and women.” The Crown—that is the community—purchased these State-owned enterprises over generations with our taxes but Mr English is going to be very generous and benevolent and say to folks that they can use their own money to buy them back for a second time. People ain’t silly. So the ordinary mum and dad Kiwis have so much disposable income that when the energy companies go on the block they will be rushing to the New Zealand Exchange with all their free money all their disposable income to shell out and buy shares. Where are these people? Are they some of the 158000 people who are unemployed? Are they some of the people on the minimum wage who got a measly 25c extra an hour? They must have a heap of disposable income because there are going to be hundreds of thousands of mums and dads ordinary Kiwis flocking to the New Zealand Exchange to use the discretionary money they are awash with to buy these shares. 
That is a fantasy; that is an utter fantasy. We know that the only people who can afford to buy a share in State-owned enterprises which of course they already own as taxpayers are the top 10 percent of people earning a thousand bucks a week whom Mr Key and National cut into the deal of the tax cuts. They will be there of course along with the big institutions and the foreign owners. People are not sucked in by the view that mum and dad Kiwis can get a slice of it. I say to National members that mum and dad Kiwis already own State-owned enterprises and they do not have the disposable money to buy them back for a second time. 
Then we come to the other interesting issue in respect of State-owned enterprises which is whether it is logical to sell them off. People say: “Did the National Government not try that last time?”. It did and it told everybody in New Zealand that if it sold those assets then everybody would be better off. We know the truth of the 1990s. People were not better off and we lost more and more of the family silver. We know through precedent who will buy those assets we know they will fall into foreign hands and we know that any dividend stream—even it is only 49 percent—will not go back into the Crown coffers to pay for education and to reinstate the early childhood education cuts the adult and childhood education cuts the health cuts and all the other cuts that Government members have put in place. That will be lost and it will be lost offshore.  
I say to members that people are not silly. Simon Power is a smart guy. He has kept his fingerprints absolutely away from this issue. He has not put out one press statement as Minister for State Owned Enterprises. He has left it to Bill English and John Key. He has been utterly 100 percent invisible and we have to ask why. It is the same with the “three strikes and you’re out” legislation. He did not want a bar of it. He knew it was wrong. He kept away from it. Why? He does have a 3-year plan. He can say “It was not me.” when the people roll up and say they do not want this as it was tried before and it failed. I ask National members where the aspiration is for the 158000 people who are on the dole as we speak—the one in four young people on the scrap heap as Phil Goff said. They are going straight on to the dole queue. Where is the aspiration for them? I say to Paula Bennett who loves kicking beneficiaries around that the headline on the  
Waikato Times 
 which featured on the news tonight is true. Where are the jobs? Where is the Job Summit? Where are the 40 jobs that were created from the cycleway? Where is the plan? Paula Bennett can boot the beneficiaries around tell them they are bludgers and tell them to get off their backside and get a job but there is one problem. If there are no jobs then that presents a terminal obstacle to them. There is no aspiration in this there is no plan and John Key has abandoned ordinary New Zealanders.