Hipkins ChrisHon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. This is a good day for New Zealand as this Government is about to be confirmed by its first confidence vote in this House. Jami-Lee Ross asks What makes us think that this Government's going to be able to hold it together for three years?" And I've got one simple answer for him: because we believe collectively that a better New Zealand is possible—something the last Government had stopped believing. They believed that that was as good as it got for New Zealand and we on this side think that better is possible and that New Zealand's best days are still ahead of it. We are optimistic and positive about the future of this country. How quickly the members opposite have forgotten the aspirations they once held for this country.This is a Government that is unified and disciplined working together in what I think will be recognised in the future as New Zealand's first genuinely MMP Government: a coalition Government supported by the Green Party with confidence and supply working together to make New Zealand a better place constructively identifying the areas that we can work together on and constructively working through the areas where there may be disagreement. And we will do so in an open and transparent way. We will do so with positivity and optimism and I think that that is what New Zealanders are looking for.This is a Government that is already making progress. This week in the House we will confirm in law extra entitlement to paid parental leave something that this side of the House collectively—Labour New Zealand First and the Greens—has campaigned for for a very long time. I am absolutely delighted to say that when the third reading is completed on Thursday it will not be vetoed by the Minister of Finance. This is not the first time this legislation will have been passed by this House but it is the first time it will be progressed all the way through to being signed and becoming law because this Minister of Finance and this Government think that it's a priority—in stark contrast to the Government we replaced whose Minister of Finance who is now the Leader of the Opposition thought that it should be vetoed. We will deliver on that commitment.We will deliver on our commitment to ensure that those living in rental houses have warm dry rental accommodation and that will be delivered when that bill introduced by my colleague Andrew Little now in the name of the new Minister Phil Twyford will be passed through this House in the coming days as well.We have already made clear our commitment to deliver the first year of tertiary education and training free for those entering study for the first time next year and that will be in place from 1 January. I want to be clear about it: that includes people going into trades training. Some of the views of the members opposite suggest that they think that tertiary education is only about those who go to university. Roughly only a third of school leavers go on to university. This policy will also apply to the others who go on to polytechnic training training and on-the-job and workplace training and it will deliver for New Zealand. Students who were ignored under the last Government will get an extra $50 per week in living costs and in student allowances also from 1 January next year. That's in place and that is going to be delivered.It would be fair to say that over the last decade the tools and levers available to the Government have been finely tuned to ratchet up the cost for those undertaking tertiary study. For the first time in nearly a decade there is a Government that is committed to lowering the financial barriers to participation in the post-school education system and I am absolutely proud to be part of that and the work that we have been doing to deliver that and to make that a reality. We know that investment in our people is one of the most important investments a Government can make. Providing opportunities for New Zealanders to upskill and retrain is a high priority for this Government.We have already made clear our commitment to ban overseas buyers who are soaking up New Zealand homes and overseas speculators soaking up New Zealand homes and we will be delivering on that as well. My colleague Andrew Little has already made announcements on delivering on the commitments we have made to the families of the people who were lost at Pike River. And to Jami-Lee Ross who made much of that I simply remind him of the words of the former Prime Minister John Key who went down looked those families in the eye and said that he would do whatever it took—whatever it took—to bring their families home. Whatever it took: that was the commitment made by the previous Government. This Government will work with those families. We will make good on the commitments that we have made to them. We won't simply make promises that we have no intention of keeping.I'm absolutely delighted and humbled to have been made the Minister of Education in this new Government. It is a job that I have aspired to for quite some time as members of this House will be aware. I want to acknowledge my predecessor in the role the Hon Nikki Kaye who is in the House today. When I ran into her not long after she became the Minister of Education she said one of the best things about working with people in education was the level of passion and commitment they have to their job. I want to acknowledge that I have had exactly the same experience. Whilst we might not always agree the level of commitment shown by the people who work in our education system is truly amazing and I do want to acknowledge them.I do want to disagree with the Hon Nikki Kaye on one respect though—in that she referred to our "union mates" in the House the week before last when she was questioning me. On this side of the House we prefer to call them "teachers" rather than our "union mates" because no Government can deliver on its commitments in education without teachers. Actually they are the people who do the work on a day-to-day basis to make sure young New Zealanders get the very best possible start and increasingly to make sure adult New Zealanders get second opportunities at learning because we know that more and more of that is going to be required in the future. As the future of work changes and as the future of the way we live changes more and more New Zealanders are going to need to re-engage with the education system. I'm really excited by that challenge.I'm also really excited by the challenge of being Minister of State Services in this Government because I think that we can do an enormous amount to ensure that our public services are more responsive to the lives of New Zealanders. They can act in a way that is more connected rather than operating in the silos that they operate in at the moment. And again I have been truly humbled by the level of passion and commitment of those working at the senior levels of the Public Service whom I have had interactions with in my role as Minister of State Services. They are constantly driving for a more responsive better Public Service. This Government is certainly going to be working them hard to deliver on that because we believe in the power of the State through quality public services to make a big difference in the lives of our citizens. We think that we can do a much better job—better is possible. The message that we had from the previous Government clearly was that this was as good as it got. Well New Zealanders didn't agree. New Zealanders had more ambition than that. And no matter what certain members on the other side may choose to claim now more New Zealanders voted for change at the last election than voted for the status quo and we will be delivering on that change on this side of the House.We will be delivering working collaboratively together in an MMP environment to ensure that New Zealanders get the change that they voted for at the last election. New Zealanders were hungry for something different. They were hungry for a Government that had a better vision for the future of New Zealand; that was optimistic about the future; that believed that better is possible; that would treat the role of Government with a degree of respect and with a degree of humility; that would treat New Zealanders with respect and with empathy as my good friend the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has committed this Government to doing. I am enormously proud to be a member of this Government. I am looking forward to continuing the work that we have already started. We are positive. We are confident. We are optimistic about the future. I'm looking forward to getting on with the job."