Moroney Sue: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Moroney Sue: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:670;Page:16603] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 Yesterday when the Prime Minister gave his statement to the House it was confirmed once and for all beyond a shadow of a doubt that that Government has no plan to lift this country’s economy. The Prime Minister told us last year that he was going to aggressively bring the country out of recession. By the end of the year he had the country pretty much convinced that things were going pretty well economically speaking. Then suddenly this year it has gone to hell in a basket—New Zealand has become a basket case according to the Government this year. I do not know what happened over Christmas but everything was ticking over and now this year the Prime Minister is out there saying “Sorry everyone we’re actually a basket case.” 
If this country is a basket case then it must be the Government that we have to blame. This Government inherited one of the lowest Government debts in the OECD when it took office but suddenly it is now trying to convince other New Zealanders that the country is a basket case. It is such a basket case that I ask members to guess what the solution is from this National Government. Surprise surprise! It is exactly the same solution every National Government has had in my living history. It is to flog off the family business and sell off the State assets. It is the same old theory that National has always had; it has not worked in the past and it will not work now. 
The second thing that a National Government has always done in every single situation is to give tax cuts to favour the wealthy in this country. So that is the formula to get us out of this situation. The Prime Minister said yesterday that he was sorry he had led folks down the garden path but that the country was actually a basket case. He said to forget what National told people last year but New Zealand is a basket case under National so it will have to sell off the family silver and flog off our State assets. New Zealanders already own them but National will flog them off. It will have to do that because the Government has borrowed to pay for tax cuts that favour the wealthy—that is the situation we are in. 
But then the Prime Minister said something else that was interesting. He said only about three or four things that were interesting. The next thing he said was that we should judge his Government’s performance on how the vulnerable are treated in our society. That is what he said. If that is how we are going to judge his Government’s performance then I am afraid it is an epic fail. It is a fail on all counts because the vulnerable in this society are struggling more and more as every single day of this National Government goes on. 
I will talk about both ends of the spectrum from the cradle to the grave. If we look at how our children are faring in this country under this Government we know that one of the first areas it has taken the funding-cut knife to has been early childhood education. Those funding cuts are ringing out as we speak because they only came in on 1 February this year. On 1 February many many thousands of families in this country learnt that they will have to pay more to take their children to early childhood education and some of those families quite frankly cannot afford it. They cannot afford it because that Government has put up GST on everything that moves. They cannot afford it because that Government has let doctors’ fees keep increasing for families. But National is now saying to those families that they will have to pay more for early childhood education. We have heard Government member after Government member get up and wreck their own credibility by claiming that there are no funding cuts in early childhood education. Kate Wilkinson is one who said that in her electorate alone— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: She doesn’t have one. 
SUE MORONEY 
: —oh not her electorate; the electorate where she happens to live—there was going to be only $29500 lost from her entire area in early childhood education funding cuts the cuts that her Minister and her Prime Minister have told her do not exist. I am sorry to tell her but if she just wanders down the road a little bit to Swannanoa Preschool centre which I understand is not 50 metres from where she lives she will find out that that centre alone has had a budget funding cut from her Government of $100000. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: How much? 
SUE MORONEY 
: It is $100000 for just one centre which is not 50 metres down the road from where a Minister of this Government lives a Minister who was trying to tell her community that the funding cuts did not exist and that if they did they were going to be only $29500. So I think those members opposite have to be very very careful that they do not keep undermining their own personal credibility every time they step out on the street and try to convince voters in their electorates that there have been no funding cuts to early childhood education. They have only to go and visit any kindergarten or visit most of the early childhood education centres in their areas to find out that those funding cuts are real. The cuts have not been made up by the Labour Party and they have not been made up by the sector. 
Why is it that families are now facing increased fees of between $2 and $80 per child per week? That is the effect of that Government’s funding cuts yet the Prime Minister had the gall to go on national TV and tell the nation that on 1 February fees would not be going up for families because of his funding cuts. That is what he told the nation. Well I would like him to go and speak to a few of the people in that sector. He should get out and speak to some of the families. Has he spoken to Debra Bullock for example? Debra Bullock is from Wanganui. She has two preschoolers who attend Durie Hill’s Polson Park Kindergarten. Her fees are going up by $35 a week. In fact they are doubling. She was initially paying $35 for her two children to attend kindergarten up until the time that the Government took the knife to early childhood education the sector with the most vulnerable children in our society and caused her fees to go up to $70 a week. That is a 100 percent increase in early childhood education fees for that family alone. But she is not alone. About 100000 children and their families are affected by these early childhood education funding cuts in New Zealand right across the board. Has the Prime Minister spoken with Lisa Kingsford? I challenge him to speak with Lisa Kingsford because she has a child going to the Newlands Childcare centre in this region here in Wellington. She has said that she has had a fee increase of an extra $25 a week for her 4-year-old daughter Caitlin to attend preschool. Yet the Prime Minister is on national TV trying to convince the country that his funding cuts to early childhood education will not increase costs to families. Well that is absolute rubbish. 
That is our Prime Minister getting up on TV and telling the nation something that is blatantly untrue. It represents a broken promise from his National Government. He is embarrassed about it and he should be. Not only have fees gone up but also his promise that 20 hours’ free early childhood education would stay in place that the subsidies would stay the same and that the rules would stay the same has been completely and utterly broken. In fact the Minister of Education was caught out this week writing to a kindergarten specifically to recommend that it increase the fee for 20 hours’ free early childhood education. She recommended that that was the way the kindergarten should deal with that funding cut. Anne Tolley wrote to it and asked whether it had thought about increasing fees for 20 hours’ free early childhood education care; that was the way out of it. 
We cannot believe anything this Government has to say about early childhood education. We cannot believe those members when they say that those funding cuts have not occurred because anyone who goes out and about in the community and visits early childhood education centres knows differently. I am starting to wonder whether the National whips have issued an instruction that no National MPs are to go out to the early childhood education sector. I certainly have not seen one at the many early childhood education centres that I have visited. I challenge Government members the Minister of Education and particularly the Prime Minister to talk to those families who face increased fees and to go to the early childhood education sector and dare to front up and tell them there has been no funding cut in their sector because they are living it day in day out. 
Those families now have to find that extra money out of their very tight budgets just to make sure that their children can get a preschool education—a preschool education that is their right; it is an investment in their future. Labour will restore that funding cut from that unkind Government.