Rich Katherine: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Rich Katherine: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:637;Page:7281] 
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
: 
 That demented rant was from Judith Tizard a member whose key achievements have been to sip champagne at the various functions she attends consume vast quantities of smoked salmon canapés and carry the Prime Minister’s handbag. She wants to talk about collective amnesia. I ask her to turn her attention to the discussion about the underclass. Three years ago the Prime Minister stood in this House and spoke about the underclass. Something has happened. Someone has removed that word from her rhetoric. Somehow those people have all disappeared; they no longer exist and that word is out of bounds. How come it is OK for the Prime Minister to talk about the underclass but if John Key talks about the underclass that is not OK? How come Steve Maharey stood in this House 4 years ago and talked about the underclass but somehow that word is not part of Labour’s rhetoric any longer? 
The Prime Minister’s speech to the House today was disappointing. It was boring it was delivered with all the enthusiasm of a laboratory rat it contained nothing new and it was so full of vacuous statements—motherhood and apple pie—that most people who heard that speech if they stayed awake would have been disappointed by its lack of content. The only miraculous achievement that the Prime Minister managed to complete was mentioning the word “sustainable” 33 times. I think she should go back and shoot her speech-writer because he has made her look like a fool. She stood in the House repeating the word “sustainable”—she even said it twice in one sentence. When the country wants to talk about hungry children she wants to make that the key part of her speech. I ask members to guess which one New Zealanders will be interested in. It was disappointing to say the least. First she stands up and says we want substance not slogans and then she has the gall to unravel the longest list of slogans I have heard in a 45-minute speech. 
Do any members remember “closing the gaps”? What was that if not a slogan? Last year “economic transformation” were the words in every second sentence. That slogan was mentioned only once this year. “Sustainability” “sustainable” and various other “sustaining” words were mentioned nearly 40 times. I think the country was aiming to get more out of the speech than just repetition. There was nothing new. 
As National’s education spokeswoman I was sitting here with my education team listening with ears pricked to hear of changes in education. We got rosy reports about how the education sector was doing but the Prime Minister had nothing to say about poor achievement in schools. The Prime Minister had nothing to say—no solution—about what she is going to do about poor performing schools in this country. There was no mention of Waverley High School where last year those kids who sat National Certificate of Educational Achievement are left with a CV worth very little now that the credibility of their marks has been undermined. The New Zealand Qualifications Authority and the Education Review Office have known about those problems since 2002. 
She talked about personalised learning plans for students. I hate to break it to the Prime Minister but that is not a new idea. It has been raised on many occasions but what we did not hear today was the detail of how it is going to be achieved. There was nothing about teachers’ workloads and how they will be addressed or ratios of students to teachers. There was nothing about how that kind of idea could be brought to reality. Most teachers I know would love to have personalised plans for each and every student in their schools but it is a matter of resources and the ability to do that. That was probably one of the most glib slogans that the Prime Minister trotted out today but once again there was nothing to back it up. 
She mentioned the 20 free hours. My colleague Maurice Williamson is right. There was a sort of communal grunt whimper and whisper and nobody knew what to say because what is that if not a slogan? The Prime Minister knows there is no way that is going to be rolled out. Today she said she hopes there will be major uptake. That is the first confirmation from the Prime Minister that the policy is not going to be the same. When it was rolled out all guns blazing it was going to be a policy that from 1 July touched on the lives of every 3 and 4-year-old in this country. I think we have seen that that is not going to happen. It is a hoax and members will hear more from Paula Bennett on that point. 
The Prime Minister had nothing to say today about how she is going to deal with the truancy issue. There was some flippant comment about increasing the resource there. It is no surprise that she has mentioned truancy because under the cover of darkness—the Christmas period—the Government released a report about truancy that stated that on a given Monday 30000 New Zealand kids are not at school for no good reason. Truancy figures have gone up under the Labour Government not down. In fact every statistic relating to education has deteriorated—not improved—under the Labour Government. Helen Clark knows that but she just glossed over it today in the House. 
The number of school-leavers without qualifications is predicted to go up. The Government’s own officials—and they have probably told Helen Clark; they have certainly told Steve Maharey—have predicted that the number of school-leavers without qualifications will increase steadily over the next 20 years not decline. So much for all the glowing comments about education we had previously from Judith Tizard in her speech. The rhetoric does not match the reality. 
The Prime Minister had nothing to say about increasing teacher numbers because this is the year—supposedly—they are going to increase the ratio of teachers to students in new-entrant classes. That was another bright idea of Trevor Mallard’s that has not come to fruition in any tangible form. 
She said nothing about some of the lame Teachers Council decisions that have been made this year. This year the council said that they were happy that a teacher who had hit children force-fed children until the point of vomiting and ignored children in an early childhood centre could go back to work. Not one parent in the country would think that was OK. The Minister of Education would not name the early childhood centre; nobody was going to be responsible. The Teachers Council said that that decision had to be seen in context. I would like the Minister of Education Steve Maharey to say what context that kind of behaviour can be put in that makes it OK. Over on the Labour benches members think that an early childhood teacher who force-feeds kids to the point of vomiting and ignores kids is OK. Well on this side of the House we say that someone who thinks that kind of behaviour is OK should be out. 
In her speech today the Prime Minister glossed over most of the education issues. Labour has been on the back foot this year. John Key has run Labour’s political agenda right throughout January by identifying and talking about a problem of a growing underclass. It is a problem Labour will not talk about. In the first instance we saw the Prime Minister deny that the underclass existed. That is funny when only 3 years earlier she had used the word herself. Then we got into the debate about schoolchildren going hungry at school. We know one thing on this side of the House: if children are hungry and do not have any breakfast in their tummies they are not going to learn. Teachers tell us that they can identify by about 9.30 kids who have not had breakfast. What was the Prime Minister’s answer? “No problem.” The problem has supposedly improved over the years. Steve Maharey said that 15000 as a number was wrong. He said it was a guesstimate. He would have just about eaten his words I think when the figure came out just after that as 83000. 
This Government had an opportunity today to come up with some new ideas and talk about a new direction in education and a new direction for the country. All we got was the word “sustainable” mentioned 33 times a speech that would put even the most avid political listener to sleep and a demonstration that this Government is really suffering from “third term – itis”. We had an opportunity today to hear some answers about how we are going to improve the lives of New Zealanders. From that side of the House the Prime Minister basically delivered a speech that showed she does not have any answers. She is just looking for political points for poll-driven policies that will hopefully get her out of the mire. 
On this side of the House we are invigorated. We are looking forward to this year. We have started off this year well determining the political agenda of this country. We are going to do that—and continue doing that all year—until we win in 2008.