Kaye NikkiHon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): Firstly Mr Speaker can I take a moment to wish you and all members in this House a very merry Christmas. But look what I wanted to say at the outset is that on the back of that member Willie Jackson's speech this is one of the most shambolic Governments in our nation's history. It's a Government of spin. It's a Government of broken promises. It's a Government that is drowning in reviews.I want to talk about education because it is getting near Christmas and I thought I would be in the Christmas spirit for education. Firstly I want to acknowledge that I'm hoping that all members get home to their families given that we do have the Air New Zealand strikes. While I like you Mr Speaker I don't want to be standing around the Christmas tree at Parliament with you; I'd rather be back home with my family.But the first Christmas present that I want to acknowledge—I want to acknowledge the Hon Chris Hipkins. In terms of second languages it is a great week for New Zealand to see the dream closer for parents and students of second-language learning in our primary and intermediate schools so thank you very much for that Christmas present Chris Hipkins.Can I now acknowledge that other people have had Christmas presents this year that may not have deserved them. I want to start with tertiary students. They got the largest Christmas present you could imagine: several billion dollars. And what do we know? There has been no increase in participation. What did we find out today? Potentially $50 million was wasted in withdrawals or student failure as a result of this fees-free policy.The next Christmas present that we had this year was teacher strikes. Despite having billions more cash there have been three offers rejected in primary and several offers rejected in secondary and so what we know is that teachers are facing a more uncertain Christmas because we are staring down the barrel next year of multiple strikes despite the Government having a whole lot of choices that National didn't have due to the global financial crisis and the Canterbury earthquakes.So what is the Ministry of Education's gift this year? What is their present? Their present has to be drowning in reviews. There are more than 19 reviews in education so my hope is that next year the gift that the Minister can give is certainty in many of these areas because people want to get on with the job in education rather than be drowning in reviews.The next gift that we heard of this year was to the partnership schools in New Zealand. Their gift despite doing huge amounts of great work for disadvantaged students—we heard from Sir Toby Curtis we heard from Dame Iritana and we heard from the giants in Māori education how we should keep these schools. Their gift was to be disestablished and closed down despite doing huge amounts of great work for disadvantaged children.So my message to the Government is: on the back of billions of dollars of extra cash stop prioritising tertiary students and start to focus on teachers and ensuring that you deliver the 19-odd promises that at the moment people are seeing as broken—like your commitments around donations like your other commitments around modernising buildings and like your commitments to making sure that we don't have continued and multiple strikes all next year. The gift that this Government could give next year in education instead of spending a year dismantling everything that National has done—from communities of online learning to cohort entry to national standards to partnership schools. Next year would be a year where we could come together and agree on some common priorities in education. That would be a great gift for our country. That would be something that parents would welcome.While I'm on parents it is important to mention the Tomorrow's Schools review. The reality is that while National sees some good stuff in that review and we are not arguing for the status quo we are deeply concerned about not only the stripping away of power from parents in our education system but also the stripping away of principals and teachers and that's not a great gift in terms of Christmas.So I say again that the challenge and the opportunity for next year is to not have an ideological year where people are put through huge amounts of disruption where students are prioritised over teachers and where the schools of disadvantaged children who are getting a huge chance in life are closed down. The opportunity is to work together for a greater education system one where we can agree on some common priorities and that would be the greatest gift that we could give parents boards of trustees teachers principals and all of those hard-working support staff and volunteers in our schools next year.