Kaye NikkiHon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): I'm pleased to speak in this general debate. I want to reference what we heard from the deputy leader of the Labour Party Kelvin Davis—that it's all about focusing on the issues that matter to New Zealand. Well after doing 70 meetings across the country and after discussions on education I'll tell Mr Davis what people told me about the issues that matter to this country: it's the teachers that are on their third strike—the first strike in 24 years and they haven't got settlement. The issues that matter to them are workload and pay and additional learning support. That's what they care about. The fact that this Government—and this Prime Minister frankly—are refusing to deal with the stalemate is very worrying. That matters to teachers and it matters to parents. I know what we'll hear from the other side. The other side will say that it was us that created this. The reality is that in every point in history we are handed a different set of circumstances. Under our Government—the National-led Government—we dealt with the global financial recession and we dealt with the Canterbury earthquakes. This Government has billions of dollars of choices and let's talk about what they've chosen to spend their money on. They've chosen to spend their money on good-looking race horses. They've chosen to spend their money on $10 million for Westland Milk Products. They've chosen to spend their money on their fees-free policy for students instead of dealing with the real issues in our classrooms. There are many additional learning needs and there are real cost of living issues. Then the other thing I want to talk about is that the reality is you have a certain amount of time in Government. The Minister is halfway through his term and he is undertaking huge reforms in education—vocational reforms Tomorrow's Schools. I'll tell you what I heard from the people of New Zealand. They said Nikki we want you to support reasonable and pragmatic changes in education." Actually they said "We want to strengthen our education system." National passionately believes that we need to do this but what they also said is that if we want to have enduring reform in education we cannot go at breakneck speed. We cannot know what the cost of this is. We cannot know what the detail of this is. It is totally unreasonable to be merging every polytechnic in the country and to be doing that at breakneck speed. It is totally unreasonable to be transferring all of industry training to polytechnics and to be doing that at breakneck speed. It is totally unreasonable to be restructuring the jobs of 2500 boards of trustees in New Zealand of literally tens of thousands of teachers at breakneck speed. I am pleased that today the Minister has acknowledged that there are about 6000 submissions around Tomorrow's Schools. I am pleased that he has acknowledged that he will extend the deadline on that. Please Minister if we want to get enduring education reform then we need to work together and we cannot go at that breakneck speed. It is about priority and the reality is there are choices here in the budget and we will hold this Government to account for the broken promises that they made and the high expectations that they raised when they were campaigning. I want to give an example of that. Tomorrow on the steps of Parliament regardless of what political parties' policies are we are held to account for the promises that we made and what we heard was around the postgraduate allowances. The Minister said today that regardless of it being in Labour's manifesto it will not be delivered until next term. The reality is that a manifesto is about this term. We know there are more than 18 broken promises. [Interruption] Well what I say to the Minister there is actually that that Government has never been transparent and released exactly what the coalition agreement is. So the reality is Chlöe Swarbrick is going to be turning up on the steps of Parliament and arguing for those postgraduate allowances and the reality is New Zealand First have run the cash.We are very clear: we need transparency around costings. I've got principals and teachers turning up to my meetings saying "Nikki not one more dollar spent on officials. We want it spent on front-line education services." So you will hear from our speakers about priority Mr Davis. Yes Kelvin Davis this is a question of priority. Yes Kelvin Davis this is a question about the fact that this Government has been handed opportunities that we didn't have and we will hold you to account for what is an ideological centralised system in both vocational education reforms and Tomorrow's Schools."