Hipkins Chris: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate[Sitting date: 24 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18812. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka):I do believe that New Zealanders will make a positive progressive choice at this year’s general election and I think that that will result in this National Government being turfed out. I think New Zealanders have had enough of this arrogant Government telling them how good they have got it when they are watching their wages go backwards when they are watching future generations being shut out of the housing market when they are watching the education system and the health system being run down under this National Government. I think New Zealanders are ready to make a positive progressive change at this year’s election and I think that that will see the election of a Labour-led Government.We are seeing under this Government that although National tells everybody how good their lives are wages have stagnated. New Zealanders are not getting ahead under National. In fact wages are barely keeping pace with inflation while people look across at Australia and they see the Australian workers getting paid more. John Key stood in the Westpac Stadium a few years ago and decried the exodus to Australia and yet he has done nothing—done nothing—to address that. Unemployment doubled under this National Government—doubled under this National Government—and remains disgracefully high in this country. Bill English and John Key go around and say how getting unemployment down is a hoax and it will never happen. That is National’s vision. Those members do not care that unemployment is high. They do not care about the fact that we have literally 147000 unemployed people in New Zealand. John Key and Bill English say that doing something about that is unrealistic.Well we in the Labour Party have a more positive attitude than that. Our attitude says that every New Zealander who can get out there and work should have the opportunity to do so. That means they should have a job they can go to and it should not just be any old job; it should be a well-paid job as well.Phil Twyford: With a living wage.CHRIS HIPKINS: With a living wage where they can be well supported and where they can support their families. That is the aspiration of this party. The aspiration of that Government is all about making sure the people at the top of the economic pile are well looked after. They have completely shut out any concerns being raised by those who are struggling to make ends meet. We in the Labour Party simply do not think that is acceptable. We will make sure that all New Zealanders get their fair share of the recovery.When future generations of New Zealanders the generation that will vote for the first time at this year’s election go to the polls they will be asking themselves what kind of country they want to inherit from the current generation of political leadership. Do they want to inherit a country in which they have no prospect of buying their own home? Do they want to inherit a country where large numbers of them will earn lower wages here in New Zealand than if they move overseas move offshore? Do they want to inherit a country where all of the valuable assets have been sold off—sold off—by the Government and nothing is left for future generations? I think that they will decide that is not the type of country they want to inherit and they will vote for a positive progressive change at this year’s general election.I want to talk particularly about the education system. If there is one sector that needs a positive inspirational vision at the moment it is the education system. In the education system at the moment we have got a Government that is obsessed with narrowing down the focus of the whole system on to a few measurable targets—a few measurable targets that do not bring out the best in every child that do not place high trust in the teaching profession that tell schools and teachers they are not to be trusted; they are to be treated as factories and they are to be measured on their outputs as if kids were units of economic production rather than the unique individuals that they actually are.The Government wants to implement this new policy of expert teachers and executive principals which will take the really good teachers out of the classroom and will take the really good principals away from the schools that they are currently working in. I used an example in question time today of a school principal who said: “How on Earth am I supposed to continue to manage my own school and oversee 10 others at the same time? It’s simply not feasible.” The teaching profession is saying this is not feasible and it is not workable. This Government is too arrogant to listen to that and it is going to plough ahead. Hekia Parata when she was interviewed about this on television a couple of weeks ago refused to rule out legislating for this change to take place. So even when the entire teaching profession puts up their hand and says “We have got concerns about this. We have got concerns about the workability of it.” the Government will not listen. It will say “We will railroad over the top of feedback from the profession”—the feedback of the experts in the classroom—“and we will say ‘Thou shalt do this.’ ” and it will legislate it.But that of course is not surprising from this Government because this Government does not even trust the teaching profession enough to have a say in how its profession is governed. The Government is proposing legislation through this Parliament that will mean that the teaching profession has no say over who forms the board of its own regulatory body. We would never do that to lawyers or to doctors or to nurses or to any other profession. In fact I have got speeches and I have quoted them in the House before of the National Party decrying the real estate industry’s lack of influence over its own governing and regulatory body. And yet National was willing to stand up in the House and defend the real estate agents. But when it comes to the teaching profession—no nothing. National is quite happy to ride roughshod over the teaching profession and say that it is not to be trusted.I think that is wrong. I think we should trust the teaching profession. I do not think there is a single teacher in this country who goes into the classroom every day and thinks “Gosh! I am really aiming to do a bad job today.” Every teacher who goes to school does so because they want to make the future better for future generations of New Zealanders. I congratulate them on that. I say on behalf of the Labour Party that we trust in the teaching profession and we respect the teaching profession. In our case it is not hollow sentiment; we actually believe it. It will be absolutely evident in the policies that we will be promoting.We have a Government here that wants to remove the requirement for registered and qualified teachers in charter schools. National does not want these schools to be accountable to the same accountability mechanisms as every other school in the country. They do not even have to teach to the curriculum in the way that every other school in the country does. And National is willing to shovel millions—tens of millions of dollars—of taxpayers’ money into charter schools with very little accountability even to the point where if someone establishes a charter school gets millions of dollars in Government funding and then closes before the end of their supposed contract there is no ability to recoup that money. There is not a single clause in that contract that allows the Crown to recoup that cost. So these schools can go and splash cash buying huge assets and the Government does not have a leg to stand on if one of those schools were to close. That is simply wrong.We have got a Government here where its solution to student achievement is to introduce national standards which are neither national nor standard. They are no measure of benchmarking student performance because the way they are assessed at schools varies dramatically and they are no basis of comparison whatsoever. Now the Government is talking about using them as the precursor for performance pay and for making school funding decisions based on national standards results.Well most teachers in the country would be pretty happy just to be paid their current pay on time let alone performance pay. At the moment some of them are struggling to be paid at all because of the absolute debacle that is the Novopay payroll system which nearly 2 years after it was implemented still does not work. We have still got people struggling with historical problems and not being paid because of the disaster that is Novopay. “Mr Fix-it” has quickly morphed into “Mr Excuses” because he has not got any answers to the Novopay problem other than to pretend that nothing is wrong any more. It has all been fixed according to Steven Joyce yet there is feedback on a daily basis from within schools that teachers still are not being paid on time they are still struggling and they are still being distracted from the valuable work that they have to do in teaching the future generations of kids. It is time to fix the Novopay problem.There is a better way in the education system. It starts with quality early childhood education and runs right the way through the whole system. The Labour Party is committed to quality early childhood education to funding centres that have 100 percent qualified staff for those qualified teachers and to making sure that kids get access no matter where they live to quality early childhood education. It means recognising that we have a huge diversity of students in our education system from those who have special learning needs and who are falling behind to those who have special learning needs because they are well ahead. It was Gifted Awareness Week last week and we want to make sure that all of those kids are supported so that they can achieve to their full potential. What this Government does not get is that underachievement is not just about kids who are falling behind; underachievement is any child who is not achieving to their full potential. They could be incredibly bright well ahead of their peers but if they are not achieving to their potential then that is a waste as well and they are underachieving as well.We have to support every student in our schools to make sure that they are achieving to their full potential and that starts with a much higher trust in the teaching profession. We have got to set the teachers free cut the red tape and allow them to get on with the job that they are there to do. They are passionate about teaching. They are passionate about future generations of New Zealanders. Let us let them get on with the job. Let us put some trust in them. Let us stop bagging them in the way this Government does.