Robertson Grant: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Robertson Grant: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:665;Page:12735] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Chairman. Before I go on to matters to do with tertiary education I move on behalf of my colleague the Hon Trevor Mallard his amendment that is on the Table. It amends schedule 1 of the Appropriation (2010/11 Estimates) Bill by omitting the number “1364193” after the words “School Property Portfolio Management” and replacing it with the number “1364593” and by omitting the number “17610” after the words “Schools Furniture and Equipment” and replacing it with the number “17210”. 
This amendment relates to something that Mr Mallard previously put before the House during the debate on the Education Amendment Bill. He also wrote to the Minister of Education about it. The amendment enables King’s High School in Dunedin—and I should declare an interest as a former pupil of that school—to use some of its 5-year property funding agreement to reduce the balance on a loan that was taken out to build the school’s performing arts centre. The amendment will resolve a misunderstanding that arose several years ago that has led to the school using its operational funding to pay for that loan. It is something that could be easily fixed with a fiscally neutral transfer between appropriations as noted by the amendment. I request that the Minister of Education makes this exception in order to allow King’s High School to spend its operational money on its operations rather than on paying off debt. I know that Mr Peachey Mr Douglas and others have discussed this before at the Education and Science Committee and I hope the Minister will look at this amendment and allow the school to get on with using its operational money for operational purposes and its 5-year agreement money to pay off debt. 
I move now to the question of tertiary education. When I look at the education estimates and at tertiary education I see that there was a chance for the Government to finally create a plan for the economy. What could be more important to a plan for the economy than tertiary education than creating a skilled workforce a knowledgable innovative population of people who can drive our economy forward? Investing in tertiary education is the key to doing that. 
A lot has been made of the differences between New Zealand and Australia but if we look across the Tasman to Australia what do we see it doing in the area of post-secondary education? The Australian Government allocated an extra billion dollars in the last two Budgets for post-secondary education it lifted the enrolment cap to allow enrolment by those affected by the recession and it has a stated target of having 40 percent of the population with degrees. Currently in Australia around 31 percent of the population has degrees; in New Zealand that percentage is in the 20s. The Australian Government has ambitious targets and is using tertiary education as the engine room of its economy. What are we seeing in New Zealand? The cutting of funding for the tertiary sector tens of millions of dollars being taken from polytechnics and a complete failure by the Government to respond to a fundamental change to entrance to university. For the second semester of this year nearly 1500 students are being denied entry to Victoria University. Massey University shut its summer school enrolments with half an hour’s notice. Next year thousands of students who have achieved university entrance will not be able to enter university. New Zealand has seen huge funding cuts in adult and community education and cuts to literacy and numeracy programmes even though we were told that literacy and numeracy were the priority for this Government. 
So in short in Australia we are seeing the Government and tertiary institutions working out how to get people into education but in New Zealand we are seeing universities working out how to stop people from getting into education. How completely crazy that is at the very time we should be investing in tertiary education and at the very time we should be making sure that all New Zealanders can achieve their potential. We should be making sure that all New Zealanders whether they have been affected by the recession whether they are coming out of school or whether they want to retrain can achieve their potential. 
As a small country it is tertiary education training skills and having a workforce that is constantly innovating that will make the difference for us. We are not a huge country with massive resources and massive reserves of capital so we have to rely on the people in our country. We have to invest in the people in our country. Vote Education simply does not do that in this Budget. This Budget was an opportunity; there were choices for this Government. But this Government chose tax cuts aimed at the wealthy few rather than investing in the future of New Zealand through funding tertiary education properly and through funding education generally properly. This is a shameful Budget.