Swarbrick Chlöe; Hipkins ChrisCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai tēnā koe tēnā koutou e te Whare. I'll keep this as brief as possible because I have addressed these questions to the Minister throughout the Estimates debate but I think it's really worthwhile putting it on the record in the committee and also putting the question to him directly.These Estimates occurred almost in parallel with our process for the People's Inquiry into Student Wellbeing a document that I know that the Minister now has on his desk. Within this report there is a crunching of data that shows that students are doing it incredibly tough. Here I'd like to read just an excerpt from a story that we got permission to share.This is Wiremu's story—and I quote—I'm a full-time student and work 20 hours a week. To make ends meet I borrow money stay with family until I can afford to leave sacrifice certain things like hygiene products and do without food every few weeks and don't go to the doctor or dentist. It's not like I live in one of the most expensive cities or somewhere flash either. I sleep in an uninsulated garage with a large garage door that lets rain in. It's only half carpeted. In the winter the walls condensate and both sides of the windows frost over. I went looking for new places to stay recently but I could not afford a single one of the places I viewed despite them being pretty run down. When COVID hit my kura offered support. I tried to access the support and I did everything that was required of me but they didn't follow through."That of course is reflective of the circumstances that many students shared with us with the COVID hardship fund which we obviously canvassed throughout this Estimates review. It also is pretty reflective of the broader experience that shows in this report that two-thirds of students regularly cannot afford the basics.So my question to the Minister is what are the variables necessary for the Government—or the context politically or otherwise—that will see him implement a universal student allowance?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Just to come back very quickly to Erica Stanford's most recent comments there is absolutely nothing contradictory between saying that we could have a common practice model and high-quality resources for teachers and then saying that we're still going to trust teachers' professional judgments about how best to teach the children in their classroom. That is what a quality education system looks like.In terms of the questions raised by Chlöe Swarbrick in terms of how we increase tertiary student support it really is going to depend on the overall economic situation facing the Government and our ability to do that. As the member is well aware for my entire working life I have been advocating for a better deal for tertiary students and I'll continue to do that.I'm not able to make any pre-commitments at this point around a universal student allowance or in fact any other forms of increased tertiary student support but I will point to the Government's record in that regard: increases in student allowances; the eligibility for things like the Cost of Living Payment; the hardship fund; first year fees-free; the targeted training and apprenticeships fund (the TTAF). There are a range of things that this Government has done that have been designed to bring down the cost of tertiary education and to better financially support tertiary students."