Coddington Deborah: General Debates 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Coddington Deborah: General Debates 
[Sitting date: 15 October 2003. Volume:612;Page:9188. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 The Minister of Education has closed a record 96 schools since he has been in power from 1999. What is more 300 more schools are under threat of closure. Why does that Minister want to close schools? He wants to save money. He wants to suck money out of rural and provincial areas and put it into Auckland to try to buy votes in Auckland where Labour desperately needs to get the voting up. He talks about quality of education as if he knows what is best for every child in New Zealand. He is a control freak Minister of Education. Parents teachers principals and communities not the Minister of Education know what is best for each child in their area. 
What is quality of education about putting a 5-year-old child on a bus for an hour and a half each way to get to school and back again? What is quality of education about that? What is quality of education about having a one-size-fits-all for every school in this country having one sort of school that that Minister thinks would suit every single community? He wants to have one set of rules and apply them to every single school. Who would have ever thought that a Labour Government would be closing schools? That is the sort of thing that those neo-socialists accused the centre right of doing. They talk about the centre right wanting to privatise everything. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am reluctant to interrupt the speaker. However just because it is market day there is no reason for that fishwife to shout going on every minute and every phrase is being interjected on by her. After all she is a whip and she should be asked to behave herself. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Yes I have called order. I ask members to give the speaker silence. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: Labour is the party that is supposed to care about people. What do those arrogant Labour members say? Mr Mallard says to parents out there who want to choose where they send their kids to school that if they want to save their schools they should have more babies. 
 It is like the Minister with responsibility for Auckland Issues who says: “If you can’t afford more money to get a warrant of fitness and pass an emission test buy a new car.” She also said: “If you can’t afford to pay your rates sell your house and move.” There is nothing about choice. How arrogant of the Minister of Education to say: “Have more babies.” to parents who want to save their schools. This is typical of the arrogant patronising attitude of this Government. 
Throughout New Zealand there is a rising clamour of voices of parents who are sick and tired of being shut out of their children’s education. Their children are the lost generation. Twenty percent of children leaving school are unable to read a bus timetable. Is the Government proud of that statistic? What sort of future do these children have? This Government does not care. It says: “Go and get a benefit. Go and sit on a benefit for the rest of your life. We will keep you we will look after you and we will buy your votes by sticking you on a benefit.” These children are from low socio-economic backgrounds. [ 
Interruption 
] Of course those people do not care about education because they can afford to send their children to private schools or move into the Auckland Grammar School zone which has made property prices so high. But what choice do parents from poor families have? 
The Minister of Education believes that poor parents cannot choose and that families with low incomes have no idea of what makes a good school or makes a good teacher. If he believes that wealthy parents can choose why does he think that poor parents cannot choose too? If such people live in a rural town they have no choice except to send their children to the one State high school or the primary school in the area. He says it is OK to close those schools because he is fronting up. He sends me funny little emails late in the night to say: “It is all right because I front up.” He did not go to Russell— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: They’re all replies to the member’s love notes. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: That is OK then. It is okay to shut those schools because he fronts up! Now not satisfied with the State sector and with the Government schools he will start on integrated schools. He cannot control the integrated schools so he will change the Act so that he can close down and merge integrated schools and get more control over them. This is the Government’s do-gooder attitude the “nanny State knows best” attitude. 
I used to be on the board of trustees of Epsom Girls Grammar School and I had to knock on doors to check that people were not putting up a dodgy address. Those parents would move heaven and earth to get from south Auckland into what they thought was a good school zone but this Minister says no.