Ardern Jacinda: Appropriation (2009/10 Supplementary Estimates) Bill Imprest Supply (First for 2010/11) Bill — Second Readings 
Ardern Jacinda: Appropriation (2009/10 Supplementary Estimates) Bill Imprest Supply (First for 2010/11) Bill — Second Readings 
[Volume:664;Page:11914] 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 This Budget has talked at great length about the impact it will have on young people. It has been proposed that that impact will be a positive one. I want to look beyond what the Budget does and does not do for young people in the here and now and discuss the impact that some of the decisions will have on future generations. After all the measure of true leadership is not necessarily what is achieved in one 3-year cycle but in the years beyond that and the legacy that is left. 
I start though with the crucial period of zero to 7 years and the incredible impact that the Budget has on these years. The longer I have worked in the area of youth justice the more I have come to understand that so many of the solutions and the remedies and so many of the interventions to prevent young people from going down a path that leads them to crime lie in the period between when they enter this world and until they hit about 7 years of age. This should be the major focus of any Government that is genuine about early interventions. In fact this should be the focus of any Government that is also genuine about issues of literacy and numeracy. 
That was something that Labour recognised and is why when Labour was in Government it set a very clear target around early childhood education. That target was that centres should have trained and qualified staff working in them and the target should be that 100 percent of those staff are trained and qualified. We did that with good reason. Evidence suggested that in terms of outcomes the No. 1 difference we could make for a child in an early childhood education centre was to ensure that that child was taught by a trained and registered teacher. That was the No. 1 thing that would make a difference to that child. In fact cost-benefit analysis of early childhood education investment shows a benefit ratio of 12:1 in terms of for instance the impact it has later on in life in lots of different areas including lowering crime rates. 
Whether we invest in this area is simply a matter of choice in my view. This is the choice the Government has made. Not only has it decided to cut $250 million from early childhood education it has done so by targeting centres that have reached a level of having trained staff at 80 to 100 percent. That decision has left the centres with two choices: either to make their centre their place of learning less affordable for parents or to reduce the quality of education that they provide for these young children. This has also put parents in a painful and difficult predicament. They are the ones making the choice between affordability and quality. We are talking about a difference of $20 to $30 per child per week and that is a very real and hard decision that the parents of 93000 children will have to make. 
These changes have also had an impact on the students who are studying to become early childhood educators. I spoke with some recently on Waiheke Island who are already in training. One of the students said to me: “I’m wondering now why I should bother continuing with training when there is little incentive to employ me now when I’m regarded as not being a priority by the Government” and potentially she will be going to centres that will be trying to reduce the number of trained staff that they have. As I understand it there are students who are now actively considering whether they are now unemployable because of their skills rather than more employable. In fact other disincentives have been put in place such as the fact that there is now less support for those who are studying who may require support to do their placements of up to 7 weeks. 
This Budget does not invest in the almost 3000 kids in central Auckland who are affected by these changes. But there is an even bigger group again in the younger generation who will be impacted by the Budget changes. In the area where I work for Labour central Auckland the biggest cohort of young people are the 20 to 29-year-olds. They make up almost 30 percent of the Auckland Central electorate. It is a significant group and significant when compared with the rest of the country. This Budget for them was worse than just doing nothing. In many ways it will have an impact in the longer term. Young people are more likely to be unemployed than any other group; we already know that. Every time a recession emerges and a crisis arises such as in the 1990s or what we are seeing now it is young people who become the most vulnerable. 
We know at the moment that almost 40000 young people aged 15 to 19 years are unemployed. That number is up by 8000 from the previous year. If we take on the next cohort the next age bracket the number lifts to about 60000. The Government claims that this Budget will help those young people. I contend that there is very little evidence to suggest that it will. On the forecasts within the Budget we saw that there will be roughly over the life of the Budget an increase in the creation of jobs of around 10000. But that is gradual and they are not just jobs for young people. When considering how significant the number is it is only a drop in the bucket. 
Some of the measures that we see in the Budget which presumably are meant to help young people are also contradictory. The Youth Guarantee gives a handful of places to some of our most vulnerable young people—those who are currently not in training education or employment. I applaud the notion behind what is trying to be achieved with those placements but simply question whether it is on a size and scale that will change or make a significant difference to the young people who are what we call NEET—not in employment education or training. In fact if we spread it across polytechs some of the new placements that have been trumpeted by Steven Joyce we are looking at about 23 places per polytech. It is not a significant number at all when we consider that the Government at the same time has kept in place its caps on enrolment. Young people who are trying to upskill are being turned away from training and education and that is an absolute shame and disgrace when we are in the middle of a recession that is still hurting these people. 
In tertiary education we have also seen some significant cuts but I do not think they have received the amount of attention they deserve. There is $349 million for student loan funding and that will of course have an impact. The Government has tried to cordon off the sets of young people who will be affected by these changes but they do predominantly if we are honest hit those who are the most vulnerable. There are limits on when migrants can apply for student loans and there are also impacts for those young people who are struggling with pass rates at university. Arbitrary measures like that I think have unintended consequences and may result in detrimental effects for the kinds of young people whom we are not intending to target with these changes. I think again that there has been a failure to deal with the tricky issue that the young people who cannot get into institutions are the ones we should be focusing on but ousting those who are already accessing education and training into an environment where there are no jobs does nothing to assist them. 
But it is not just those decisions that are in the here and now. There are decisions that have been made that will impact on these young people for generations to come. It is one of my bitter disappointments that it is very hard to get a rallying cry amongst young people around the significant changes to superannuation. But these decisions will no doubt have a massive impact. Young people now probably are not thinking about the fact that the suspension of investment into the Superannuation Fund for the next 10 years and also cutting the contributions to KiwiSaver mean that our once-universal pension scheme runs the risk of becoming unviable in the long term. 
An honest conversation needs to be held by the Government that is making these decisions and these changes with the younger generation about the fact that the Government obviously has no intention of the pension scheme remaining a viable system. That is something the Government should certainly be challenged on. Likewise it should be challenged about the changes to accident compensation. New Zealand has always benefited from a world-class no-fault system but that is being eroded for future generations. 
I turn to homeownership. The basis on which our superannuation scheme is viable is that people in their old age will have an asset—their home. At this current rate given our supply issues and given the lack of affordability around housing many of our young people will not have that asset in their old age. This again undermines the potential for them to securely retire to a level that we would consider adequate. 
This Budget was all about priorities. Everything I have seen in this Budget when it comes to young people demonstrates to me that the decisions are short-sighted and also that the current generation and future generations were not a priority for this Government in the 2010 Budget.