Moroney Sue: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Moroney Sue: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 20 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3145. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 The sight of a Government thrashing around without a plan—is it not horrendous to see time after time every day now a new thing that shows that this Government really has no direction and does not know what it is doing? Over there we had Tim Groser counting the cost of his big fat tax cut which he could give back but instead he wants to flog off the State’s assets to pay for infrastructure. Those are some of the priorities that that Government over there has got. Then we have got the prospect of seeing on a daily basis now the carnage at ACC from Judith Collins as she thrashes about in her portfolio without a plan without an idea and all the casualties that are coming out of the ACC board as a result of that. 
It all started some weeks back when the Government decided that its best idea and the only real idea it had for quality education was to increase the number of children in every single class throughout the land—and it was every single class throughout the land. The biggest impact was going to be felt in the intermediate schools and middle schools up and down the country but actually the truth is that every primary school and every secondary school were also going to feel the impact of increasing class sizes. 
What I cannot understand is that with all the official advice all of the levers of Government and everything those members opposite get in terms of information to make sound decisions why they could not see what every parent in every household up and down the country saw was plainly obvious—the fact that if you have more children in a class then that is going to be a more difficult prospect for the teacher and therefore the quality of education for every single child in that class would diminish. It is what we might call—it is not a technical term—a no-brainer and yet that lot opposite the Government did not understand that very basic concept. The Government had to wait until parents and teachers rebelled against such a ridiculous prospect: that increasing the number of children in each class and having more children per teacher was somehow going to increase the quality of education. It is absolutely a no-brainer. 
But we watched Hekia Parata thrash around and actually try to defend that policy knowing—as now the New Zealand public does know—that every single one of those members opposite including the Prime Minister actually still believes that increasing class sizes is the way to go in education. That is still their strongly held view of what was needed. The only reason they have not gone down that path is that their polls were collapsing because parents knew better than this Government. Parents do know better than this Government because it is just about using common sense. With all the official advice that it has got everything that it has got at its fingertips it still could not work out what a daft idea that was. 
It is now clearly obvious to every voter in New Zealand what party it is that stands up for quality education. It is the Labour Party. It is the Labour Party that understands as parents do what the key things are that make sure that children get a quality education. And it is absolutely clear now that Labour has education as a priority and National does not. National members cannot put that genie back in the bottle no matter how they spin this round and no matter how many U-turns they make on this issue. The genie cannot be put back in the bottle now that every parent understands that the National Party at its heart at its core does not get education. It not only does not get education but it does not value the role of education in lifting families up in the way that parents actually value education. 
The National Government is completely out of touch with the sort of value that parents place on education and that is what it got a shock about. It did not understand the value that parents put on education. It did not understand the backlash that was about to happen because education does not figure as a priority in the minds of the members of the National Government. That is plainly obvious. The genie cannot be put back in the bottle. 
Now we are witnessing the blame shifting and it is not only Judith Collins in the ACC portfolio who is doing the blame shifting. It is also Hekia Parata who said that it was all her officials’ fault that she did not get that policy right. Then John Key said that it was not his fault; it was all Hekia Parata’s fault. So between the blame shifting and the thrashing around there is clearly no plan.