Brown Simeon; Hipkins ChrisSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you Madam Speaker for the opportunity to take a call in this debate and I'd like to focus my remarks at first around tertiary education in particular around fees free for first-year students. It seems very interesting this Government came into power and promised fees free and their intention at the time was that the purpose of their fees-free policy was to increase participation amongst—Hon Member: That's what they said.SIMEON BROWN: That's what they said: increased participation more students going to university more students in tertiary education and that this policy of paying for their first year or giving them a free first year was going to do that. Of course the evidence that we've seen has been to the contrary. In fact there's been a drop in the number of students participating in tertiary education over its first year. The data for the second year is I don't believe fully complete but if the Minister of Education the Hon Chris Hipkins would like to take a call and enlighten the committee around what the 2019 figures were that would be greatly appreciated. But the interesting thing is that this target has then shifted. So it was firstly We're going to increase participation." Then came the second line which was "Well increased participation is just one of the goals of this fees-free policy. We're just wanting to do a few things. Increased participation is great but you know it's not kind of working. So we also just want to—just really it's just about paying for the first year making sure students don't have to borrow their first year despite the fact it would have been interest free." And now of course we come to Budget 2020 and we look at the new Budget measure and the new Budget measure's got nothing to do with participation. It's simply: what is the average payment per learner? So we've got this policy which the Government has in place and its measurement is by how much they can pay people. In this Budget it's how much they can pay each student an average of $5787—and that is the new Budget measure.I just find it absolutely ironic that the Government has gone from a policy position of wanting to increase participation. It's realised it's a fail and now it's simply come down to how much they can pay each—or how much per student they can give in fees free. I'd like to ask the Minister if he could explain that transition in the language and the policy intent and how come the Budget measure simply is now about "How much?" And going forward is that about you know a target? Can we get to $5787? Is that the aim? Is it that the goal—we want to get it close to $5787? What if we want to get a bit higher? Is this Budget measure going to be increased in future years? Is it simply going to be around how much money the taxpayers have to fork out for this failed policy which has not—which has not—achieved its intended aim the aim that was sold to New Zealanders about increased participation for New Zealanders to get into tertiary education? A couple of very sad statistics is we've actually seen a 2 percent drop in Māori participation and a 0.5 percent drop in Pasifika participation—greater drops than on average. So this policy is particularly not working for those demographics. So I ask the Minister to take a call and explain to the committee: why are we now measuring a policy simply based upon how much money per student is being paid out and why has he dropped the target dropped the measure on actually increased participation? Is it because he's failed or is it because of something else?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Of course if the member goes back and looks at the statements I made when we launched the fees-free policy for the first year free he will see that—the things the Government was talking about: breaking down barriers to participation to ensure that those who might not otherwise participate in tertiary education were able to do so; making sure that those who complete their tertiary studies have less debt at the end of their tertiary study something that I know a lot of New Zealanders are anxious about—the level of indebtedness that our young people have when they complete their tertiary studies.In terms of that second one the policy's been very successful. It has of course resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars less borrowing by young New Zealanders which will mean that they'll have smaller student loans when they finish their study and they'll be able to pay them back more quickly. So with regard to participation of course there are other factors that come into play around participation including the fact that up until COVID-19 we had one of the strongest labour markets in the developed world. We had very very low unemployment and the lure of paid employment for young people was particularly strong. And you can see that in the declining participation particularly in the polytech system and that participation now—as the labour market loosens up and we see an increase in unemployment—is starting to rise exponentially. And so what we're doing with the extension of the fees-free approach and moving to targeted areas of vocational education and training is helping to ensure that that additional growth is targeted into areas where we know the employment prospects are best.SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): In relation to the statement the Minister of Education made around the extension of the fees-free policy can the Minister then confirm to the committee that it is his intention to extend fees free to the second year of tertiary education if his Government is unfortunately re-elected?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Of course I have no ministerial responsibility for what a future Government may do."