Delahunty CatherineCATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): This might be the last time I participate in speaking on the annual reviews. I have been on the Education and Science Committee now for 8½ years so I have been through a lot of review processes. I wish I could say that they have provided me with answers to my very very serious questions about what is actually happening in education but unfortunately it has become a little bit of a rhetorical set piece over the last 8 years. What we have heard over and over again is that the education system is fantastic that there are no issues that everything is fine that the communities of learning will fix everything and that participation in early childhood education is fabulous but when we actually ask questions about what is going on in education there are some very concerning issues. So during the reviews both this review and every other review that I have participated in the Opposition MPs Tracey Martin and Chris Hipkins—whom I have been very pleased to work with—and I have consistently asked questions about what is really going on behind the glossy picture and no matter how many times the Government has said it is putting more money in the figures that are beneath that show serious cuts at the front line.Yesterday I was at James Cook High School supporting school support staff. An absolutely sterling job is going on in that school with some of the children who suffer some of the most difficult circumstances in this country and it was obvious that the education system is not able to meet the needs of these students. It was obvious that school support staff are badly understaffed and badly paid and are experiencing extreme stress. They are stressed because the teachers are stressed because the students are stressed because we are now in an education system that is probably more unequal than it has been since the Victorian era and it is disturbing to see it.Early childhood education is the place I would like to start. Early childhood education—the emphasis on participation. At every select committee hearing on the annual reviews I have asked the Minister's people: What about quality?". There is no point in talking about early childhood education participation if you are talking about baby barns with one untrained childcare worker trying to take care of five babies. That is the reality in the wonderful participation figures—one person five babies. That is disgraceful and it is a direct consequence of the cuts to qualification and the requirement to have a limited group size which has all gone out the window and into the wonderful new franchise called the privatisation of early childhood education.The compulsory sector should not follow this model—it is a disturbed model and a disturbing model—but we have many problems in the compulsory sector. Every year I have asked about national standards. They are standards that are neither national nor standard. They are standards where there has been considerable research—not only from the Programme for International Student Assessment—that shows that literacy is not improving. So if it was all about improving compulsory sector - age children's literacy it is not working. National standards are something that were forced upon teachers by this Government. They do not like it because it does not work. If you want to know what works in education talk to teachers and talk to students.I could go on at considerable length about some of the other failings in the education system but one of the ones that has been the most disturbing—and the glossy annual reports do not tell the story—is that in terms of students with diverse learning needs the system is broken. I instituted with the support of my colleagues an inquiry at the select committee into what is happening with that system. The annual reviews talk about all these wonderful consultations and all this effort that has gone into producing websites while 9-year-old children can be expelled from four schools and because of a lack of school support cannot get even an hour a day so that they can attend any school. This is the reality for people whose children have high learning needs in far too many instances. There are some "magnet schools" doing a great job but that is no thanks to the Government. This is an underfunded sector and the children who could be succeeding are failing. It is a disgrace that we treat our most vulnerable diverse learners as expendable.Set aside the rhetoric. The Government would not adopt my recommendations or those of my colleagues because it required some investment in money and a huge attitude change and the first thing it required was honesty about education."