Maharey Steve: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Maharey Steve: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:637;Page:7917] 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 That seems to be all of the speakers in the debate so let me work through just a quick summary on this. First of all I address Mr Brian Donnelly of New Zealand First who raised some issues that I think are extremely important—the issues around compliance. I want to reassure Mr Donnelly—and of course he knows this already—that we are working hard with the sector around the area of compliance to see whether we can drive those costs and time loads down. So we will see how we go. 
But let me return to the other speakers in the debate all of whom came from the National Party and all of whom talked about the early childhood policy. I want to give a little prediction: by the time of the next election the National Party will support 20 hours’ free early childhood education. That is on the record. I think Mr Colin King will be campaigning in his electorate—he will probably lose it—around the issue saying that the National Party supports the 20 hours free policy. Does anybody on the National benches want to say that that prediction is very unlikely to happen? I do not think so; no one is willing to say that. But until National adopts Labour’s policy on this we will be treated to the most extraordinary scenario as we have seen today. Mrs Katherine Rich the spokesperson on education for the National Party got up and attacked this policy and at the same time anybody who looks at the web knows that National intends to scrap the policy. 
Let us imagine we were in a hall now with early childhood people debating this policy and Mr Hughes and Mr Peachey were there. If Mr Hughes got up and asked who in the hall wanted 20 hours’ free early childhood education who backed this policy the overwhelming answer—well not even overwhelming; the 100 percent answer—would be: “Mr Hughes we want this policy.” Mr Peachey would get up and say that he wanted to scrap it. If he asked who was for National I think he would be killed in the rush. 
The contrast between the policies at the moment is stark. We have a policy the entire sector wants; National has a policy the entire sector does not want. Yet we have to put up with the whingeing and whining the moaning and groaning of the education spokesperson who we are told today does not even want the policy to be promoted. She is not allowed even to go out and tell people about the policy. Overall we are spending $384 million on getting young people access to early childhood education and the National Party does not want people to know about it. 
 Let us go to the other genius in the National Party—Ms Paula Bennett. She got up to tell us that she wanted not only people in the 3-4 year age group to get 20 hours free—this is the tax cut party talking—but every child in every form of early childhood care to get it too. So I suppose that is the other National Party policy we had announced by the geniuses on the other side of the House today. They not only want to adopt our policies at some time—when they have finished whining about them—but want them to apply to everybody and want a tax cut. How much more stupid will it get than this farce that is going on in the National Party? Every time its members get up they want more expenditure and more tax cuts. 
Then we go to the other staggering proposal by Mr Colin King. He got up and said he not only wants more early childhood education and backed the policy—but the policy has not been adopted yet by his leader so he has to whine and moan about it—but loves a couple of other policies that Labour has put in place too: Gateway and Modern Apprenticeships. I say to Mr King that I appreciate his support for those policies. No doubt he will campaign on them at the next election because they are such good policies and will want to adopt them as well as part of his manifesto. But he also got up and said he was not satisfied with what is out there now. He wants every school in the country to have access to the Gateway policy—which by the way is the policy—and every child in the school to have access to it as well. How much will that cost National and how will it afford it against its tax cut policy? 
Finally we got to Mr Peachey. I was going to comment on what Mr Peachey had to say because Mr Peachey is an educationalist and often says something that matters. But today I have to ask Mr Peachey to go and read his notes. In the 5 minutes he had allocated he said nothing other than that the member for Otaki should watch out for—I could not understand the rest because he was mumbling—something about his seat. We should expect at least some kind of major contribution from a member like that. He understands education; why did he not debate it? 
Report noted.