Parata HekiaHon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): I am delighted to stand up and participate in the education Estimates appropriation debate today. I am very proud to be a part of a Government that has seen an increase in Vote Education every year that we have been in Government. In Budget 2016 we saw a further increase of 2.5 percent which has meant that education spending for the first time has exceeded $11 billion. We are most definitely putting taxpayers' money where our mouths are. We are ensuring that we are investing in all the pillars of a good quality education. We are investing in the quality of teachers and principals. We are investing in data and evidence to understand how well our children and young people are doing. We are investing in those who need additional learning and support through increasing the provision for special education. We are investing in infrastructure. The single biggest capital allocation in Budget 2016 was over $880 million into schools classrooms rebuilding and redevelopments across the country. This provision provides for 480 new classrooms to meet or get ahead of growth in some of our expanding centres. It means new schools in areas across the country responding to the needs there. It is the first time any Government has ever done a condition assessment of every school property across the country. That means that we are able to prioritise the dollars that we are able to have in Vote Education to those schools that need it most and to work our way through the portfolio. In this regard I would like to acknowledge my colleague the Associate Minister of Education Nikki Kaye for the tremendous amount of work she has done in cleaning up that portfolio and working with me and with our Government to ensure that we are building modern light airy energy-efficient warm and safe classrooms and learning environments for our young people. We also put into this Budget a further $436 million to meet the growing demand in early childhood education. This brings the total investment by our Government into early learning to almost double what it was when we came into Government at the end of 2008. We are very serious about giving our earliest learners the strongest start on their education journey as is possible. There has also been quite a bit of discussion about special education during this debate. I just want to intrude a bit of fact on to the Opposition members' penchant for providing us with numbers that do not mean very much. So let me provide the actual numbers: for special education we have provided a further $42.1 million in order that we could increase the amount for those young people in the ongoing resourcing scheme. These are the young people who have the most complex and the highest needs and we have extended the numbers of those getting that support to 8600. I think it is important to have these numbers in front of us because the members have focused on only one element of our special education investment the Intensive Wraparound Service (IWS). That has been a very effective success for parents; it involves parents. The specialists—the clinical behavioural and education specialists not the Minister of Education—make assessments which has been characterised as gatekeeping. But actually these are the experts who give the advice on what is needed for each of these young people who are in the IWS and we have extended that by $8.5 million. A member earlier today confused the provision and thought that that included the $1.5 million operating funding for specialised equipment and technology. It does not; that is in addition. And in addition to that we have also provided $15.3 million for 550000 extra teacher-aide hours to support we estimate a further 1250 young people who are participating in our inclusive approach within our classrooms. So in special education we have seen the overall budget rise by 29 percent since we have been in Government. I know there is more need to be met but this Government is serious about it and has been making contributions to ensure that that is reflected in the actual funding.We are also targeting operations grants this year to the 155000 young people who come from long-term benefit-dependent households. We are keen to see that funding—instead of a 1 percent universal grant that would have amounted to about $16 on average whether a child needed it or not—go to targeted funds. Thank you.