Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Well I think we had a revelation from the previous speaker Tamati Coffey. We now understand why there's a manufactured crisis because we've learnt the name of the new tagline for the Budget that's coming up: the 10-step-back Budget". I think that's a fantastic name and it actually explains why we've got these manufactured crises and this fake news coming out. It's quite astounding really when you consider that it's just recently been announced that a half-billion-dollar tax windfall has come up because the economy is doing extremely well mainly through the tail of the management of the National Government and companies pay more tax when the economy is doing well.There's half a billion dollars more available for the Budget that Labour have been working on than when they started so there's a considerable amount more money to spend than they think or than they realise or will admit. I think that's quite interesting. When we're talking about the education budget as has been pointed out already under National it went from $8 billion per annum up to $11 billion—a significant increase in education funding through that period.Also set aside was $4.85 billion dollars for infrastructure funding in the education sector. That's a phenomenal amount of money. And actually the Auditor-General last year was quoted as saying that under the time of the National Government management of school property strengthened significantly yet the rhetoric we're hearing from the other side doesn't match up to that at all. In fact the Minister said the other day that $200 million of school buildings are not fit for purpose. Well according to the ministry a school building has a life of 50 years—50 years—so you would expect given the number of school buildings around the country that they will roll out of their lifespan during that time and that would be a regular occurrence.I can tell them about some school buildings in particular. In the Marlborough colleges where there has just been announced the $63 million co-location of those colleges Marlborough Boys' College and Marlborough Girls' College on to one site the Minister has put that on hold.Erica Stanford: No.STUART SMITH: He's going to do a review. Yes he has. I know it's unbelievable. He's put it on hold. He's going to do a review and it's going to take five weeks and then he's going to consult the community. Well the community's already been consulted. A plan was made and the overwhelming public view was to relocate two schools on to one new site for better education outcomes for those students. Marlborough Boys' College was originally Marlborough College built in 1920. To put that in context there are two stairwells in the old part of the school because in those days they had a stairwell for the boys and a stairwell for the girls. I mean that's strange but that's the way they did it. In 1963 they shifted and built another school because they'd outgrown the property and put the girls' college on the other side of town. Why they put the boys on one side and girls on the other who knows but that's what they did. And now we have the girls' college—a much newer school but it has leaky buildings. Leaky buildings. We know about this; we planned for it. In Marlborough Boys' College we have earthquake issues and plumbing that is outdated and will cost a fortune to fix. Also it doesn't have the flexibility to put modern learning environments in if that is the case. So it would be a waste of time to fix those schools so the right education outcome was to build two schools on one site giving the opportunity for more flexible outcomes so that—particularly in the arts and languages—you can offer more choices for students because it wouldn't really be viable to do otherwise because of the small number of students on that site. They are also looking at putting in a tertiary aspect. This year Marlborough boys' and girls' colleges have a school of wine that they've started which will take students through level 2 and level 3 NCEA getting all the credits that they need but with a focus on wine. So for example their literacy credits are gained through doing geography on the geography of wine. So I'm calling on the Minister to actually man up and do his job. When you're a Minister of the Crown you are there to make decisions and move things forward. The community expects an outcome. They don't want to be left hanging they don't want another review—there's already a decision been made. They're only in this position because they have a philosophical hatred of public-private partnerships and they're going to pay for it themselves and now they've found out a massive hole that they were warned would be in their budget. They were warned well ahead of time and now they're back-pedalling and trying to find a way out of it. So Mr Hipkins man up and do your job."