Hipkins Chris: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 21 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18204. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): Can I thank all my parliamentary colleagues for coming along to this contribution in the Budget debate this afternoon. I feel a little bit like the Parliamentary Rugby Team playing a curtain-raiser before an All Blacks match. It might be a bit scrappy but you know that it is going to be passionate. I do want however of course to note the significance of today because not only are we going to hear from Shane Jones in his valedictory speech but also I can say that this is the first time this parliamentary term that Shane has arrived before time to a speech that he is going to do in the House. I think that that is an absolutely fantastic thing.It is my duty today to be the last speaker to talk about the Budget before we move on to matters slightly brighter on the horizon. I think nothing highlights the contradictionsand the mixed priorities in this Government’s agenda than the education contribution in this year’s Budget. Charter schools are getting an extra $6000 a year per student on top of up to $40000 a year per student that they are already getting while State schools are getting only $6000 to $7000 a year per student. How is that a level playing field? If this Government genuinely cared about raising student achievement for those students who are not doing very well it would not be putting money into charter schools; it would be putting money into every State school in the country. So why do we have charter schools? Because of a dodgy cup of tea deal with a party of political ghosts—a dodgy cup of tea deal with a party of political ghosts. It prised open the crypt and out they popped with the new-right playbook and we ended up with charter schools in New Zealand. We do not need charter schools. We need to be focused on making sure that every school in New Zealand is a good school and every student gets the opportunity to achieve their full potential.While the Government is lavishing money on charter schools in its ideological experiment cooked up with the party of political ghosts schools and early childhood education centres are barely getting enough funding to keep up with their rising costs. Schools are increasingly reliant on parental contributions and are not getting the funding that they need. Bill English who railed against the increasing costs of education to parents when he was the Opposition’s spokesperson has done absolutely nothing in 6 long years about that. Every year the financial contribution parents make to their kids’ education has gone up under this National Government. Yet parents are struggling to make ends meet and this Government is doing nothing about that.This Government has instead decided to pick a war pick a fight with every teacher in the country. Over the last few weeks we have sat in the Education and Science Committee and listened to submitter after submitter after submitter say that this Government does not value them does not respect them and does not even trust them to have a say over how their own professional body operates. I think that is absolutely disgraceful. Has the Government been listening? No it has not. It has not listened at all.But there is a better way. There is a better way and it starts with making sure that every child in New Zealand has the best possible start through paid parental leave through making sure their parents can make ends meet through the Best Start payments and through providing high-quality and freely accessible early childhood education to every child in the country. Those should be the priorities. Those are not the priorities of this National Government. We should have trust and respect—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! The level of noise now coming from the Chamber is completely unacceptable. I require Mr Hipkins to have a reasonably fair go.CHRIS HIPKINS: That is all right Mr Speaker—I am pleased everybody is so excited by my contribution in the Budget debate today. We should have trust in and respect for education professionals. The best way forward for the education system in New Zealand is one that is based on collaboration not one based on a Government saying to teachers that they are not trusted they are not respected and they are not even respected enough to have control over their own professional body. It also means that we should pay attention to the factors outside the school gate that have an impact on kids when they get into school. If kids’ parents do not have jobs if they do not have adequate income and if they are not living in quality warm dry affordable houses then that is going to have an impact on kids’ readiness to learn when they get to school.Where did we see reference to that in this year’s Budget? We did not. We did not. The Government was silent on the major issues around housing affordability and job creation. The Government simply fudged it. It did not do anything about those major issues that New Zealanders are facing. If we want to get serious about making sure that New Zealanders have the brighter future that John Key promised them but hasabsolutely failed to deliver we should start with children. We should start with making sure they get the best possible start in life. The Labour Party is absolutely committed to that through increasing paid parental leave through making sure that children’s parents who need the financial support can get it through the Best Start payment and by making sure that early childhood education is available.This Government does not care about the quality of early childhood education. It has relaxed teacher quality requirements. It has relaxed the requirements for there to be fully registered qualified teachers in early childhood centres. I think that is absolutely disgraceful. If we are going to increase participation in early childhood education we should be making sure that it is quality participation in early childhood education. That is not something that this Government is delivering on. If we really want to lift the status of the profession we could start by making sure that we attract the very best people into the teaching profession in the first place and yet the Government has done absolutely nothing in this year’s Budget to make teaching a more attractive career for the best and brightest in our schools. We should definitely be focused on doing that.Why should somebody consider teaching as a viable career when this Government says that teachers cannot even be trusted to have control over their own professional body? We would not do that to lawyers we would not do that to accountants and we do not do that for doctors. We do not do that for almost any profession. In fact the National Party seems to care more about real estate agents. It mounted a filibuster against the regulation of the real estate industry because it thought that real estate agents should be regulating themselves and yet it will not allow teachers to do that. The National Party cares more about real estate agents than it does about teachers.This Budget has ignored the fundamental issues facing the education system. Instead it has sloshed money around into an ideological experiment like charter schools all because of the dodgy cup of tea deal with the political ghosts from the ACT Party. There may be one of them left in this Parliament now but I can tell you what. One of them is allowed to sit on this side of Parliament but there will not be any left in this Parliament after the coming election. Then we can finally put an end to the crazy madness that is the new-right ideological experiment of charter schools. Finally I am the final Labour speaker to speak before Shane Jones gets to deliver his valedictory speech to the House today so I would like to take the opportunity Matua Shane on behalf of the entire Labour caucus—and I know that I speak for all of us—to say that you have made an enormous contribution to our team. You have had a big impact on Parliament in a whole variety of ways. We will certainly miss you and we wish you all the very best for the future.Debate interrupted.