Curran ClareHon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Giving as many kids as possible opportunities building more classrooms fixing more classrooms building more schools and taking financial pressure off parents—I can't understand that anybody would actually oppose those things. I've listened pretty closely while I've been in the House this afternoon. I've listened to try and understand exactly what the arguments are. Facile" is probably the word that I would come up with. It was actually Jo Hayes where I think we got a bit closer to the real crux of the matter for the National Party because what I'm trying to understand is: are they arguing for universality in this legislation? I'm not passing judgment on them if they are but why can't they get up and actually say it? If that's not what they are arguing for why are they using that for the people that are excluded from this legislation—the young people to date in decile 8 and up? Why can't they actually say "No this should be a universal policy and there should be universality as principle that sits behind this policy this position." but no; they can't do that. Or are they? And that's why I'm confused.It would be really good to know exactly what the plan is instead of just—and I know they're the Opposition and they're there to oppose but we're getting to the point in the electoral cycle where it is actually pretty important to be able to articulate what your education policy positions are. I don't know and I don't understand and I suspect therefore the rest of the community doesn't either. All we get is a negative diatribe of facile arguments that are used against a piece of legislation that is actually providing $150 per student back into parents' pockets up to decile 7.Now if you're on a low income on a fixed income on a low income and you've got three kids at school that's $450 a year. That's actually not to be sneezed at. If you've got kids doing NCEA you're also going to save $76.70 per student on fees that you don't have to pay as well. If you've got kids at university and you're on a low income then they get a $50 a week boost to student loans and through their student allowance—SPEAKER: Order! Back to the bill please.Hon CLARE CURRAN: What that adds up to is more opportunities—putting more income back into the pockets of parents who are on those lower incomes and making sure that kids get opportunities. That's what this bill does. It's part of a much bigger suite of education policies which I won't mention because I'll get pulled up for it but that's what this is. It's actually about putting money into parents' pockets that otherwise would go to the school. Under the previous National Government every school was put under so much pressure that they had to ask parents for more and more donations to actually keep the school going. That's what this legislation is about.So what I want to know is: what has the National Party got to say about that? Are they truly arguing for universality and that all school donations should go? Because actually if you listen to Jo Hayes that certainly wasn't what she was arguing. She was arguing that parents should be giving donations no matter what their income is because they should be scrimping and saving in order to pay for their children's education. So it sounded to me as if she was putting a counterargument to a free education for our children. That's what this side of the House—the Labour and the coalition Government—stand for: a free education for every child and free means free; it doesn't mean a paying donation.What this legislation does is quite simple as has been described. It allows parents to keep that money for paying their bills for putting more food on the table for buying their kids shoes—whatever it is—rather than forking it over to the school and that the school is able to continue to give them the best education possible. That's why this legislation's going forward. We would as the Minister said be rolling it out across the board. We can't do everything at once. This is a damn good start. I hope "damn" isn't an unparliamentary term. It is a damn good start: $265 million in the Wellbeing Budget. I commend this bill to the House."