Parata Hekia: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParata Hekia: General Debate[Sitting date: 18 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13472. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): I watched the news on TV this morning like the rest of New Zealand and it got me thinking about Team New Zealand and Oracle Team USA. When the winds did not cooperate and the boats could not sail I immediately thought of team Labour and poor old—young old—Chris Hipkins. He is obviously very very upset to have been dumped from being chief whip to chief nobody. But can he be surprised when characteristic of the disunity on that side of the House Mr Hipkins had opined on Television One: “David Cunliffe has been working for some time now to destabilise the current leadership. He worked to destabilise the last leadership. And I think it’s time to call him out on that.” Well look what happens when you call to account the latest leader of the Labour Party. You get dumped. I guess it gives new and pungent meaning to the term “What goes around comes around”.Actually I am quite keen to get a new education spokesperson. I would like Grant Robertson but then so did the caucus apparently and it did not get him either. When Mr Cunliffe said he was not out for retribution it is a bit like Larry Ellison saying that he is really relaxed about how well Team New Zealand is doing. It should be taken with a grain of salt.Dr Megan Woods: Or like you saying: “Charter schools won’t teach creationism.”Hon HEKIA PARATA: Thanks to that member for bringing me to my next point. When we announced partnership kura yesterday we announced the facts of them. For the first time the latest Labour leader actually remarked on education “It is to use no facts whatsoever. It is to say they are unaccountable.” when in fact they are going to be reporting four times a year to the Ministry of Education which is not required of schools. They are going to be monitored not only by the Education Review Office but by the Partnership Schools/Kura Hourua Authorisation Board. The latest Labour leader said that they were going to be businesses but in fact four are charitable trusts and one is a private training establishment. The latest Labour leader said that they would not be meeting the needs of those we are targeting when in fact they are required to have 75 percent. So if that is the kind of reliability that we can expect from the latest Labour leader then I think we will continue to see the disunity of the mob opposite.On this side of the House we are focused on an education policy. Indeed my colleague the Hon Anne Tolley has indicated today that we are interested in education all over New Zealand’s system both in schools and in prisons and in how we make sure that people are skilled for the workforce and for the economy about which the latest Labour leader speaks but has no policy as to how it is actually going to be achieved. Guess what! Education policy is not about closing schools as it was under that party. You actually have to educate young people.If that Opposition would like some example of how to work together perhaps its members could look at yet another initiative of this Government called Excel Rotorua. It is an innovative approach to raising achievement that relies on a community working together—something that the Labour Opposition might need to take heed of. It puts children at the heart of the attention it encourages the leaders and the teachers to work together it engages parents and it focuses on a result and outcome which is that every young person will be successful.Sue Moroney: Then they lived happily ever after.Hon HEKIA PARATA: Well the prospects of living happily ever after under this Government are so much higher than under the approach of the disunited rabble and the latest Labour leader on that side of the House. I opened my remarks by commenting on the fact that Chris Hipkins has been removed from the whip’s role and has instead beenreplaced by greater stridency uninformed by thought. If that is the characteristic of the Opposition then we can look forward to increasing disunity.One of the things that I do want to comment on—because again on this side of the House we actually do require meritocracy and we have not had to resort to silly policies about how the Labour Opposition might increase the number of women in its party. In fact we are about to celebrate Suffrage Day tomorrow. What we will be focusing on is encouraging more qualified intelligent articulate capable and competent women of the kinds we see here on this side of the House who can win elections because they have policies. They understand that the country—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member’s time has expired.