Maharey Steve: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
Maharey Steve: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:640;Page:10168] 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 Usually when one comes down to the House for a Bill English speech one gets a speech that is pretty scintillating. I noticed earlier this year that Bill English was singled out as having given perhaps the best speech that the journalists had heard in the House this year. He was noted as having been a kind of orator; he was full of passion and he had something going on. But I have to say to my colleagues today that that speech was flat do they not think? I do not think that it was just that he was rated below the cat when John Key went away; I actually think I begin to detect amongst the National Party members that the honeymoon is over. I think the shine is off. I think that while the aspirational marketeer is currently off overseas trying to see whether he can find his way to America—and that is not working very well any more—the sort of role that Bill English has carved out for himself as the bean counter for the aspirations is also starting to wear a bit thin too. 
Do members know what is starting to happen? Comparisons are starting to be made. Did members notice the way that Katherine Rich said today: “Oh don’t focus on us during the question. What are you doing focusing on our policies? Isn’t that a bad thing to be doing?”. Well she should get used to it. Over the next year or so the entire country is going to do what it always does. People will ask themselves something very very simple: whose plan will take this country forward? They will say they know about the aspirations and about the notion that we can count up all the beans that go around those aspirations. But people will ask whose policy will get them a job help them to raise their kids give their kids an education and make sure they have superannuation. Whose policy will do that? That is what people will ask themselves. They will start to make comparisons between the Labour Party wanting New Zealanders to work together and the National Party wanting to leave them on their own between the Labour Party wanting effective Government and the National Party not wanting any Government and between the Labour Party saying it wants to invest in the things that will make a real difference to people’s lives and the National Party saying: “Here is 30 bucks a week or whatever it is. Go and get your own roads your own health system and your own education system—buy it for yourself.” That will be the comparison that is made. 
There is a stark difference between Labour and National when one gets down to real policies. One finds that the National Party does not want primary health organisations and cheaper health visits. It does not want paid parental leave. It does not want the most stunning superannuation scheme a scheme that virtually everybody in this House would love to be part of and wishes he or she was able to move into or 20 hours’ free early childhood education—it does not want that either. I want to focus on 20 hours’ free childhood education because that highlights a great deal of what the National Party is going to have to wade its way through. The National Party has opposed the policy of 20 hours’ free early childhood education all the way through because it has to make room for tax cuts. All its policies are about tax cuts. I tell people to beware by the way of any party that has the same answer to every question. If one has a problem with his or her children National says there should be tax cuts. If one has a problem with health National says there should be tax cuts. If one has a problem with the roads National says there should be tax cuts. If things are not working very well and one is not feeling good about life National says there should be tax cuts. When a party gives people with a problem one answer to every problem that shows the party is not thinking. 
National is trying to say the same thing with regard to early childhood education as well. National has campaigned against 20 hours’ free early childhood education and has lost on that—National knows that and members saw it today. Today members saw Ms Paula Bennett who has campaigned up and down this country—she is a sliver of the person she used to be as a result of that—and who has lost. In fact we would pay for her to go around the country. She went to Whakatane and when she left more people came into that fantastic scheme. She was running around the country trying to run it down and more people took it up. 
The thing that Ms Bennett has missed is that this is part of the biggest change in early childhood education in the history of this country and probably one of the biggest changes in that area in the whole world. The National Party has never understood that 20 hours’ free early childhood education is part of a 10-year strategy and that the whole sector is committed to the strategy. The sector wrote the strategy. It believes in the strategy and the last thing the National Party is going to get away with is going around and telling people Labour does not have the strategy and not to turn childcare into education. Well what would one want to turn it into education for? Let me tell members that we want to do it because it builds more centres it means the teachers will become professional it means the sector has proper regulations and it means the centres have funding—a 142 percent increase in funding in early childhood education since 2000. 
Bill English says we should not waste money but should let him give tax cuts to his well-off mates. What are we wasting money on? “Wasting” a 142 percent increase in early childhood education means providing wages for teachers building centres providing quality environments for kids and having a curriculum that works. That is what Bill English calls wastage because he wants to spend it on his tax cuts. 
Now 20 hours’ free early childhood education also means stable education. It means there is ongoing funding like that of a school. One goes down to the local school and one has guaranteed funding for the education of a child for the entire time that the child is there. Early childhood education is going to be treated in the same way from now on. Even today the National Party members still get up and talk about childcare. I am aching to be in front of an audience of early childhood people and to have a National Party member come along and tell them about its childcare policy. I am waiting for that. In fact I would organise the meeting drive Katherine Rich to it and listen for the entire time. I would not say a word. She could talk about childcare and I would see whether she got out of the building alive. It will be a very interesting campaign when we go out with our two kinds of policies. 
Meanwhile the National Party is actually offering an alternative. That is what we finally heard from Paula Bennett. She is the spokesperson it seems in this area and she tells us it will be a tax credit for parents. Let me tell the House what a tax credit means. First of all it means bureaucrats will give the tax credit to parents. The National Party members tell us they hate bureaucrats and one has to get rid of officials but they base their policy on—for instance one of us who has children; someone like Sue Bradford over there—parents saving their slips up all year for their children in a little file and then going down to the Inland Revenue Department and saying to the official whom the National Party hates and is trying to get rid of: “Here is my annual return for my children so can I have my tax credit please. I have been paying for the children all year and here I am out of pocket with no money. I’ve saved up all my chits and I would like my money back please.” Sometime in the future the Inland Revenue Department will get around to giving the tax credit. But when the parents receive the tax credit they will find that whereas they might have received $3600 under the Labour-led policy they will receive $2000 less than that under the policy that the National Party follows and if the parent is a beneficiary or he or she does not go to work the parent will receive nothing. He or she will not get anything. Those parents do not get a single sausage under that policy of the National Party. 
So on the hustings when we are arguing about childcare versus education when we are arguing about how much a parent receives from the 20 hours free policy versus the tax credit childcare policy and when we are arguing about the whole notion of the comparison between the two the pigeons will come home to roost. One can be as aspirational as one likes and one can have co-leaders and divide up the jobs as much as one likes but eventually people are going to say they want to be shown the National apple to compare with the Labour apple. They will ask to be shown what National has that will help a family to receive early childhood education. The answer from the National Party will be that it is going to give them a tax cut that will not give them education and will not give them real money and that if they are in the wrong position they will not even get any money at all. 
That is the difference between the two parties. Nick Smith is an experienced senior front-bench politician who has been around the track a few times and looks as though he has. He has been here before and he knows that he will stand on the hustings soon. He will have to have a concrete plan for New Zealand. He will have to say: “I don’t want cheaper doctors’ visits. I don’t want paid parental leave. I don’t want KiwiSaver. I don’t want your kids to have 20 hours’ free early childhood education; I want them to have a tax credit. I don’t want them to have education; I want them to have childcare. I want to give you a measly little tax cut. That will mean you can go and buy your own paid parental leave you can go and buy your own KiwiSaver you can go and buy your own health care and you can go and buy your own early childhood education all out of the $20 a week I will give you back in your tax cut.” That is the choice. Which plan would members choose?