Shanks Katrina: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
Shanks Katrina: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:655;Page:4530] 
KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to speak to the Appropriation (2008/09 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2009/10) Bill tonight. I will respond to the member who just sat down Shane Jones by talking about education and investment in education. Labour was in Government for the last 9 years. For 9 years it had the opportunity to invest in education and to lift literacy and numeracy but it failed. I ask members to look at the number of children who are coming through school who do not have the levels of numeracy and literacy to even get the most basic jobs to even enter the polytechs or to enter some of the trades. They do not have those basic literacy and numeracy skills. That is how the Labour Government failed this country and failed our children. This Government is determined not to let any child be left behind. In this Budget in our first year we have invested a lot of money—$1.68 billion over the 2008-09 to 2012-13 period has been invested to improve facilities and lift educational achievement. Of this $1.68 billion $1 billion is new spending that we will invest in the future and in our children because they are a priority for a John Key - led Government. We will build new schools and modernise new existing schools with an investment of up to $523 million. We will help our students meet national standards in literacy and numeracy by investing $36 million. 
As a mother of three children I have to say that the literacy and numeracy standards our children currently have is not clear to parents. They are not transparent. Parents do not understand how their children are going. They do not know whether they are improving from one year to the next. They do not know how they are doing against the national average. They do not know how to help their children they do not know whether they are gifted and they do not know whether they are falling behind because there is no transparency from the school to the parents. There is no accountability from the school to the parents. 
I have been in the school system for the last 9 years with my children and it is the same now as it was 9 years ago. There is no reporting back to the parents and that is what this bit of money will do. This $36 million will ensure that we have a national standard and that those children will sit the tests that they already sit: the progressive achievement test and the asTTle test. They currently sit those good tests and the parents are not informed about them. They never get to see the results. Parents never get to see inner tracking or how their children are tracking. I speak to many parents around those issues. One of the parents I spoke to recently said that what that parent would love to see is a child’s education graph set out like the graph in a Plunket book. The average is a line going up the range is another line going up and the child sits on one side or the other. As long as a child is tracking up the parents should be comfortable with that and will understand where the child is. But how do people know if they are not told? That $36 million is crucial for me as a mother with three children in the primary school system to understand that my children are going to do well when they leave school. 
Not only that we extended the 20 hours early childhood education scheme to include playcentres and kohanga reo. I went to a playcentre in Johnsonville last week a lovely playcentre and I have no idea why they would be excluded from that 20 free hours. Why choose to exclude a playcentre? They add so much value to early childhood education which is a fantastic iconic type of early childhood education that this National-led Government understands—and that the previous Labour-led Government did not understand—because playcentres are about families. Opposition members do not understand how parents can be good educators very powerful educators in their own right which is what playcentres are. We put another $69.7 million into playcentres and kohanga reo because we unlike the previous Labour-led Government which put no priority on families acknowledge that parents are fantastic educators. 
These estimates are about helping New Zealanders through the recession and supporting jobs. We are using the strength of the Government’s balance sheet to absorb much of the shock of this recession. What this means in plain language is that we are keeping up spending on public services and on entitlements to income support despite the fact that the Government’s revenue is dropping significantly. Our approach is to provide a considerable stimulus to the economy to stop the country from falling into a further recession. In the Budget we maintained all of the entitlements to income support including superannuation benefits and the Working for Families scheme. We are also increasing spending on front-line public services particularly in health education and justice. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: No training back to work. Cutting training programmes for getting back into work. 
KATRINA SHANKS 
: If that member over there would like to talk to me about adult learning in community centres that is great. You know I would love to do a pottery course. In fact I have done one at a community centre and it was really good. But it is a hobby and I think I should be able to pay for that hobby myself. I do not think that the Government should subsidise it. In fact I would rather the Government spent the money on reading recovery. What would the member prefer I do? [ 
Interruption 
] That is right. Would the member prefer that the Government paid for my pottery course or that my child did not get reading recovery? It is about priorities; it is about putting the money where it is needed. I tell members that in our schools reading recovery literacy and numeracy—and you know it as well—are where our priorities should lie not with the pottery course not with the public speaking course not with the Moroccan cooking course. You had 9 years to make a difference and you made no difference; we had 9 years of surpluses and you just blew it. You threw them away— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The member has brought me twice into the debate. 
KATRINA SHANKS 
: I am sorry Mr Deputy Speaker. 
I want to talk about one of our initiatives in particular: an investment of $323 million over the next 4 years in a campaign to make New Zealand homes warmer drier and healthier. I tell members that John Key understands that families need to stay warm. [ 
Interruption 
] You had 9 long years to make these homes warm and healthy—9 long years. I say to Steve Chadwick that you can shake your finger at me but you had 9 long— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: You know what I am going to say do you not? 
KATRINA SHANKS 
: I do. I am sorry Mr Deputy Speaker. The Labour Government had 9 long years to make a difference; 9 years to make our homes warmer healthier and safer and it could not do it. In 9 long years of surpluses even with “Visa-nomics”—with putting it on the bill—Labour still could not provide the money to do this. Instead Labour just wasted it because that is the only way to describe what it did. The Labour Government just wasted it. 
I want to talk about New Zealand insulation funds. We will allow more than 180000 New Zealanders to receive kickstart grants of $1800 to insulate their homes and to install clean-heating devices. A number of electrical companies city councils and banks have indicated they will do their bit by offering loans to cover any extra expenses incurred. This policy will have a range of benefits. It will stimulate the building and construction industry and create jobs for the men and women who will do the refitting. There will be jobs at the level that we need them in construction for electricians for builders and for plumbers. It will stimulate and improve energy efficiency in people’s homes and in the longer term New Zealand families and children will experience warmer drier and much healthier living conditions. 
The Budget also includes funding for measures we announced earlier in the year to help the sharpest effects of the recession including the ReStart package for people made redundant and the small-business relief package. It also includes funding for initiatives that came out of the Job Summit in February. These include the $50 million for the New Zealand cycleway the 9-day fortnight scheme the boost to workplace literacy funds the introduction of summer research scholarships for university students and increased investment in international education promotion. In total we deliver a net increase in new operating spending of $5.8 billion over the forecast period out to 2011-2012. 
In addition to this year’s spending there has been a considerable amount of reprioritisation within existing levels of Government spending. We identified a total of more than $2 billion in spending over the forecast period that either did not accord with our priorities or had a relatively low value. We have used that money to fund other initiatives of more value.