Tolley Anne: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Tolley Anne: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:653;Page:2451] 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 It certainly is an odd feeling to be standing in this House as the Minister of Education during a financial review covering a year over which I had no control whatsoever. In fact I may not even agree with some of the things that were done as they were done by the previous Government. 
If I have to use one phrase to sum up the Government that was responsible for this financial review 2007-08 I would say it was “promise and hope”. That is what the previous Labour Government was very good at especially in education. It made lots of promises hoped they would work and hoped the money would be there when the time came to implement them. The reality is that the money is not there and lots of promises were made for which no dollars were put up. One of the schools concerned was in Upper Hutt and I am looking at the local member over there but we will come to that. 
Let me talk through just some of the issues that have been raised in the House today. Early childhood education is a classic. The previous Government went out to South Auckland said it would build nine centres and named nine schools. One of those schools was a high school and one was an intermediate school. They are not very interested in having— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: What’s wrong with that? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: The schools were never asked whether they wanted to have an early childhood centre and whether they would work with one. The communities were never asked whether those were the places where the early childhood centres were needed. This new National Government will work with the community. We will not just build a great big centre and hope that people will come because they may well come but if we listen to the community we may find that those people come from another suburb and not necessarily from the ones where children need to attend an early childhood centre. 
This Government’s main priority for early childhood education is to increase participation particularly for Maori and Pasifika children. We are working very hard with the communities across South Auckland to develop what they want and what they think is appropriate for their children their whanau and their families. That is the first point. 
Secondly we heard the previous Minister of Education beating his chest about truancy. You know it was all promises. As the Maori Party speaker said the previous Government did not even make sure that an updated truancy survey was done last year. The only figures we have to go on are the 30000 students who are truant on any one day at the moment. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Who was truant today? Who didn’t have the backbone— 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: This Labour Party whose members are so vocal and keen on making jokes about it does not understand—and has never understood—that if young children are not at school they cannot learn. If they cannot learn they have no future. That party was prepared to condemn up to maybe 30000 students a day to that for the rest of their lives. 
I want to talk about bureaucracy because as I get around schools the one thing that I constantly hear about from principals and teachers is the amount of bureaucracy. I was at a school today where staff told me they are putting in $19000 worth of carpet—$19000 worth of carpet. It took 21 pages of forms and a property manager to manage it. That is just ludicrous. We will fix it and members will not see any of that in the next financial review. 
Let me come to national standards. The previous Minister of Education has been out there and he says he is hearing a lot about fear. I say to the previous Minister that he is talking a lot about fear. He is talking rubbish. Labour is misrepresenting what is a very good policy. In fact half the schools in the country are already doing what we are proposing they do so it is hard to understand what this kerfuffle is all about. One of those Labour members is very effective at using assessment to get effective teaching and student learning. He has already used it so we know that it works. You see we are a Government that is about doing what works—doing what works. 
The national standards will be in place by the beginning of next year. The first round of consultation with the sector will start at the end of next month and we are looking to lift educational achievement for every single student in New Zealand. We believe that whether they are Maori Pakeha Pasifika or Asian they all deserve an excellent education. 
Report noted.