Hipkins Chris: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 09 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:8769. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): There is no more important investment any Government can make than the investment that it makes in its people. I would hope that that is something that there is universal agreement about around the House.I want to go back back to the future a little bit back to the past to the Labour Party’s heritage in a quote from Peter Fraser and Clarence Beeby back in the 1940s when they stated in revolutionising New Zealand’s education system at the time that: “The Government’s objective broadly expressed is that all persons whatever their level of ability … whether they live in town or country have a right as citizens to a free education of the kind for which they are best fitted and to the fullest extent of their powers.” That vision that they articulated for our education system then is just as relevant today as it was back when they were introducing universal free access to secondary school education one of the lasting achievements of that first Labour Government because the Labour Party has always stood for quality free public education. We have had free quality public education in New Zealand in the past and we can have it again.There are some other aspects of that quote that I want to pick up on. When they talked about “of the kind for which they are best fitted” Fraser and Beeby recognised that one size does not fit all and that there does need to be differentiation in the education system as opposed to the standardised model that the current Government preaches which suggests that every child should learn the same thing at the same time and that the education system should act effectively as a pipeline—a production line as Hekia Parata so regularly describes it. One size does not fit all. And we have had successive Governments throughout New Zealand’s history that have taken pride in boosting participation at all levels of our education: boosting participation in early childhood education boosting participation in schooling and boosting participation in tertiary education.I think that now for the first time in New Zealand’s history we have a Government that is proud of lowering participation. Steven Joyce actually boasts about the fact that there are fewer people in tertiary education—post-secondary school education—now than there were previously. That is the first time in New Zealand’s history that we have had a Government that has been proud of something like that. Every other Government be it Labour-led or National-led has been pushing to extend participation in all levels of the education system and we have now got a Government that is doing the opposite and actually trying to say it wants fewer people in education and I think that that says everything about this National Government.Contrasts abound when it comes to education. Let us look at the respective track records. I am proud to be a member of a party that capped the cost of tertiary education—post-school education—as opposed to this Government which has seen massive increases in the costs students face. I am very proud to be part of a party that removed interest on student loans as opposed to the Government on the opposite side which cut eligibility for student loans. I am proud of a party that extended access to student allowances as opposed to the Government on that side which cut access to allowances. I am very very proud to be part of a party that introduced a universal entitlement for every child every 3 and 4-year-old in New Zealand to 20 hours a week of free early childhood education and quality early childhood services.Of course one of the first things that this National Government did was cut the word “free” from the 20 hours of early childhood education a week. I am very proud to be part of a party that consistently increased school funding so that parents were not having to reach into their pockets as much to chip in all the time for the cost of their kids’ education—as opposed to this Government which has seen that money blow out to over $100 million a year that parents are now paying in supposedly voluntary donations for their kids’ schooling. Those are the donations—on top of that there are all the extra costs that parents now face which this Government is blind to and technology is one of the biggest. The current Government seems to turn a blind eye to that. There are some brilliant initiatives happening around the country to ensure that kids can get access to the technological devices that they need for their schooling and the Government is doing nothing to pick those up and ensure that they are spread throughout the country.I want to turn to the big announcement that Andrew Little made in his state of the nation speech where he recommitted the Labour Party to the principle of free education and made a particular pledge to 3 years of free post-school education for all New Zealanders. I think that that is very very important.Let us turn the clock back a little bit. There was a time when I was a long-haired student protesting about student debt and rising student fees when student debt was about to clock $3 billion. That seemed like a lot of money at the time. Does anyone want to hazard a guess as to how much student debt is now? Fifteen billion dollars is the total amount of student debt amassed. But here is the interesting thing about student debt. Since the student loan scheme was introduced at no point has the Government ever reached the stage where it collects more money in repayments than it is lending—for borrowing—every year and it is not likely to do so at any time in the near future. In other words every year we continue to lend out more money than we are recouping and the student loan scheme has been in place for decades. The mountain of debt continues to grow. Student tuition fees continue to grow. The average amount borrowed per student continues to grow and this Government simply turns a blind eye to that.We can do better than that and introducing free post-school education is going to be an integral part of the agenda of the next Labour Government. John Key decided to pooh-pooh that and say: “Why should the waitress have to pay for the lawyer?”. Well what if the waitress wants to be a lawyer? What if the waitress is actually working part-time while studying to be a lawyer? Waitresses have ambition as well. Let us also remember that they are part of a wider society and receive the health care paid for from the taxes of others drive on roads paid for from the taxes of others and will receive superannuation paid for from the taxes of others and yes they too will have access to a free education paid for from the taxes of others. That is called living in a society. We contribute to each other’s welfare and we do not simply look at our taxes as a personal contribution that we all benefit from only in personal terms. Our taxes are the contribution we pay for living in a civilised society and our society benefits from higher levels of education.Then the Government tried to say of course that our policy was elitist but it ignored the fact that it extends to all levels of post-school education not just university students. We are talking about the people doing apprenticeships. We are talking about the people doing block trades course in polytechnics. Those people will also benefit from 3 years of free post-school education under a future Labour Government and I think that is a very good thing. Schooling is no longer enough. In the days of Fraser and Beeby when they articulated that great vision they were talking about schooling in the large part because it was a quantum leap then to extend free universal secondary school education. Well that was then this is now. Now we need more than just a secondary school education and most New Zealanders know that. To have Steven Joyce taking to Twitter immediately afterwards and saying that increasing participation in post-school education would achieve—in his exact words—“absolutely nothing” is an indictment on that Government and the value it places on education.We should have a free education. Education is opportunity. Education does provide the ladder on which people can reach their full potential and it is an investment in our future. For those who say that we cannot afford that the answer quite simply is we cannot afford not to do that. We are reaching the point where as Grant Robertson and Andrew Little have both pointed out 46 percent of the current jobs that people in New Zealand do could become obsolete in the next few decades. We simply have to invest in education so that all New Zealanders have the opportunity to continue to be productive members of the society in which they live.How is it that the Government can find money to give away a farm as Hekia Parata did when she funded the Whangaruru charter school? The Government effectively gave away a farm but it cannot find money for people who want to increase their skills through post-school education. It can find money for tax cuts but it cannot find money to invest in our country’s future in a way that I think would deliver far bigger returns not only to the society as a whole but also to the Crown.Bear in mind one simple fact: the higher someone’s level of education the higher their average levels of earning and the higher the tax they pay so the more money that flows back to the Crown and does allow investment in those other public services I have mentioned. I am very very proud to be part of a Labour Party that is firmly fixed on the future and is looking at investing in the future by investing in our people. That is what the next Labour Government will be all about.