Cosgrove Clayton: Urgent Debates — Schools Canterbury—Proposed Closures and Mergers 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Cosgrove Clayton: Urgent Debates — Schools Canterbury—Proposed Closures and Mergers 
[Sitting date: 18 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5295. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour) 
: 
 I for one accept as do other colleagues—despite the hot air—as do some parents and as do some teachers that change had to occur in Christchurch in certain places where as the last member who spoke said there has been substantial damage to school property where the roll has depleted where the population has disappeared and where there is not a likelihood of repopulation if you like in that catchment. I accept that. No one on this side has said that there should be no change. I accept that change is required in some areas. 
Where though people have some difficulty—and I should say in a positive way in Waimakariri for instance I am not sure whether the member Ms Wilkinson talked about it but Waikuku School is moving to Pegasus Bay. That is something that they welcome and that is something that that community has wanted for a time. In fact that was something that was not only signalled but agreed to by the last Government. The last Government set aside the money. When I was the member there I recall looking at the Budget line items. It was set to be triggered—the money was put aside to be triggered—by roll growth. Then in 2008 when there was a change of Government it stole the money and flicked it off and it disappeared. For 4 years—for 4 years—they have waited. But it is good news—and I wanted something positive—that finally the Government has reinstated the money and the school is going to move to Pegasus Bay. 
But let me say this. What the last member Amy Adams forgot in a whole lot of sweeping statements about all these schools having damage their populations being depleted their rolls being shattered etc. etc. etc. was that there are some difficulties with that proposition. At Ouruhia School where I was last night with other colleagues—David Shearer Megan Woods and Lianne Dalziel—you have to say that looking around the place as the principal said there is a crack in a piece of asphalt and a few cracks in the gym but even Nicky Wagner I am told by my colleague visited the school last week and said that there was no problem with the school. Its roll has remained stable. Yes Brooklands has disappeared but hey presto go and talk to Peter Simpson in Belfast and he will tell you—and I think even your colleague Minister would tell you—that given the land approvals and other things that are coming on stream there is enough population growth signalled there because Belfast is going to be the size of Levin in not too short a time for both those schools to be catered for and enough capacity there to cater for it. So the roll is stable the school is basically untouched and there is enough growth in the area but it is history. 
What people object to—and when we sat in the Minister’s office at 7 a.m. on the morning of the great announcement I was hopeful as I looked at the weighty tomes that we were given as I saw the run sheet that perhaps— 
Hon Hekia Parata 
: What you have never done for us. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Oh the member interjects. The member could not even spell Nola Kilpatrick’s name right who was on the advisory board. Gerry Brownlee will know who Nola Kilpatrick is because he was a teacher there when Nola Kilpatrick was an English teacher before she became deputy rector. That was the level of oversight that this Minister has. 
She can belittle that but here is the problem. This is not just about schools as such and communicating an announcement to rejuvenate whatever that means. If you look at Avonside Girls’ High School it says the options are to continue close merge operate as dual shift or consolidate. This is about communicating to a community that has been under gross stress and it has to be done in a way that is sensitive not by having the principal of Ouruhia School who did not even know he was on the radar screen—his roll was stable there is population growth and his school is basically untouched—sort of smacked in the head by the political baseball bat as his name is read out as if he is told he is terminally ill. His school is gone. There was no foreshadowing no nothing. 
So despite all the consultation run sheets internet surveys and all this it comes down to a number of schools and a number of communities that should be dealt with sensitively. But I have got to say that sensitivity is anathema to this Government. This announcement last week off the back of the earthquake recovery Minister basically telling technical category 3 land people that they were whingers and moaners and he had had a gutsful of them ironic that that may be— 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: That’s not true. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Yes it is true. It is absolutely true— 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: No you’re a liar.