Moroney Sue: Budget Debate 
Text is subject to correction 
Moroney Sue: Budget Debate 
[Sitting date: 31 May 2012. Volume:680;Page:2789. Text is subject to correction.] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 No wonder the member Mike Sabin was struggling to fill out his 10 minutes because he was trying to spend 10 minutes talking about a zero Budget that had zero ideas for a zero future. It certainly did not have any ideas for growth because it is a zero growth Budget as well. It is no wonder that member struggled with his lines.  
What I want to talk about is worse than zero actually; it is it moving into the negatives. That is what this Budget did for education. Not only is it a zero Budget for education but it is moving into the negatives. Every parent in every household in New Zealand knows this. They get it. It does not matter how many times Hekia Parata tries to tell families that increasing class sizes and cutting the number of teachers are good for education—good news for education—they simply do not believe her. They are right not to believe her because parents are not stupid. Parents know what is good for children’s education and they know that having more children and fewer teachers means worse education. They are a bit confused because they were promised a brighter future by that Government. They were promised a brighter future. But did the National Party on the election hustings once dare to come clean with the electorate and tell it that National was going to be cutting teacher numbers? Did any of those MPs opposite actually come clean and honestly tell parents in their community that the brighter future meant larger class sizes and fewer teachers? There is silence—absolute silence from the lambs opposite. They would not be honest with the electorate. They knew that if they told the electorate the truth about what the brighter future actually meant they would lose votes. And so they should lose votes because they were dishonest with the electorate. They are not creating a brighter future. They are putting every child’s future at risk by their policy of cutting teacher numbers and increasing class sizes. 
The reality is that—and everyone knows what all of the research and evidence tells us about improving quality of education—it is the quality of the interaction between the teacher and the child that makes the difference. That is what makes the difference. So somehow that Government thinks that it is a good idea to cut the number of teachers and increase the number of children that they have to have these interactions with. Of course every parent gets it because they are not stupid. If you have more children in the class the teacher has less time to have those quality interactions with each of those children. Members opposite seem blind to that fact except for when it comes to their own children. They conveniently seem to have them in private schools where the ratios are lower. There is a story in the  
New Zealand Herald 
 in fact where only five of the Cabinet Ministers—out of I think 18 Ministers—said they sent their children to State schools. The rest are in private school education. So they do not care. They do not care about children in families like mine who do go to the local State school. They do not care about what is going to happen in the future for those children because their children are all right. They have the money to send their children to private schools. What do private schools offer? They offer lower class sizes. That is what they offer. And here we are with the very people who send their children there making the decision that that is good enough for their children but it is not going to happen for other people’s children. That is what is going on here.  
 The other thing that has started to happen—because my goodness what a shambles education is for the National Party I have got to say; what an absolute shambles—is that it has caused people to recognise what a difference it would be to have a Labour-led Government. Labour has said we will restore the class sizes to what they are currently. We are not going to allow those increased class sizes to continue to exist and we are not going to allow those teacher cuts. New Zealanders know that it is a really stark choice now. They understand that the brighter future actually lies with Labour. It is really clear to parents because they can see that it is Labour that is saying: “Uh-uh no teacher cuts and no increase in class sizes under Labour.” That is the future that you get with National. Parents are now coming to understand what a brighter future actually looks like. It will look like a brighter future for their children under a Labour-led Government not a National Government. 
The current strategy is that National is trying to shift the blame on to the schools for goodness’ sake. Can you believe that? Here is the Government cutting the funding to education so that there are fewer teachers and more children in every single classroom and it is starting to blame the schools for that decision. It is starting to blame the schools. But here is what the schools have got to say. I am going to talk about a few schools in the part of the world that I come from. I will start with the  
Bay of Plenty Times 
 actually because it had a really interesting story about Tauranga Intermediate School. Tauranga Intermediate School has hit the headlines twice this week—both for tragic reasons actually. One of them was because it was the school that had the children out in the Kaimai Ranges who were lost but fortunately not overnight. I want to say how grateful we all are that those children were found before a much more serious situation evolved. Tauranga Intermediate is the largest intermediate school in the country and it was set to lose 10 to 13 staff members— 
Hon Simon Bridges 
: And now it’s a maximum of two. How good am I? 
SUE MORONEY 
: —from its school as a result of that Government’s folly with education. That is what it was set to lose. And Simon Bridges who is their local MP is now going: “But it’s going to lose only two. Isn’t that great news? Isn’t that great news?”. I have got some news for Simon Bridges. Two full-time teacher equivalent positions does not mean just two teachers. It does not mean just two subjects by the way. But even if it did is that really going to be his claim to fame? Simon Bridges’ claim to fame is going to be saying to the parents and the community in Tauranga: “Good news you are losing teachers. Isn’t that great news?”. Well that is the best members opposite can come up with on that side of the House but it is not good enough for the Labour Party.  
 I want to move on and talk about some other schools in the area of the Waikato - Bay of Plenty. In Matamata actually my old school Matamata Intermediate School is set to lose five or six teachers. That is what it is set to lose because of that Government’s misjudgment about education. There are a number of other schools such as Cambridge Middle School which is going to be losing 3.5 staff and Fairfield Intermediate School which is expected to lose 5.4 staff under the Government’s original plan. This is what the brighter future looks like ladies and gentlemen of the New Zealand public. This is the brighter future. It is about cutting teachers and increasing class sizes. Anyone who knows what a brighter future looks like knows that that is not what it looks like at all.  
Parents are not stupid. It does not matter how many times John Key tries to convince them that the plan means that their children will get a better education. It does not matter how many times Hekia Parata tries to convince them that it means that their children will get a better education. Every parent knows that it means a worse quality of education for their children. That is the future under this National Government. 
I want to go on to early childhood education— 
Maggie Barry 
: And on and on. 
SUE MORONEY 
: Yes I will go on and on about education thank you very much Miss Barry because it is important. I know that that Government thinks that it is not important but it is. Parents get this: on early childhood education the Government has frozen the funding. Get this: in the calendar year 2012 the funding is going down $200 per child. That is how much the funding cuts will be for early childhood education in this Budget. What is that going to mean for the future? If the Government is reducing as it is by $200 per child the funding for 2012 then that means that parents are going to have to make up the shortfall. That Government has no idea about the struggles that working families face these days. It is absolutely blatant that the Government has no understanding of the struggles of ordinary working families because it does not care about them. But that is the result. The fees for early childhood education will go up for those families and that Government does not care about that. It thinks that is perfectly fine. Well it is not because Labour certainly does understand working families and the struggle they face on a day-to-day basis. We know— 
Maggie Barry 
: That’s why you’re in Opposition. 
SUE MORONEY 
: —that their family budgets are at breaking point. Maggie Barry has no idea. She thinks that it is all tickety-boo because on their planet over there everyone is doing just fantastically well. Everyone is doing so well and there are no problems out there in the community at all. Well in the real world these are the problems that this Budget creates for families—