Street Maryan: Budget Debate 
Street Maryan: Budget Debate 
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Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to speak in this Budget debate and my first port of call is a quotation from the Minister of Education who said in question time yesterday that the education budget would ensure that “… New Zealand is positioned to take advantage of the economic recovery as it happens.” 
At the beginning of the year and with much fanfare we heard of the Job Summit. We in the Labour Opposition only heard of it—not being invited to it—and we heard the promise that it would bring New Zealand quickly and early out of this recession. One of the main planks of the Job Summit was to do with upskilling the workforce. It was to do with taking existing and future workers young people and people already in employment and improving their skills their literacy and numeracy their trade skills and the kinds of skills that young people—young men in particular—acquire through trades training. Yet what we have in this Budget is exactly the opposite. We have cuts made to education in a way that will impede the development of young people the development of our labour force and the rapid recovery of New Zealand from this recession. 
Earlier this year the Minister of Education took an expensive helicopter ride to get an overview of the problems with education in the Auckland region; that action earned her the nickname of “Chopper Tolley”. In the wake of this Budget brought down last week “Chopper Tolley” takes on a whole new meaning. We see cuts being made to those areas of education that are often the areas that deliver quick and enduring skills acquisition to the widest possible range of our population. Surely that is what we need to do in a time of recession. This is the moment for a Government to invest in education and skills training to accelerate the country out of a very hard landing and out of having additional people on the dole queue. 
I want to begin with the universities and the approach to the universities that this Government has taken. First of all we see the vice-chancellors’ response and it is damning. It is not often that the vice-chancellors actually move in a bloc but when they do they are formidable. This is one of those moments and the Minister of Education would be wise to listen to them. Apart from simply disagreeing with them— 
Hon Member 
: Does she know what they do yet? 
Hon MARYAN STREET 
: I am not sure whether she knows what they do but she has probably been told by now. Instead of simply disagreeing with them she needs to listen to them because they have said—and they are not known for extravagant language; they are known for accurate and temperate language—that this Budget deals a body blow to the universities and that it represents lost opportunities. More than that they said it makes the future of universities and the Government’s contribution to universities doubtful. It makes the contribution from the Government and any commitment the Government has to universities uncertain. How can that be when the universities are the peak of training and education for people in this country? The higher-skilled people are the better they should be paid and that is where a high-skills economy should take its workforce. 
Somebody from one of the universities commented: “Yes this is a bleak Budget indeed. Does this cut in funding to our sector”—that is the university sector—“mean we will be forced to turn potential students away or increase fees so education becomes the plaything of the rich?”. Those are real possibilities for the university sector. There is much more to be said about the cuts to the tertiary education sector and as the students association said the brighter future of the National Party is now a distant glimmer. 
I want to move to the area of adult and community education. That is the area in which the Budget made the most savage chopping. Mrs Tolley who will go down in history as “Chopper Tolley” and not just for the helicopter ride has taken to the adult and community education sector with a vengeance. In fact newspaper reports that I have in my hand straddle responses from the length and breadth of the country. They describe the uproar that is happening in communities around this country as they register the 80 percent cut in Budget funding for this quiet community-based and effective delivery mechanism of tertiary education and skills acquisition to thousands of Kiwis. 
We could start with the  
Ashburton Guardian 
 editorial yesterday which gets it in one: “If ever the future literacy levels of New Zealand were placed in jeopardy it will be through such short-sighted cut-backs to community education funding as announced in last week’s Key Budget.” It goes on to state: “The Menorlue adult and community education centre at Ashburton College which caters for around 2000 people a year”—2000—“through 150 courses are anxious that they are going to be closed. They cannot see how they can remain in place with an 80 percent cut in their funding.” Fairfield College in the Waikato runs about 50 night classes each term. The five schools in the Hamilton area and Cambridge High School as well as Mr Deputy Speaker will know intimately cater to thousands of adult learners each year. They say that they are unlikely to be able to sustain these programmes for adults in the future. 
The list goes on: Kaikorai Valley College Logan Park High School Bayfield High School and Taieri College. They employ about 200 tutors. They offer affordable education to over 7000 adults a year. They will not be able to continue to do so. In the Manawatu 955 people are enrolled in 76 courses at Queen Elizabeth College. And on it goes. Whakatane High School is anxious about its programme aimed at a largely Maori population. The  
Westport News 
 says the local school is anxious about its ability to sustain its contribution to upskilling the workforce. 
But more than that we go also to industry training funding in the Budget. That funding supports skills acquisition on the job. The Budget has cut the CPI adjustment for 2010; that is $9 million gone. It talks about reducing growth in funding for—guess what—embedded literacy programmes so $2.6 million has gone from there. It talks about reducing the Industry Training Organisation strategic leadership fund; $3.5 million has gone from there. A total of $15 million has gone from industry training funding. But they are the people who have been strategically contributing to the Skills Strategy which was developed by the previous Government and has been junked by this short-sighted National Government. This is a travesty. This is the moment when there should be additional funding for skills training yet we are seeing a cut across all of those areas. Skills training could give us quick wins and quick gains by upskilling members of the workforce. This is a travesty.