Pugh MaureenMAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much Mr Chair. I too am grateful for the opportunity to stand and speak to the Education (Vocational Education and Training Reform) Amendment Bill today in the committee of the whole House. I'm going to speak in support of Tai Poutini Polytechnic on the West Coast and probably in a different position to that of some of my colleagues who have spoken today. It's not particularly well-endowed with asset or cash reserves but it's certainly a very integral part of the needs of training and education on the West Coast.The main concern that I have about this particular bill is the way that it strips the autonomy from our local decision makers around skills trade and learning opportunities. For instance we know that the proposal is that there will be an advisory group set up that there will be some advisory role there but I would argue that we need that advisory position to be regional—so a regional advisory group or committee that involves the stakeholders from that local community including the employers maybe local government and local iwi because they are the ones that know the needs best. At the moment this bill does not appear to have an advisory role that can be initiated locally so that we can actually initiate some suggestions and advice that are local because as we all know centralisation of ideas is not always applicable as a blanket across this country. We need to take note of the specific needs of rural communities across this country.It's not just the centralisation of the polytech. We see that at Tai Poutini along the West Coast where it's not just the one thing that is being taken and being centralised but it is actually the cumulative effect of a whole lot of stuff that is being centralised and taken away from local communities.When I was listening to my colleagues speaking earlier—my colleagues Stuart Smith and Jonathan Young—talking about the valuable assets that have been accumulated by the various polytechnic institutes around New Zealand and the way that their assets were actually bequeathed to those communities is very much like the same scenario that we're seeing with the racing reforms where those assets which are gifted and supplied and maintained and fundraised by local—Hon Scott Simpson: Over generations.MAUREEN PUGH: —over many generations thank you Scott Simpson—that these have been accumulated and built and owned by those communities for many generations and then in one fell swoop of a reform bill can be seized by the Government.Now I've seen the same thing happen in smaller communities even with our local playcentres where a central body comes in and seizes assets that have been built and funded by local communities. I argue that this is totally immoral and I think that the Government needs to rethink how it seizes these assets out of these communities.But as I talked before about the cumulative effect we're seeing the same thing happen with local racing clubs we're now seeing it with our polytechnic and in my area we've seen it with the removal of our ability to do small things—I'll use whitebaiting as an example. It's not just the one thing that happens to us; it is the cumulative effect of a whole lot of policy coming down on us.Before I finish my contribution I would just like to ask the Minister in the chair about the likely cost of this because we know it is a sector that is particularly under some financial stress and this is definitely going to impose more cost on that sector. I need some reassurance from the Government that it is going to be well-funded if it is going to be implemented and that it is going to deliver for the people in the regions. We are totally reliant on these training organisations to deliver the pipeline of skills that we are going to need to maintain our local industry. If it's not funded well it won't be delivered well and that pipeline gets a kink in it—and we can't afford to have that happen in this country. Thank you very much Mr Chair.