Peachey Allan: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Peachey Allan: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:637;Page:7442] 
ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tamaki) 
: 
 I begin by thanking David Cunliffe for his words of welcome; I appreciated them. I also appreciated that the Minister would quote Ronald Reagan on leadership—well done! 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I think he quoted someone else’s quote! 
ALLAN PEACHEY 
: Ha ha! This is the first time in 7 months that I have risen to speak in the House. Through the efforts of outstanding medical attention and the love and support of my family I am back and very grateful to be back. 
I ask how dare the Prime Minister stand in this House and issue this statement claiming that after 7 years of her Government this is a fairer nation than it was 7 years ago. They are 7 years that for too many New Zealanders have been marked by mean-spiritedness by the strangulation of initiative and by the abrogation of individual responsibility. How dare she enter this House and claim that in the last 7 years educational achievement has been up? How dare she say that in the opening paragraphs of her speech? Yet we had to wait eight long boring tired pages before she got to the real point and admitted that a significant minority of New Zealand children are failing in our schooling system. 
Let me tell the Prime Minister about that minority—it is 30 percent of our children. Thirty percent of our children are failing to achieve the minimum literacy and numeracy standards in the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA). Does the Prime Minister not remember that in 2005 the Education Review Office reported to this House that 20 percent of New Zealand children were not experiencing success at school? 
 It was interesting to question the chief executive of the Education Review Office in the select committee and ask for the evidential base for that number. It did not have one. It turned out that it was basing it on international statistics. Well if the Education Review Office had taken the trouble to talk to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority it would have discovered that nearly 28 percent of children are not experiencing success at school. That is what the standards-based system of assessment enables us to do—to measure whether children are learning. When one adds those children who are allowed to fall through the system who do not even get to level 1 of the NCEA one is talking about nearly one-third of our children. 
The Education Review Office might have taken the time to talk to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority about Waverley High School. There has been no improvement in achievement for the children at Waverley High School. I have here the Education Review Office report of late 2005. This is what it states about NCEA achievement: “Those students who stayed on at school gained commendable results … compared with the national average for a decile 2 school.” In 2005 the Education Review Office said that about Waverley High School. When challenged it said to read between the lines. Well I have read between the lines and it still says the same thing to me: “Those students who stayed on at school … gained commendable results compared with the national average for a decile 2 school.” 
Now we find 12 months later that the New Zealand Qualifications Authority has banned Waverley High School from assessing NCEA. We discovered that teachers had been handing answers to students accepting incorrect answers and giving credit for work that had been plagiarised. The Prime Minister should never come into this House again and claim that education achievement is up when that is what is happening in our schools. 
Shane Jones 
: That was an isolated example. 
ALLAN PEACHEY 
: I suggest that some of the members opposite listen. They should just remember that from Northcote to Invercargill those members lost their seats. They lost their seats because they lost touch with the people of New Zealand. They should not forget that. 
I ask the Prime Minister what is fair about a nation when too often the street that a child lives in decides whether he or she gets to go to a good school. It too often decides whether children get to learn. Sometimes it is even one side of the street or one end of the street. And before members opposite mock that comment let me just remind them what the head of the Education Review Office said to the select committee last year in response to questioning from myself in the presence of the Minister. The Education Review Office admitted that it does matter what school a child goes to. Some children will learn because they are in a good school that makes them learn. Other children have no chance of learning because they go to a bad school. 
I ask the Prime Minister how that makes New Zealand a fairer or more just nation. What is fair about life in those communities where up to 90 percent of the children actively avoid the local school? Where is the fairness in that? What is fair for families who are trapped in Government sponsored poverty or to use the words of the man whom every New Zealander now recognises as the Prime Minister in waiting John Key families who are on this Government’s sponsored path to the underclass—sponsored by a Labour Government. 
Let me tell the Labour Government that I see in my electorate of Tamaki day after day the people whom Labour have traditionally looked to for support. They have had enough. The Government has taken them for a ride once too often. The Government has asked them to live in crime-infested streets for too long. They are sick and tired of sending their children to schools that the Government says they must send them to regardless of whether they are schools that make them learn. 
Why do some children live in families that are being denied the initiative the opportunity for self-reliance and the opportunity for self-responsibility by the State? Maybe it is time the socialist democrats over there took a hard look at themselves and asked whether that really was the vision of Michael Joseph Savage. Why are some families being denied simply by Government diktat the opportunity of sending— 
Hon Damien O'Connor 
: It won’t help Maori. 
ALLAN PEACHEY 
: Well I tell that Minister that he should get the Department of Corrections in order before he starts telling me about education. What is fair about a Government that leaves New Zealand children trapped in crime-infested streets? What is fair about a society where too many children have to survive in such streets just to get to school each day? They have to join gangs and get the protection of a group or fight with their fists just to get to school each day. What is fair about a situation when they get to school and it is more important for the school to find an excuse for why they do not learn than to ensure that they do learn? What is fair about that? 
What is fair about children who are trapped in a school about which the Education Review Office makes comments to the effect that the school’s NCEA achievement shows that in general Maori students are performing below national means? Of another school it comments about “the ongoing defiant behaviour of many students in most junior classes” and states: “the negative learning environments in many rooms prohibits effective teaching”. What is fair about that? 
There is nothing fair about the Prime Minister’s statement that New Zealand is a fairer nation than it was 7 years ago. The only fair thing about it will be the judgment of history. The only thing that is fair is that history will record that what the Prime Minister has said in this statement has been nothing more than the great lies of the early 21th century. History teaches us that the great lie of political leaders must not go unchallenged. We on this side of the House will not allow the Prime Minister’s statement to stand unchallenged and uncontested.