SpeechHon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Thank you Madam Chair. Well I tell you what: one of the most telling things about Nikki Kaye's speech to the House tonight with all of her carry-on about broken promises etc. etc. was that when she was challenged about what her Government did about all the issues that she was challenging this Government about she said the global financial crisis" which was 2007 and 2008. When did that Government cease? In 2017. So it was like: that is the same old line that continues to be used as to why her Government couldn't deliver the reforms that she keeps challenging this Government about—and it really blows that out of the water.This Government—and I'll say: new schools classrooms 100000 students 623 learning support coordinators; that's just the beginning. Financial pressure off parents by increasing funding to decile 1 to 7 schools so that they don't ask the parents for school donations removing the fees from NCEA and New Zealand Scholarship transitioning all of the charter schools to the State school system and investing in early childhood—as well as that on top of that vocational reform. This is real reform. This is about deep change in the education sector. It's actually looking forward 30 years rather than just the three-year cycle. It's actually what a real Government does. It's about the long term and—[Interruption] Oh they laugh on the other side because all they had to say was "Oh global financial crisis. That's why we couldn't do it." Well that's what your education spokesperson said anyway.Vocational reform: I want to talk about vocational reform because there's a really important message and a conversation that we need to be having in the public arena about vocational reform and that is around the fact that working with your hands—and we need to be delivering this message to young people—and learning a trade is important if not more important than getting a university degree. I wish that we could all say that out loud more and believe it because for too long trades and on-the-job skills training has played second fiddle to how we see success at school and later career choices. There are huge skill shortages in our country across many industry sectors—and I challenge that party over there to get up and say that that's not correct. If they are getting up and saying that it's not correct then why do we have so many long-term issues—deep issues—in our community? Actually I heard Nikki Kaye talk about principals crying; well I actually sat with a principal and a board of trustees last night and there were tears. The tears were about the last decade which produced social circumstances for so many children's environments that have ballooned into huge issues in our schools where deep change and long-term reform is absolutely necessary. And that's what this Government and that Minister Chris Hipkins are actually delivering.Just as an example of that—and we talk about the skills shortages in all the different sectors—the primary sector is actually one of those sectors that has been hollowed out and where you've seen the two agricultural colleges that have been in dire straits. How has that happened? Get up and defend that. I'd really like you to get up and defend it because it is indefensible. We've had to put a hundred million dollars into the vocational sector since we've been in Government—it's absolutely ridiculous. And what Chris Hipkins did a couple of weeks ago was to go down to Balclutha and announce that the Telford farm campus was going to get ongoing funding to let it get back on its feet. The Southern Institute of Technology is going to deliver that. This is just the beginning of the vocational reform that's absolutely fundamental."