Robson Matt: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Robson Matt: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:623;Page:18383] 
Hon MATT ROBSON (Deputy Leader—Progressive) 
: 
 The start of election year is a good time to reflect on the issues that most deeply interest people in our democracy. If New Zealanders relied on many media outlets and the Opposition parties they would not realise that reliance on welfare benefits—which skyrocketed under the Rogernomics policies of the 1980s and 1990s—has stopped mushrooming or that unemployment is at its lowest level in generations. It can only be hoped that this year’s media coverage of the election will step up a gear and focus on the real pressing issues of deepest and most widespread interest to the voting public. 
For most people the foremost social or public issue is about winning better access to education for themselves and their children. It is about access to affordable high-quality health-care especially for the young and the retired. For some of our families having the opportunity to own a home is the biggest ambition and most cherished dream they have. Pollsters tell the news media companies that those are the issues that readers and viewers care most passionately about. Those bread and butter issues of social justice are all invariably closely connected with a lot of other issues that might provide better TV pictures but in relation to which in truth politicians are much more likely to deliver hot air than real progress. I am talking about the law and order auction and about welfare and race relations which are used in the same way. 
We know that if we could get every single young adult into education training or a paid job with prospects then welfare dependency and crime would decline even further than they already have. We know that because under the Labour-Progressive coalition Government elected in late 1999 the number of people in employment has increased by a quarter of a million the unemployment rate has collapsed to 3.8 percent and the 1980s and 1990s explosion in welfare has been arrested with many indicators now turning positive. 
The Progressive Party is proud of all those steps taken for regional economic growth and for better and more effective health-care and education for all New Zealanders. But that does not mean there is not a long way to go to achieve social justice for all. For instance we cannot ignore any longer the iniquitous and burdensome student debt that is hampering our development and blighting the lives of hundreds of thousands of students past and present. Nor can we continue to turn a blind eye to the problem of adult illiteracy and functional illiteracy. 
In a survey of adult illiteracy in New Zealand in the late 1990s it was shown that the majority of Maori Pacific Island people and those from other ethnic minority groups are functioning below the level of competence in literacy required to meet effectively the demands of everyday life. Over half of New Zealand adults are operating at the level considered to be the requirement to meet the demands of everyday life. We are similar to the United States Australia and the United Kingdom but lag behind Sweden where close to three-quarters of the population is operating at a level at which they cope well with the demands of everyday life. Of particular concern is the high concentration of adults with very poor literacy—around one in five New Zealanders. In December 2004 a New Zealand Treasury paper found that there were five adult literacy levels with level 1—the worst—being illiteracy or poor functional literacy. A total of 26 percent of the population were in level 1 for either prose document or quantitative literacy and 15 percent were in level 1 for all domains of literacy. Out of a current population of 2.65 million people aged 16 to 65 a staggering 530000 people have literacy skill at level 1 and 45 percent of the working-age population is at level 1 or 2. Serious attention needs to be paid to this problem and the Progressives want to do that both in the present term of Government and following the next election. 
At present a non-Governmental organisation Te Wananga o Aotearoa with its Greenlight video-based programme is leading the way in overcoming illiteracy in New Zealand. It had 6000 students last year and has 6000 this year but it should not and cannot bear the burden. We in Government have to make sure that as part of our programme we pay serious attention to adult illiteracy in New Zealand.