Kaye NikkiHon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): Look I'm pleased to take a call in this general debate. The first thing that I would say is: you know they're worried. You know they're worried when they spend most of their general debate speech talking about the Opposition.Firstly the last Government had a very different set of circumstances. We had the global financial recession. We had the Canterbury earthquakes. But despite that we saw results in education. We saw achievement be lifted. We saw Māori and Pasifika students having higher achievement. We saw the largest ever capital infrastructure investment cleaning up a decade of neglect under the last Labour Government. But we are looking to the future.It is the case that this Government has had more opportunities than ever before but they have broken a number of promises. We have a website where people can go and have a look at that at . The reality is that they promised a whole lot and they haven't delivered—whether it's early learning 100 percent qualified whether it's every child having digital devices or whether it's career plans in schools.So what we're proud of as well is that today we released over 100 policy proposals and questions in education because we want to engage with the sector. We want to engage with parents and principals.But what we also know is that on the other side in a number of the key areas in education they have mucked it up—whether it's a flawed donation scheme that people see as confusing and inequitable or whether it's the learning support roll-out that is seen as flawed and not getting to the children that need it most. So what we've done is we've tried to work collaboratively where possible in areas like NCEA and Tomorrow's Schools.But we have we believe some of the best solutions to tackle those long-term issues for New Zealand. Whether it is investing earlier in the first 1000 days of life—Nic Willis has done amazing work on looking at enhancing screening. Whether it is ensuring that we tackle those short-term supply issues in early learning—we've got some positive policies and ideas in this area. Whether it is ensuring that we do crack down where there are serious licensing issues because parents deserve to have safety when it comes to their small children.But we're also very focused on the quality of teaching and learning. What we saw with Tomorrow's Schools in our view is too much of a focus on the administration. We've seen it in vocational learning this sort of ability of the Minister to be very focused on building the centre and focused on officials. When it comes to that area of our document in teaching and learning we are unashamedly saying that as a nation we need to lift the value of teachers in society. So we are talking about greater incentives to be teachers. We're talking about greater incentives for teachers to come back into the profession. We also have proposals in there around reforming teacher training because what we know when we look at all of the OECD work is that high-performing systems are rigorous around their selection criteria for teachers. We know whenever I sit down with a principal often they'll say to me Nikki look there are some people that don't have the disposition to teach." We've got some policies in the document that are looking at that.We unashamedly want to have a debate about our curriculum and the curriculum resources whether that is the amazing work that the House of Science does in Tauranga—and thank you very much Chris Duggan for all that you do—whether it is ensuring that more children read. We need a reading revolution in this country. We've dropped from being the best country in the world in terms of reading and we need to make sure that we support our teachers in teacher training but also that there is more support for organisations like Books in Homes that parents are focused on reading to their children.We also want to see fewer educators spending time in administration and the Minister can talk about school property all he wants; the reality is that he said himself they've funded only 50 percent of the growth funding needed to get ahead of growth in New Zealand. We talk about a new Crown entity in school infrastructure—guaranteed legislated times in terms of school rebuilds new classrooms. And we are unashamedly focused on reducing the workload of teachers in primary schools. That's why under National today we have announced draft student-teacher ratios in primary schools. That is smaller class sizes. That means less workload for teachers. That means more of a focus on the curriculum.We know it's going to be challenging to get there. That's why we have policies such as incentivising people to come into teaching. When it comes to the tertiary area we are unashamedly wanting to have this debate about how we have lifelong learning but also how we get more disadvantaged young New Zealanders into tertiary education. So I will not take a lecture from the other side when the reality is that under the fees-free first-year programme there is not the participation or disadvantaged young people getting into tertiary education.We are a busy Opposition. We've got some plans. We are fit for Government. I look forward to being Minister of Education in 12 months' time."