Willis Nicola; Dyson RuthNICOLA WILLIS (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. I was struck by the contradictions in Chlöe Swarbrick's speech in which she spoke of the value of localism and then championed a bill which absolutely defeats localism defeats regional control and puts absolute primacy on centralisation—on the Government knowing best and the regions not being trusted. That is why and on a fundamental level National opposes this bill. I reject the member's characterisation that what is most important here is a unified sector. Actually what National thinks is most important is students being served well our workforce being prepared appropriately businesses getting the skilled people they need and communities having the skills and training they need. We think those goals are far more important than some idea of unity and perfect centralisation. We absolutely reject that ideal.Now you have heard speakers on this side of the House address many of the challenges and problems that this bill will create for our tertiary sector. But sometimes the words of the Opposition aren't given as much credence as they should be.So I want to turn to the words of the Tertiary Education Commission an entity controlled by the Government who did a risk assessment of the proposals in this bill. Now what that risk assessment said was that the following risks were almost certain. Let me run you through them. The first was that there was an almost certain risk of extreme workforce disruption. In an economy which already has external threats and is slowing down under poor economic management extreme workforce disruption is the last thing that we need.The next thing that the Tertiary Education Commission warned was that there was an almost certain likelihood of a major drop in participation in vocational education—an almost certain risk of a major drop in participation in vocational education. That risk has been quantified. This is on-the-job training. This is the training that members around this House when we go and visit small businesses when we go and visit our trades people when we go and visit developers they say to us that this is what we need more of. They've quantified that the risk of these changes—in their programme business case they said that New Zealand could lose 1800 industry trainees; 1800. That is people who would be training on the job to get the skills they need for a growing economy doing the work that our businesses and industries need done. We're at risk of losing 1800 of them because of this job and furthermore 2310 apprentices. The people that we need to learn on the job and get the skills that they need to contribute to our economy won't have those opportunities because of this bill. Remember this isn't my assessment; this is the assessment of the Government's own Tertiary Education Commission.The third risk they warned of was that they said there was an extreme risk that the needs of industry and employers would not be met and that this would have an extreme impact—the needs of industry and employers won't be met. So instead we'll have this centralised entity running all of our polytechs and industry training the Government-knows-best model and actually the needs of industry and employers—the very people who will be employing the people being trained—won't be met. There will be a poor match up because of the loss of regional autonomy and that is very concerning indeed.The Tertiary Education Commission also warned that there was a likelihood that the needs of regions would not be met and that this would have an extreme impact exactly as we've been saying on this side of the House that contrary to Chlöe Swarbrick's assertion that this was some version of localisation actually the needs of regions won't be met. They also warned that it was likely the new model will not achieve the desired outcomes and that it would have an extreme and negative impact.This bill will be opposed by National because it is a typical Labour example of centralisation and Government knows best. We have grave concerns about the loss of regional autonomy. We have grave concerns that the regional leadership groups will be advisory at best and that there will be a significant loss of community-controlled assets. When I hear those numbers about the potential risk to those on in-the-job training I know that this bill will let down the businesses that I speak to regularly who tell me that what they need more of is employees and people coming through with skills that match the needs of their industry. They don't trust that a centralised polytech body will be able to deliver that. This is a terrible bill and National opposes it. Thank you.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): This is a split call. Jo Luxton.