Estimates Debate — Education and Workforce Sector (continued)

There are 8 hours and 55 minutes remaining in the debate. When we were last considering the bill, the committee was debating the education and workforce sector. The question is that Vote Education, Vote Education Review Office, Vote Labour Market, Vote Pike River Re-entry, and Vote Tertiary Education stand part of the Schedules. The Hon Iain Lees-Galloway moved that progress be reported, and the call is now available to him.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and it gives me great pleasure to rise during this debate to speak to a report which I don’t believe I’ve heard any member of the Opposition refer to, and that is the excellent report of the Education and Workforce Committee into the Estimates for Vote Labour Market. I am surprised that members opposite haven’t engaged in this part of the debate, because the honourable member Scott Simpson was a lion in the hearings. He was determined to make the case that this Government’s efforts to increase the minimum wage, to improve collective bargaining, to introduce fair pay agreements, to improve ACC outcomes, and to improve the immigration system were all going to destroy the New Zealand economy and that the result would be more people unemployed and fewer jobs.

Well, what have we seen in the weeks since that hearing—what have we seen in the weeks since that hearing? Possibly the reason why the members of the Opposition have said not a dickie bird about this part of the debate is that we have seen unemployment fall to its lowest level in over a decade—its lowest level since the last time the Labour Party was in Government—at 3.9 percent. We’ve also seen wages increase, hourly earnings increase, by 4.4 percent: the largest annual increase in over a decade, and you guessed it—that’s right—the largest increase since the last time the Labour Party was in Government. The truth is that no matter how much the National Party run around the country trying to fearmonger and scare business and reduce and undermine business confidence, the stats tell us that people are working, and that more people are working and they’re earning more for the time they spend at work.

We talked a lot at the committee about labour market productivity, and the National Party again tried to make the case that the changes that this Government is making are having an impact on productivity. Well, that’s not the case at all; the statistics tell us the truth. Our productivity has kept up with other OECD countries, but our labour productivity has been lower than the average of high OECD countries for some time. In fact, the report itself says that New Zealand has had—quote—“ ‘a bit of a conundrum around productivity’ for the last 10 to 20 years.” That conundrum is that we’ve followed neo-liberal theory for 30 years and we haven’t had the productivity gains that we were promised. So it is actually time for a new approach. It is actually time to deal with some of these long-term issues which have grown over decades, and that’s what this Government is doing, because we do have a productivity challenge in New Zealand. It’s been around for a long time. The last Government—the National Government—was not able to deal with it, because they didn’t make it a priority. This Government is making it a priority.

But the thing that really concerns me is that, whatever productivity growth we have had, wages have not kept up with it. So, as our economy has grown, the benefits of that economic growth have gone to a very few at the top whilst most middle and lower income earners have not been able to enjoy the fruits of that economic growth. That’s why this Government is pursuing changes to our industrial relations framework—not just the changes that we introduced through the amendments to the Employment Relations Act but our work on fair pay agreements, which is a significant piece of work, again to deal with those large problems that the National Party simply were not prepared to deal with.

I understand that Simon Bridges believes that if it’s hard, you shouldn’t do it. That’s what he said about fuel prices. There were no easy answers, so the National Party in Government didn’t deal with it. Well, it’s certainly the case that when it comes to labour productivity—improving productivity and improving wages and growing the number of jobs—there are no easy answers, and that’s why this Government is embarking on a significant reform of our industrial relations framework through fair pay agreements, because it’s hard but it’s necessary and it’s work that needs to be done. We won’t shy away from it just because it isn’t easy, and I say to people who are looking forward tonight to that work coming to fruition: these problems have taken a long time to grow and they will take a long time to solve, but this Government is committed to doing it.

So I’m going to say that I welcome this report. I think it’s an excellent report that demonstrates what this Government is doing to grow wages and to improve jobs in New Zealand.

I call—Jo Luxton. My apologies.

That’s all right. Thank you so much, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to take a call here—

💬 Marja Lubeck: You’ve been away a bit.

—yeah, I’ve been away a bit—tonight in this Estimates debate. I think I am the last member on this side of the Chamber, and in the committee, to take a call. So I am pleased to be able to do that. I was worried that I was going to miss it, having been away last week, when it all got under way, but I am here now.

One of the reasons that I came into this place, or that I put myself forward as a candidate, was that I was really passionate about our education system in New Zealand and had been involved, as an early childhood teacher and then later on as a centre owner, for over 20 years. The things that I had been seeing in the education system over the last 10 years were, I thought, heart breaking. So I’m really pleased to see a lot of the things that this Government is doing and putting in place for education and our education system. We know that we’re not going to be able to solve it all right away, but we’re getting started and we are making really, really great progress.

One of the things that I think is really fantastic is that we are spending the largest amount of any Government in school property. Another thing that’s really, really good about what’s happening in this space is that we’ve actually got a Minister of Education who’s forward thinking. He’s thinking beyond three years, beyond the election cycle, and looking forward into the future, even up to 30 years—into 30 years. We’ve seen the abolishment of charter schools. You know, I think it’s important to be progressive, but I don’t think it’s good to do that at the expense of our children and experiment with their education in such a way as what we have seen the previous Government do.

We’ve seen that the NCEA fees are not going to be charged any more, and what I think is really fantastic about that is the people who have got NCEA in the past are now going to be able have their qualification recognised, even though they weren’t able to afford their fees back then. That’s a real shame for those who had to go through that, who probably felt stigmatised and embarrassed because they couldn’t afford their NCEA fees, and now that’s no longer going to be an issue for them.

I’m really excited to see that we have had an across-the-board rise in funding for the early childhood sector. What we saw under the previous Government was cuts by stealth, with the removal of the 100 percent qualified funding ratios under the previous Government, but they gave us primary teachers, as compensation, which actually—no disrespect to the primary school sector or the teachers, but they were trained in a different way and not in the early childhood sector, so that wasn’t really gaining a lot in the area.

We know that there is a lot more to do here. We know that everywhere needs more funding and everywhere needs more money, but we can’t fix it overnight. We’re taking a balanced approach at how we can start to fix nine years of neglect under the previous Government. These are big issues. We are tackling the big issues. This is a Government that’s not afraid to tackle these big issues, and we’re seeing a lot happen in the education space.

One last thing I want to talk about is the increase in minimum wage. We had the Minister touch on that before—the increase in minimum wage. We heard people across the House screaming that businesses are going to go under, employment would go up, but what we’ve seen is the exact opposite. So I want to commend our Ministers and thank them for the opportunity that we had for them to come before our select committee, and I’m very much looking forward to what we see, going forward in the future, from this Government in the education and workforce space.