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Of interest to school staff who have seen me about combating truancy is that every intermediate and secondary school in the country will access a new electronic student enrolment system by the end of term one 2006.
From now on when a school enrols a student, or when a student leaves for another school, schools will fill in a single electronic form over the internet. This central register of enrolment information will reduce the time taken to identify non-enrolling students.
Students who have been out of school for more than 20 days will be quickly and accurately identified by the system as non-enrolled and will trigger an alert for the Ministry of Education and other services to begin tracing them.
We need to be sure all students who should be at school are there. By automating this process and taking time delays out of the system, we will be more effective at getting students back into school.
An allocation of $4.8million in Budget 2005 means the system will be rolled out into every New Zealand intermediate and secondary school from 2006 and primary schools will be included later.
In 2003 there were about 6000 non-enrolments notified to the Ministry of Education and in 40 percent of cases the students were already enrolled in another school or had legally left the compulsory school sector.
The Government has announced a new package of measures to drive innovation within energy intensive small and medium size enterprises (SMEs).
By using simple no and low cost energy efficiency measures, most businesses should be able to more than offset the impact of the carbon tax that will be introduced from 2007, but some energy intensive businesses will need help to adjust.
The centrepiece of the package is a grants scheme. Pilot projects will be undertaken with firms in energy intensive sectors from 1 July.
Sectors covered by the package are: wood processing, food processing, basic metals, non-metallic industries, paper and paper products, tourism transport, glasshouse crops, fishing and irrigated dairy and arable farming.
Around 10 percent of SMEs can be classified as energy intensive.
The target industries and possible preferred technologies include:
- Wood processing - high efficiency motors, high efficiency fans, dehumidifier driers.
- Food processing - high efficiency boilers, heat recovery on refrigeration plant.
- Basic metals - high efficiency electric motors, induction furnaces.
- Non-metallic products - variable speed drives, high efficiency lighting.
- Paper and paper products - variable speed drives, high efficiency motors.
- Tourism transport - driver training, bio diesel powered vehicles.
- Glasshouse crops - high efficiency lighting and control, greenhouse management systems including control of venting with heating use, thermal screens, twin skin plastic construction.
- Fishing - heat recovery on refrigeration.
- Irrigated dairying - heat recovery on chilled milk vats, variable speed drives on motors, soil moisture measurement to regulate irrigation.
- Irrigated arable crops - soil moisture measurement to regulate irrigation, variable speed drives on pumps.
The number of children required to pay tax will be reduced from next April when the child tax rebate is increased from $156 a year to $351. The change, which will be included in the next tax bill, will increase the amount of income, excluding interest and dividends, that a child can earn tax free from $1040 to $2340 a year and could benefit up to 30,000 children.
Cost to the Government is estimated at $7.2 million a year but the rebate was last adjusted in 1983.
Prospective New Zealand citizens will be asked to prove their commitment to this country by waiting a bit longer for citizenship while New Zealand passports will be better protected under legislation passed in Parliament before it rose for the recess.
The Passports Amendment Act ensures New Zealanders can continue to travel on one of the best and most secure passports in the world, while the Citizenship Amendment Act tightens the criteria and vetting processes for New Zealand citizenship.
The standard period of residence in New Zealand to qualify for citizenship will increase from three years to five years. In addition, time spent in the country on temporary permits will no longer count as a qualifying period of residence for citizenship purposes.
Another important change is the requirement that citizenship be registered at birth. The change comes in order to limit New Zealand citizenship to the offspring of parents who are committed to this country.
A key provision of the new legislation is the reduction of passport validity from 10 years to five. The five-year validity period only applies to newly issued passports so existing passports can be used until their expiry date.
The legislative provisions will come into effect immediately after Royal Assent while the citizenship by birth provisions will come into effect on 1 January, 2006.
Finally I spent Anzac Day this year, my last as Wairarapa's MP, in Masterton and Carterton. This is always a very moving experience and serves as a reminder that war is a terrible waste of life - not only for those who die or are injured but for the loved ones left behind.
We shall remember them.
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