SpeechDr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a great pleasure to take this call to support the Hon Nikki Kaye's bill the Education (Strengthening Second Language Learning in Primary and Intermediate Schools) Amendment Bill. This bill actually demonstrates the Hon Nikki Kaye's passion for the education sector. I know as a caucus colleague she is always passionate about the education sector but this bill shows how she wants to take this education sector to the next level. This is to equip our future generations to understand who we are. Yes our foundation is bicultural but we are a very very multicultural country. This bill is not just about languages; it's a lot more than that.As a person who is multilingual I understand the importance of speaking different languages and as a person who has children born here in New Zealand I also understand the importance of retaining those languages within our families—not just for the sake of speaking that language but for a lot more than that. So my boys went to day care because I always worked and slowly what happened—because eight to nine hours they spent in their day care centre—when I used to pick them up they would get the opportunity to spend only two to three hours with us so slowly English became their first language and our mother tongue became their second language. Then what happens with time in some families I know is that then English becomes their sole language. They completely forget their own mother tongue. So as I said before this is not just for the sake of learning another language it's a lot more than that as the Hon Nikki Kaye said. As a scientist myself I can say this that this definitely helps with cognitive skills development and we also know that when children learn a second language or more languages from a very young age they learn them really well. They learn them really well.So we want to make sure as the bill says it is for primary and intermediate school—that is years 1 to 8. That is the perfect age and that's where we want to target this. So for us it's not just about that. As we have heard from the member in charge of this bill we are a very very multicultural country. We speak more than 160 languages. Yes we talk about this quite often but what do we want to do with this? We want to make the most of this opportunity that is available to us because of us being so multicultural and so multilingual. We want to retain these languages and we want to go out and use these languages. So yes at a social level these languages are important for us; to understand other cultures these languages are important. But in the long run this understanding understanding of these different languages and ability over future generations to speak these different languages will also bring us economic benefits. We know we are a small nation. We are a trading nation and for us trade relationships with other countries matter. When people go out and speak in their own language then definitely that helps a creation of special bonds between people that are communicating. These kinds of skills are really important for us looking at the long-term prospect for us in New Zealand. I personally know a person who is from Christchurch very much a Kiwi person who speaks Hindi really well and in a very very I would say articulate manner. I remember my very first meeting with him and I have seen how many Indian friends he has here. This is because he worked for a number of years in India. He learnt that language and he understands the importance of retaining that language to communicate with people and business communities here in New Zealand. Now he is also using that language again—after coming back here to New Zealand—to communicate back with businesses in India. So it's that long-term vision that we need for us for New Zealand because we are becoming such a global place and we need to understand other cultures. We need to have the ability to speak other languages. I think this is a great bill and I really look forward to working on this bill with other members of the committee in the select committee process. Thank you.