Kaye NikkiEDUCATION (TEACHING COUNCIL OF AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND) AMENDMENT BILLIn CommitteeDebate resumed from 11 September.Part 2 Consequential amendments to other enactments (continued)Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): It's an absolute privilege to be here debating another piece of legislation on education. Can I acknowledge where we're at. Obviously the National Party does not support this piece of legislation. We have talked extensively in this committee about the history of the Education Council. There were several reviews in part derived out of serious issues of processes of the previous body particularly around the sex offender situation but also there were some financial issues in terms of the council.We are dealing with the consequential amendments section in this part of the bill. As I've already mentioned I'd asked a range of questions that I would have liked the Minister of Education to respond on. A number of people made submissions about using the word Teaching" versus "Teachers" and I would really ask the Minister to give us his view on that. I've also raised the issues around the word "Aotearoa" and what is in the title versus what may be in those rules. I also just want to in the next 3½ minutes deal with the schedule—so I am shifting on to the schedule—and talk about transition.Can I take a moment to acknowledge the chair of the Education Council. What a fantastic person she is. Barbara if you're listening thank you for the work that you and the council have done so far. You've done a huge amount of work over the last period to really take the profession forward.What a number of people submitted—and it was interesting around the transition because of course we oppose this body; we believe in a skills- and competency-based entity. But they did argue not only for continuity of membership—and I'm looking at the departmental report and advice—but also for potential staggered turnover of appointed members. Now again the Education Council themselves actually argued for that continuity of membership—they argued and submitted and again I quote that existing members could support incoming members through that process—but also this discussion about staggered turnover. It was actually both the Education Council and the Post Primary Teachers' Association (PPTA) who submitted on the staggered turnover of appointed members. The ministry's response to that was that staggered turnovers are one option for managing the transition to a new council. It's particularly useful where all of the appointments do not need to commence on the same day. In the case of the new council officials do not consider this approach to be appropriate because the appointed members are intended to address any gaps in skills.I'm sure that we may hear that from the Minister but the reason that this is particularly relevant and I just would ask him to potentially comment on it is because when we get to the title and commencement—don't worry I don't know that we're going to be here for hours but just when we do have that discussion—this issue is how you manage the transition. Even if we don't support the policy how do you ensure that the skills and the love and aroha that have been given by people into this body is transferred to the next entity but also that there really is effectively a legitimate birth and that there might be an opportunity to pass on those skills in a staggered way?I think what the Minister has instead really proposed is to get rid of it. Obviously there'll be elections and then obviously there will be appointed members. I am just sort of pleading with him and asking him whether at this stage he could reconsider some other process that supports the existing members but also just acknowledge the PPTA and the Education Council and their submissions to the Education and Workforce Committee on this issue.Again the other point that I would ask—and I raised it in my last call on this bill—is that we really don't know the exact cost. We've had estimates of the costs of this. This matters when we're talking about transition. It does matter how much we think this election process is going to actually cost. I just would love him to comment more on whether he's had some additional advice that maybe the select committee hasn't seen. Is it about $700000? Is it $1 million? We know that $700000 for instance could pay for 30000 teacher-aide hours. But if you could just give us a little bit more advice on that I would really appreciate it. Thank you very much."