Kaye NikkiHon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): Look I'm very pleased to speak on this bill but firstly can I just though take a moment to acknowledge all of those children and the families of those children who have been at partnership schools which are some of the most successful schools in New Zealand that have been terminated by the Minister of Education. He is driving through a piece of legislation that will remove a model of which the facts are very simple.Firstly iwi leaders are opposed to this. This Government has talked a lot about how much they care about Māori education. People like Sir Toby Curtis people like Dame Tariana Turia and people like Dame Iritana Tāwhiwhirangi—all of them have opposed this especially when there is a Waitangi Tribunal claim currently being processed. This Government is moving ignoring iwi leaders ignoring the families and ignoring these children and pushing through this legislation and ignoring the Waitangi Tribunal.The other thing that I would like to say is on those videos from those children. The facts are again that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Education post the election have not bothered once—not bothered once—to go and visit these partnership schools and they have been terminated and now this legislation is going through which removes the model. Many of those children have had really tough backgrounds. Many of the sponsors have worked for many years in education doing an incredible job. So it is a very sad day for New Zealand. That is why the National Party will bring back partnership schools. We will expand the model. We will provide opportunities for children with incredibly complex needs and that's why we oppose this legislation in terms of partnership schools.The second part of this legislation that we oppose is ultimately around accountability of achievement. We all believe in this House that actually what every parent wants to know is the progress of their child. But what we also understand—or most of us on this side of the House understand—is that in order to be able to be confident of a nationwide picture of achievement it is important to have information reported back to the centre to the Ministry of Education so that we can actually target some of our most vulnerable children who are in schools and so that we know where there are major numeracy and literacy issues. What the Government did—again it's part of their ideological agenda; it's part of what they do in terms of bad process—was late last year instead of consulting with the million parents out there about what they think in terms of reporting and school reports they scrapped national standards and now what this bill is doing is making sure that any reference to national standards is gone from law.The question that I have for the Minister is why didn't the Minister consider consulting with the million parents before he amended the guidelines last year? Why is it now that we have a situation where legislation is going through and he isn't confident that we're going to have individual reporting back to the centre to the Ministry of Education? How is it that he is confident that we will not be the laughing stock of the world in terms of not having a nationwide picture of achievement at an individual school level? Why is he confident of that? Why did he do it at the end of last year—again without that consultation of parents? That is again why the National Party opposes this bill.We want to work cross-party. We believe in a system of progression. I was the Minister actually that put that decision through. But instead of working across the House instead of accepting that we don't want to have a ping-pong between National and Labour in education and instead of working cross-party this Minister not only got rid of partnership schools by terminating the contracts but also pushed this legislation through despite huge opposition from parents and families and many iwi leaders but also has now removed every reference to national standards and hasn't put something to replace it with in terms of basic accountability of our education system.So I would like the Minister to stand up and talk to this House about why he doesn't believe that there should be that basic accountability around our education system and information that comes to the centre to the Ministry of Education so that we know where we need to put additional resource for some of our most vulnerable children. And I ask the Minister to do that again on the back of the fact that some of our most vulnerable children in New Zealand who have been at partnership schools are missing out as a result of this law.