Logie Jan; Borrows ChesterJAN LOGIE (Green): I rise to take a short call on behalf of the Green Party on the Education (Update) Amendment Bill to register again our opposition to this bill. This is yet another omnibus education bill that has some reasonable clauses in it and quite a few more that represent significant harm to our world-class education system. I have to acknowledge up front that I am not the Greens' education spokesperson and this is not a usual area for me to be speaking on. But I am aware of our particular concerns about online learning and the way that the Government has been representing it as getting up-to-date digital learning yet when you understand some of the content of the bill you realise that it actually has nothing to do with digital literacy at all but is apparently just opening up and creating a new market for education. This for us is a real concern particularly the provisions as mentioned by others that this will enable full-time online learning for children from the age of 5 when you know connecting to other people learning how to interact in the world learning how to ask questions and clarifying information from other people and learning how to do that in a way that people will respond to are core life lessons that are learnt seamlessly in our education system at the moment through the interaction with other students and the teacher. This bill potentially removes that from children's educational journey and puts the primary relationship of those students as being with a screen. It is hard to see how that is going to enhance their learning let alone their skills for life. I do not think the goal of opening up a new market in education is really one that overrides the welfare and the educational integrity of the system for our children—it really does not for us. I was paying particular attention to the speech previously from New Zealand First's Tracey Martin and to some of the other concerns that she raised on reading the regulatory impact statement about the potential removal of staff and principals from boards of trustees in the situation of amalgamations and the boards of trustees selling off services. Again it does seem to be about the money and not the kids and not the strengthening of our education system. I also note in here that it will enable private schools to be able to get more money from the taxpayer when we have had this diverse educational system for quite a long time. I remember one of the first things that this Government did when it came into power was to take money away from adult education and to open it up for the equivalent amount of money to go into private schools. At the time I had a real problem with that because we have this great State sector which is world leading that needs some love—that really does need some extra resource in there to support those schools to be able to help the kids who are coming into the classroom with a lot of disadvantage which could be ameliorated in the classroom context if more resource was put in. This seems to be again removing that money and that opportunity for us to get around those kids and support their learning and it is putting that resource instead into the private sector which does not sit with our values and I do not think sits with the values of most New Zealanders who care deeply about all of our kids having a good education and all the opportunities in life. Thank you.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: A 5-minute call on behalf of the ACT Party—David Seymour.