Fox Marama; Mallard TrevorMARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party): The Labour Party is going to have to do just that—run the campaign of its life—to turn this bus around because while there might be two new drivers the bus is still the same. I am pretty happy that Kelvin Davis is sitting shotgun in that bus because he might need a few bullets to put in that gun to make sure that this party does not throw Māori underneath that bus yet again. If we look at the history that is exactly what has happened over and over and over again. I have heard since I have sat in these benches: Oh the long 9 years." Well I tell you now it has been a long 150 years.As I travelled home from a tangi yesterday I was missing all of the adventure that was going on in the House but I got to watch the parliamentary channel on my phone—great app that one—and saw questions to the Hon Nikki Kaye Minister of Education talking about the decile system and getting rid of it. I have a bit of knowledge about our decile system. I know that I have taught in a decile 10 school where there was a pocket of decile 1 Māori students who were more at risk because they were in that school than they would have been had they been down the road in a decile 1 school. Why? Because if you had a population of less than 10 percent Māori in your school no matter what decile it was you had less of a chance of succeeding in that school whether it was decile 10 or decile 1. In fact you would have had a better chance of succeeding in a school that was decile 1 where the population of Māori was greater than 30 percent.That was a few years ago and things have shifted on thanks to the former Minister Hekia Parata. We are changing the decile system and I say that it is fantastic that the pūtea follows the child. You might have some decile 1 students in your decile 10 school—that is something that everybody understands—and the money will follow them not the environment that they live in or the neighbourhood that they come from. We had a decile 1 school where all of a sudden with new statistics the environment around it and the neighbourhood around it meant that we got changed to decile 2. We had to go back to the Ministry of Education and challenge that because the students were being bussed in from all over the place to come to our kura.So let us come to the predictive risk modelling. If we are looking only at what homes they come from if we are looking only at whether they have shoes if we are looking only at whether or not they can afford to have lunch that day we are looking at the wrong things. If you go to a school that does not support your language culture and identity you are just as at risk of failing than for any other reason.In fact you can go to Rakaumangamanga in Huntly which had the highest pass rates in this country bar no other school and it is a lower decile school with some of the worst problems that face a community but they have one thing—well they have a few things. They have language they have culture they have identity and they have overcome the stigma of the social deprivation and they have succeeded. Why? Because they put those things first. So if this predictive risk modelling does not include who is standing in front of that student what school they are going to whether they are mainstream or Māori-medium then it is not good enough. We continue to blame the families for the failures of the system and our children have been under-served by this system. They have not failed in this system on their own; the system of education in this country has under-served them.And that is what I want to talk about. If we make Te Reo Māori a core subject in this country then we will just be doing for the rising generation what they are already doing for themselves. They see that as value-add to this nation they see that as value-add to their own knowledge and they see that as value-add to part of being a Kiwi. And for those parties that believe that Te Reo Māori should not be spoken in this House I say "Shame on you." because it is the way of the future.So I want to say to the Labour Party: good move. Good move. You took a risk and it is the best tactical move that you have made to date in 3 years. That is what I think; that is a good move. But to those who say we need to step up our game if we want to be in a coalition with possibly a left-wing Government I say to you: "Mate we are a party of the future. Come and join us on our bus." We put our hand out to you because you will not be coming with us. We will be coming together for this nation. All of us need to be on the same bus.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member's time has expired."