Hipkins ChrisHon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): It's a great pleasure and a privilege to speak on Jan Tinetti's bill. I want to congratulate her on having it drawn from the ballot. It's also interesting to follow on from that somewhat confused rambling contribution from Tim Macindoe the member who just spoke. On the one hand he said that there's nothing particularly controversial about this bill and therefore it should be say part of a statutes amendment bill and then on the other hand he said that they're going to vote against it. So actually that means it can't be part of a statutes amendment bill. A basic rule of Parliament is that statutes amendment bills require unanimity in order to be able to be passed so by his own admission it can't be part of a statutes amendment bill. He then went on to say that it's too hard for the select committee and they're going to have to do too much work and that it's going to be completely unacceptable that they might have to actually earn their money. I say that that's actually the job that all of us in this Parliament are here to do. Therefore listening to people through a select committee process is actually inherent in the democratic system and therefore is a positive thing. Now I do acknowledge that we are sending to the Education and Workforce Committee quite a bit of legislation at the moment. They of course have the ability to hear submissions on different bills that cover broadly similar topics at the same time. In fact I have been involved in select committee hearings where the committee has invited submitters to deliver submissions on different bills at the same time for the purposes of making it a more efficient hearing and also for the convenience of the submitters. So there's nothing wrong with doing that. This is a very good bill. Now why is it a good bill? Well first of all it aligns the goals in the Education Act 1989 inserted by the previous National Government with the goals in the New Zealand Curriculum. This was something that was strongly urged to the previous Government by many of the people who went to the trouble of submitting on the Education (Update) Amendment Bill at the Education and Science Committee as it was then. The curriculum is prized and treasured throughout New Zealand's education system because it basically has the support of young people of teachers of parents of employers—of all of the major stakeholders in the education system. There is a huge degree of support for the curriculum and the curriculum has a very strong sense of purpose and basically a very strong statement of the objects. So what this does is it aligns the object of the Act with the objects in the curriculum. So I can't see what the harm of doing that is. In fact I think that that is a very useful thing to do. But actually the section of this bill that I am most in favour of—and I say this as a Minister of Education who is now going to be subject to this—is that under the Act as passed by National when articulating or developing a statement of National Education and Learning Priorities the Minister can consult with whomever they think fit. So the Minister could decide that they just want to consult with a couple of teachers that they like or they might want to consult with their family or whoever and that would be OK because under the law that's sufficient. Under this bill the Minister must—must—consult with children and why would they not? The decisions that we make around the education system are all about children so they should have a voice in that. It also makes clear that we need to consult with teachers principals school boards of trustees—of course made up of parents—early childhood services and parents. Why would we not consult with those groups? As the Minister of Education I don't think I would be doing my job properly if I didn't consult with those groups. Therefore I'm very pleased to see this being added into the Act. The final thing I want to talk about is the final clause of the bill which makes the statement of national education and learning priorities a disallowable instrument. What that means in effect is that the Parliament will have the opportunity to scrutinise it. We are giving through the Education Act a significant delegated power to me the Minister of Education—and if it was a National Government to whomever on that side of the House filled that role—and I think there should be some parliamentary scrutiny of those decisions. In setting a statement of National Education and Learning Priorities I would effectively be setting the direction for the whole education system so why should the Parliament not have the opportunity to scrutinise that? In another set of circumstances it might be primary legislation—i.e. the House might get to vote on it. In this case the House is delegating to me the ability to set it. Therefore I think it's only appropriate that through the regulation-making scrutiny provisions we have in the House the House gets to scrutinise what I've finally come up with. So this is a much more democratic system. It's a much more transparent system and I think it's going to lead to a better outcome.