Stanford EricaERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker and happy New Year. I'm pleased to rise to contribute to this debate the first reading of the Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa) Amendment Bill. Can I just acknowledge some of the passionate speakers from across the floor here. I listened intently and I respect their views and there was a lot of passion. I had hoped to come back this year to that level of passion in education bills that were perhaps talking about what is going to be replacing NCEA perhaps the decile system and definitely what we're going to do with charter schools.Because when it comes to passion well I could stand here and go on for a very long time about charter schools. I won't but I would just like to say that in my electorate this week I've got Vanguard Military School students coming back for the new year at school. The new recruits are coming back. Some of them are getting up at 5.30 in the morning to travel on a train and two buses to get to school in their immaculate uniforms. They're proud of their school they're proud of their achievements but they are terrified about what is going to happen to them next year when their schools are due to be closed. I wish that we were standing here having some positive news about those charter schools or what's replacing NCEA. Instead what we get is this Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa) Amendment Bill.This is a case of the Government saying Out with the old and in with the older." and unfortunately in this case the older is a flawed model that was found wanting by an advisory group and by a review. This bill seeks to bring back the Teachers Council of 2002 a council that in 2010 was described by the Education Workforce Advisory Group as lacking "capability and the capacity to carry out its functions and it was not best placed to carry out its functions. It had no ability to self-regulate to self-review and it was not the best body to serve teachers."We need to remind ourselves of why these changes took place. Not only were there serious difficulties with the Teachers Council but there were financial irregularities as well requiring the previous Government to bail them out. A subsequent review saw changes of membership of the council. It was identified that there was a need for highly competent people with skills knowledge and experience to lift the quality of teaching and leadership. At this point I would just like to point out to Ms Luxton who was so passionately talking about the need for early childhood education people on that board that Clare Wells who's on the board has been the chief executive of New Zealand Kindergarten. So actually there are people who are on this board currently who have the skills the experience and the knowledge to run a council that is actually achieving things for teachers. So we moved away from that older model that was an elected member approach to a skills and competence approach and as Nikki Kaye said the council are doing a stellar job.Hon Tracey Martin: Ah the democratic model. Careful—you don't want democracy to get in the way of a good dictatorship.ERICA STANFORD: Democracy—much like the waka-jumping bill that we've had earlier. This current bill is a giant leap backwards. It is forgetting the learnings of the past ignoring the findings of the review and this bill seeks to undermine the importance of skills knowledge and experience to put us back in a place in time where we had no confidence in the Teachers Council. Mr Hipkins' proposal to continue to appoint just six members to create better representation simply isn't good enough.Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 10 p.m."