Parmar ParmjeetDr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. That was a load of nonsense—just a load of nonsense. I am taking this call to strongly—I'm saying strongly—oppose this bill the Education Amendment Bill. I've never seen any member doing such a big U-turn after just a few months' time. Before this election Willie Jackson was saying that he would resign if partnership schools closed. Today he got up to give this big explanation and to tell us how his partnership school did and he said that the students were doing better. The students were doing better but they had to work harder and that's the reason they don't support partnership schools. So it's not about students; it's not about students' performance; it's not about us putting in that hard work to help students to do better in their life; it's all about them because it is the Government's stance. He has been forced to stand up and take this call. We can tell that in the way he has done a U-turn in this situation. It's really embarrassing. He challenged my colleague Nuk Korako. Nuk Korako is here standing with senior Māori educators. It's that member who doesn't stand with those senior Māori educators. I have never seen someone undermining senior Māori educators like the member did just now. Why would they care about them because now they're in Government? Before the election they were desperate to get into Government. They wanted to get that extra percentage of votes and that's why they were saying everything to please those voters. But now yep they're in Government. Why would they care about the support that they received from Māori voters? They don't. This is their real side. This has exposed their real side and this is really sad.Māori MPs in the Labour Government said that they would resign if partnership schools were closed and now we have seen one member who stood up doing this big U-turn saying that he supports the Government stance. We are here standing with Māori educators and we are here standing with 1500 students—those who are doing really well in partnership schools. We could see that they can reach their potential through these schools. Yes we agreed with the ACT Party to bring partnership schools in. The legislation was passed in 2012 and yes we had 12 schools in this short time since 2012 and the schools were giving us really good results. So we wanted to try this model and we did and the model was working and we are against the removal of this model from our education system. It was clear to us that the mainstream was not working for the students and we wanted to provide them with another education model. What's wrong with that? Why would you put these students back in the mainstream where we know that they were not able to reach their potential?This Government as I heard from the Minister of Education before said that actually they're not closing—well there is no continuity for partnership schools because what is happening is that all these schools have been approved to be transitioned into State-integrated schools. It's not the same thing. There's a big difference in the two education model systems because they're going to lose that flexibility that they have around teaching resources and the flexibility that they have around the governance model. That was the key thing in partnership schools that actually worked and we want to retain that. That's why National is really proud to say that we will bring partnership schools back because we care about these students. We want to see all students including Māori Pasifika and other disadvantaged students doing well in their life. They are taking away this model from a society and the end result will be that these students are going to suffer and then the whole community is going to suffer because if a future—that is if children don't do well the whole community and whole nation suffers. The other point in this bill: national standards. That is again another tool that was put in place by the previous National Government. We care about precise reporting systems because we want to see how students are doing in the big picture but the Minister the Hon Chris Hipkins was saying that actually if parents want to see where their child is at in a competitive model that is not helpful. So instead of going out and consulting with parents on what kind of reporting system parents want the Minister is actually telling parents what kind of reporting system he's going to deliver. So this Government doesn't care about parents. They don't care about students' performance. They don't care about consulting. They don't care about the select committee process—because as the chair of the Education and Workforce Committee I know the process we had to follow—and they don't care about the Māori voice. They have undermined that strong voice. It is because of that—those senior very very respected members were pleading in the select committee and when nobody heard they went to the Waitangi Tribunal. And again they have undermined their claim that is still outstanding. We have this third reading that means this bill will be passed. The other thing I want to bring to everybody's notice is with every piece of legislation it's a requirement that we test our legislative content. This report here—which I have a departmental disclosure statement—is dated 30 January. One of the things which was looked for in this bill as is done for other bills as well is consistency with the Government's Treaty of Waitangi obligations. Yes we have this obligation under the Treaty of Waitangi to see that it is in line with our obligation under the Treaty of Waitangi. This was prepared on 30 January and it was in June when the Crown was served that notice of the Treaty of Waitangi claim.I haven't seen this redone. Why hasn't this been redone? Why hasn't the assessment been done again? We have heard no explanation from the Government or the Minister if the criteria is fulfilled given the current circumstances. We're really disappointed because this bill is actually going to damage our education system. Parents want to see where their child is whether they are at national standards they're below national standards or they're above national standards. And if there is a child performing below national standards they can set goals to help their child to go to that level of the national standard. Or a child that is at national standards can be helped to improve to do better—that is to get above national standards. What's wrong with setting such goals? What's wrong? Nothing. So this Minister is going to take away that aspiration from students to do better and aspiration from parents to help their children do better in school because the reporting system that the Minister wants to put in place means nothing—means nothing.So we are disappointed. Since we started the first reading of this bill—yes we opposed this bill but by the third reading the list of reasons why we are opposing it has grown. There are more compelling reasons which I have already talked about including the Treaty of Waitangi claim.Then another component in this bill is about the fees-free education. So the Minister is introducing a new offence. Yeah. So they didn't think about the policy properly before the election because so close to election they just wanted it to be a vote-grabbing thing. Yes they did that. They might have got some votes out of that at the cost of $2.8 billion of taxpayers' money. Now he's realised actually yeah some people can misrepresent themselves and take advantage of that system that is available for free so we should have some kind of offence. What kind of homework did he do where he introduced the policy first and now he wants to have this new offence introduced in this legislation?He didn't think about the unintended consequences and now we don't have the data because we don't know what kinds of degrees people obtained 15 or 20 years ago. We don't have any electronic data for 20-30 years ago about what people did. So there is no way the ministry is going to be able to verify the information. So for the Minister to stand up and say actually that No there is no data suggesting that people are misrepresenting."—who's going to believe that? There is nothing that the Minister can verify it against—there is nothing. So that is why this new offence is created by the Minister. And again the new offence that is created by the Minister is a joke—up to $5000.I think the Minister doesn't realise that when you give something out for free at a cost of $2.8 billion of taxpayers' money you have to be more accountable. He doesn't want to be accountable for anything. He doesn't want to be accountable for a free education system he doesn't want to be accountable for a reporting system and he doesn't want to be measured for his own performance. That is why he has taken away this national standards system of reporting because at the end we can clearly see how many children are at national standard how many children are above national standard and how many children are below national standard.The Minister didn't want to be measured using these national standard achievements for his own performance. That is the reason the Minister is getting rid of national standards. It's a big cover up. It's nothing about education. It's nothing about student's performance. It's nothing about parents. It's the two-way street between unions and the Labour Party. They're just looking after each other and we are disappointed. I strongly oppose this bill. Thank you."