Hipkins ChrisEDUCATION (PASTORAL CARE) AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingHon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I move That the Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 3 December 2019 and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting—except during oral questions—during any evening on a day in which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside of the Wellington area despite Standing Orders 191 193 194(1)(b) and (c).Recent events prompted this legislation—recent tragic events have prompted this legislation. I think all of us across the House would have been very concerned to have learnt of the situation of Mason Pendrous a student at Canterbury University who was found in his hall of residence sometime after his death—quite sometime after his death. I met with Mason's family. I want to acknowledge them. I want to acknowledge how difficult that situation has been for them. They're a very humble family. They didn't ask for very much from the Parliament. They asked simply that we take steps to ensure that no family finds themselves in the position that they have found themselves in and this bill I think fulfils the commitment that I made to them that we would certainly do that. Immediately following learning of that particular incident I asked the Tertiary Education Commission to contact every tertiary education institution in the country that offers student accommodation and asked them to immediately check on the welfare of all of the students living in student accommodation. Some of those had already taken steps to do that having seen the media coverage; others were slightly slower off the mark but eventually did so. I also asked the commission to check what pastoral care arrangements were in place at halls of residence throughout the country. The preliminary outcomes of that inquiry suggested to me that the quality of arrangements in place around pastoral care is highly variable throughout the country. I want to be clear here that there are some gold standard examples of providers who have in place very robust mechanisms both to check on the welfare of the students who are living in the halls of residence and to escalate and deal with any concerns or issues should they arise. Others I am not so convinced that those systems are in place. The origins of this debate go back to 2005 when the universities in particular mounted a case that halls of residence and hostels operated by tertiary education providers should be excluded from the Residential Tenancies Act. As part of that they made a commitment to adopt a voluntary code of practice. That voluntary code of practice was adopted. Not all tertiary providers offering student accommodation signed up to it. And over the 15 or so years that have elapsed since then the code has effectively fallen into abeyance. Some of the monitoring regimes that existed around the code were effectively scrapped in cost-cutting measures and we've seen in that time significant contracting out of the provision of student accommodation to third-party providers. It is clear that we need a much more consistent regime around the pastoral care of students living in halls of residence throughout the country. Students living in halls of residence more often than not are first-time tertiary students. They are often school-leavers who are moving out of school and moving away from home for the first time and yet they or their parents are paying a premium for that accommodation on the basis that there is pastoral care associated with it. I want to make sure that they can be sure that that pastoral care is going to be provided and that where any issues are identified they are swiftly dealt with. I cannot hand on heart say that that is the situation at the moment and that is completely unacceptable. The arrangements and protections that exist in place for domestic students living in a hall of residence now are lower than for an international student living in the same hall of residence and they are lower than a student living in a flat that is rented under the Residential Tenancies Act. That is completely unacceptable and this bill will fix that. The bill will put in place a code of practice for the pastoral care of domestic tertiary students. It will allow for an interim code to be put in place for the beginning of the next academic year whilst a more robust consultation process is undertaken to develop a new permanent code that I think can be in place in time for 2021. I think that it is only right that students and their families should have a reasonable expectation that pastoral care will be supplied and that we will make sure that that happens. I do not accept the argument that has been put forward against these changes—that bringing everybody up to a minimum standard will be costly and that these costs will be passed on to students. Students in halls of residence are already paying a premium for the accommodation that is supplied. It is completely unacceptable for those providers to be cutting costs and cutting pastoral care in order to maximise profits at the expense of the pastoral care that they are being contracted to provide. The bill enables me as the Minister of Education to issue a code of practice. It sets out arrangements relating to the administration monitoring compliance and enforcement of the code; offences; penalties; and dispute resolution. New offences for providers responsible for serious harm or the death of students and pecuniary penalties for serious breaches of the code with a liability in each case up to a maximum of $100000 are set out in the bill. Other than the new offence and penalties provision the bill does not propose to change the existing code of practice for the pastoral care of international students at this time and the transitional provisions in the bill carry the existing arrangements forward. Transitional provisions also enable the interim code for domestic students to be put in place between 1 December 2019 and 1 January 2021. This will ensure that the domestic tertiary and international students have protections in place next year. I've indicated already that my intention is to base the interim code on the voluntary code that was developed in 2004 and 2005 and that has subsequently fallen into abeyance.Finally I do want to acknowledge Shane Reti and the members of the Opposition for the conversations that I have had with him on this matter and his willingness to work with me to make sure we get this right. I think we owe it to all of those thousands of students who are living in halls of residence throughout the country at the moment that we do get this right and that we do act swiftly. And so I particularly want to acknowledge the member and thank him for his cooperation in that regard. I never ever want to be in a position where I have to have a meeting like I did two weeks ago with Mason's family. I don't want any other Minister or other public official to ever be in that position ever again. This bill I'm confident will put in place a much more robust arrangement around the pastoral care of students living in halls of residence. I think it is the right thing to do and I welcome the support across the House for it.