Simmonds PennyPENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Thank you Madam Speaker. I rise to speak in favour of the Education (Strengthening Second Language Learning in Primary and Intermediate Schools) Amendment Bill second reading and I acknowledge that it is a member's bill in the name of the Hon Paul Goldsmith but also like other speakers I acknowledge the enthusiastic work that has been done by Nikki Kaye on this.As we've all noted Labour previously supported National's second language learning bill and it's extremely disappointing that they won't continue to support the bill despite everyone talking about the research showing the benefits of learning a second language and actually the earlier learnt the better. I am intrigued and inspired by the number of our colleagues on the other side of the House that have said how many languages they speak. As a country we languish so far behind other countries in terms of the number of languages that many of us can speak. When I was learning German at high school I had a German teacher who spoke six languages fluently and he would impress upon us that this was not unusual at all; in fact most of his classmates spoke eight languages fluently and he was considered something of a slow learner! As someone who tried and struggled to pick up both German and Latin at high school and then te reo Māori at tertiary level I wish I had had the opportunity to learn languages much earlier.As I speak about learning te reo Māori at tertiary level I can't help but mention the wonderful staff of Te Wānanga o Aotearoa especially the wānanga staff at Southern Institute of Technology (SIT) who over the last 20-odd years in conjunction with SIT have taught te reo Māori classes to thousands of people in Southland. I acknowledge the wonderful work that my very good friend Arana Collett did leading that group for many years. As a very average achiever—in fact if I was honest probably a very poor achiever—at languages I really do wish that I had had that opportunity to learn languages at an earlier age. I watch two of my young grandchildren going to baby Chinese classes and singing nursery rhymes in Mandarin with ease and enthusiasm and I look forward to my third mokopuna learning to speak te reo Māori as he grows up with his Pākehā mum and Māori dad and both of them took Te Ara Reo Māori classes with the wānanga in Queenstown. That wānanga they're just absolutely anywhere if you want to take a Māori language class.Our third daughter who is non-verbal learnt sign language for some time and of course sign language is one of our three official languages of New Zealand. Again that was a challenge for our family needing to learn the basics of sign language. And I offer a belated talofa lava to our Samoan colleagues remembering that we celebrated Samoan Language Week just last week. So what I'm trying to illustrate really is that this is happening everywhere but in our schools. It's common all over the place for people to be learning a second or third or fourth language out in the community at Plunket in the church hall. I talked to my colleague Melissa Lee who spoke about Korean language being taught by Korean mothers out in the community and so that issue of there being insufficient teachers—I think we would only need to look to our community to be able to find those teachers. And this bill would have enabled and encouraged and supported our intermediate and primary schools to offer that second language.Now a couple of other barriers have been put up by the other side of the House. One was first that there wasn't sufficient consultation within the bill. Well in fact the bill required the schools to consult with their community to land on what second language they wanted the school to offer and so that consultation in itself would have enhanced the cultural cohesion in a community through leadership from the school. But the biggest barrier that I've heard from the other side of the House has been the hundreds of millions of dollars that it would have taken to resource a second language being taught in the schools. Now I'm a great believer that you shouldn't come with problems without also coming with solutions; so in the spirit of collegiality I have a solution for the Minister on this. I suggest that he perhaps diverts the $780 million that he intends having spent on a cycling and walking bridge in Auckland for around 3000 people into resourcing a second language in the primary and intermediate schools that would benefit hundreds of thousands of young people.So having solved the three issues that the other side of the House clearly saw—consultation and teachers and resourcing—I'm sure now they will want to leap to their feet and rescind their previous determination on the bill. The bill not passing really is an opportunity lost and it isn't too late for them to change their mind on this because on the other side of the House I have heard speakers talk enthusiastically about the hope that a national languages strategy that the Government will put in place instead being the solution to this. But my great concern is that the national languages strategy that the Government will pursue will become just another plan or idea or conversation or—perish the thought—working group which doesn't implement anything in the way that so many of this Government's good intentions have gone. So I somewhat forlornly commend this bill to the House thinking that the other side may probably not change their mind. Thank you Madam Speaker.