Lee DeniseDENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Thank you Mr Chair. I appreciate the chance to take this call. It is just my second call tonight. I spoke on my first Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) and I intend to speak now on my second SOP and it is not on the subject of partnership schools. But I would want to start if you'll indulge me Mr Chair by using just a quick Niuean greeting because it is Niue Language Week and that's Fakatonu Fono Taane which hopefully says Mr Speaker". Ha ha!One of the drawbacks of course of the committee of the whole House stage is that you're up on your feet and you hope that you can talk following someone else so that there is a theme and a definitive and very undergirded theme but that doesn't always happen. It's been a good passage of time since my colleague Simeon Brown spoke on his SOP 127 and I'm going to just make a couple of remarks on that before I head into my SOP 128. Now of course they are on the topic of the penalties I guess and the newly inserted and created penalties for those who would wish to do something untoward in regard to fees-free tertiary criteria and if they choose to—and they shouldn't but if they choose to—commit an offence of a false representation.The SOP in Simeon Brown's name which seeks to amend clause 15 would ask to remove the phrase " without reasonable excuse" from the new section 292A(3). So we don't think that the court should have discretion to decide whether or not a person who has committed the offence of false representation has a reasonable excuse or not. That's just stating something very obvious. But it is very obvious because there is no reasonable excuse for committing an offence. There never has been and there never should be. The fees-free eligibility criteria are clearly outlined as part of the application process so where is the excuse in not knowing what is clearly outlined?If you go and look on the Government's fees-free website it is there in plain English and black and white for everyone to see. You should never be in doubt whether you are sure or unsure about meeting eligibility criteria; it's there in plain language for all to see. Now if that be the case—switching now to my SOP 128—in clause 15(2) I'd like to suggest that we replace subsection (4) of new section 292A with the following words: "A person who commits an offence against subsection (3) is liable on conviction to a fine of the higher of—(a) $5000;"—and that's of course what we see in the current wording—"or (b) the amount of money gained from false representation."Now this is an interesting point. Perhaps $5000 is actually not enough. In this case perhaps committing an offence and receiving a fine of $5000 is nowhere near the sum total of what someone gained from false representation monetarily. If that's the case then why are we not sending an incredibly strong signal? And if the Labour-led Government saw fit to put in a new offence in the first place why not make that a very strong and very clear signal that it's not just one capped figure but there is scope to send a bigger monetary consequence?I note that the Minister of Education said earlier on when he was speaking and addressing the House that none of our SOPs improve the bill in any way. Really? This does exactly that. If we want to ward off and if the Government wants to ward off anyone falsely declaring well then here's a really practical way to do that and I hope they pick this up."