Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you very much Madam Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to take a second call on this very important piece of legislation. Well I don't think it's that important actually because it seems to be the sort of big issue or the big thing that this Government's trying to push through in regards to education but really it's only changing the name of the Education Council to the Teaching Council. But I just want to make a couple of comments and ask the Minister Chris Hipkins a few questions in regards to a couple of submissions which came before the Education and Workforce Committee. I must acknowledge Dr Parmjeet Parmar who did a fantastic job actually in chairing that committee and has done a great job since she was appointed. It's a privilege and pleasure to have been able to work with her through this process and through other pieces of legislation which are slowly winding their way through the legislative process.Anyway back to the bill and the submission that I'd like to touch on is in the name of Mr David Brock. He's in support of the bill. So he's someone who supported the intention of the bill and he says it's the right way to go. That's his view but then he asks a really important question here around the way that the democratic process—or so-called democratic process—works and says I am happy with sector representation through the recognised groups but wouldn't be against some form of democratic independent direct representation from the sector."I look at clause 5 of this piece of legislation and it has seven elected members from seven different sector groups. I know my colleagues here have been talking about some of the groups or if you were going to be going for sector groups then some of the groups which are missing. And he makes a very good point which is: why are we not just electing at large? Why are we not defining the education sector at large and why are we not giving them all the opportunity to put forward candidates and then also to be able to vote at large?I just want to ask the Minister whether that was something which he or his officials considered as part of the process in developing this piece of legislation and whether that's something which he sees as having some merit. I think while we're looking at this—you know we do have one teacher representing the early childhood education sector one teacher representing the primary education sector one representing secondary a teacher educator one principal representing the primary sector one principal representing the secondary sector and then an early childhood education service leader. I guess the point that this submitter was making—and yes as I noted before he's in support of this piece of legislation—is: why are we not looking at this as a whole rather than sort of looking at it independently of each other and why are we not saying "Let's get some sort of democratic independent direct representation from the sector."?—to quote Mr David Brock's words.I'd appreciate some comments from the Minister. Maybe we could put some amendments through which could maybe look at how that could be done; whether that's merging some of these roles together. If he thinks that's something which is a sensible amendment I'm happy to help draft and facilitate that but I would appreciate his comments on that.The second submission that I was keen to get some comments from the Minister on was from Mr David Graham; again someone who supported this legislation and wants to see it go through Parliament. He makes the comment that "Renaming the council as the Teachers' Council would also increase the relevance of the council." I'd like to ask the Minister's opinion on that. Does he agree? Does he disagree? How will it actually have an impact on the relevance of the council? From my reading of the legislation this doesn't actually change the function of the council. It doesn't change what the council does. All it does is it changes a name and we've talked about how much that costs. We've talked about what that money could be going towards instead of changing a few letterheads and a sign on an office door somewhere in Wellington and a few other parts around the country.So how will it actually increase the relevance of the council? What does it actually do—because it doesn't change the core function. So what does it actually do other than change the name and change the mix of the make-up? And we've heard that 66 percent of the people on the council are already teachers. I mean that's a key point which we've heard over and over again from this side of the House but how does that actually change that relevance?"