Fox Marama; Borrows ChesterMARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Well the time has arrived when we drag the education system kicking and screaming into the new digital age and it is about time. It is about time because if I think back to when I was at school and I did ICT I had a flashing neon light on a black screen and I spent 3 weeks writing code into that little computer to get an outline of a house with a roof and a chimney—mine was pretty flash because it had smoke. We have come such a long way that in fact I have a child who is now 5 years old who at 18 months old was learning to speak Spanish because I put a Spanish-speaking app on my phone. She was watching—oh my goodness that was a foreign language that she was learning through the reality of online digital technology. I am so pleased to be able to support this bill. Why? Because one shoe does not fit all feet. I know that might be a revelation to some people but in fact it is true. One shoe does not fit all feet; we need alternative models. Why? Because for far too long young Māori and Pasifika in this country have been left behind by teachers in the classroom and systems in the schooling system and education that forgets who they are—language culture and identity. It forgets that they might want to look at the world through a different world view. Where is that information held? Well you can access a whole lot of it online—funny that. When I was in the wharekura o Wairarapa we wanted to access pūtaiao. What about that—a science curriculum in Te Reo Māori. Could we find a teacher who had the skills to do that? Well we tried long and hard and we could not. We tried a whole lot of alternative methods of trying to educate our tamariki in a way that supported their language culture and identity. We went across the road to the local high school. We tried The Correspondence School. We tried a raft of different methods and in the end do you know what we found? We found a group of wharekura around the country connected through the Virtual Learning Network so our tamariki could access pūtaiao by one teacher who taught from Hicks Bay—that is right from Hicks Bay—connected to the rest of the world through digital technologies. We must be able to provide for the alternative forms of education that our country needs so that if you live rurally you can access through an online portal the education that will help you so that if you want to home school your children in your own town you can access greater mediums of support through online technology and so that if you are a Māori-medium kura with limited resources you can access online technologies and information through that online portal. I have no fear whatsoever in supporting this bill this update which is going to bring us forward into the future and provide a suite of alternative methods because the traditional ones for too long did not work—did not work. Less than 3 years ago the pass rate at the National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 for Māori in education was 48 percent—48 percent. So you could stand up in front of any school at any time and look at them and say: Half of you are going to fail. If you're Māori or Pasifika half of you are going to fail." We cannot do that today because we have dragged our system kicking and screaming into the future through the aid and the addition of online learning and a raft of alternative models of education that support—that is right—alternative ideals and mindsets and ways of thinking.David Seymour: Uh oh!MARAMA FOX: Oh my goodness—I know it is a struggle! I know it is difficult but there it is. That is what we have dragged ourselves into and I have no problem in supporting this. Lastly I just want to say one thing: to those teachers who are out there in the classroom and who need support—they know that you know that they know that they can find that support through the net and the internet has now become the new human right.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Stuart Smith—5-minute call on behalf of the National Party."