Wall LouisaLOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Ni hao Mr Chair in Chinese Language Week. I want to stand to support Supplementary Order Paper 218 in the name of my colleague Chris Hipkins. It is about the composition of the Education Council. To look at where we want to move to I think it is really important that we look at the current composition of that council. Currently there are nine members all elected or appointed by the Minister five of whom have to hold current practising certificates. I just looked at the definition of that on the Education Council website and it says they have to be employed in a teaching position of at least 0.5 full-time teacher equivalent they have to have been in a continuous position for more than 6 weeks and they must be employed as a teacher. But there is actually no explicit commitment to the five of those teachers representing specific sectors of our education system.So if we look at the Education Council's purpose it says that it is the professional body for teachers and that it is about improving the quality of teaching and education leadership focusing on the needs of children and young people and the public interest. As this bill has outlined those constituent teaching groups actually comprise representatives from the early childhood education profession the primary school profession and the secondary school profession. I would like the Minister I guess to reassure us that the current rules around who can be appointed by her to the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand (EDUCANZ) actually ensure that we have representatives from all those sectors.I particularly want to support the proposition in Chris Hipkins' Supplementary Order Paper 218 because it is about people being elected to office. We are now in the middle of local board elections and when you go on the website it encourages people to stand because we need committed people with a wide range of skills who want to contribute to their communities. I think that at the heart of this Supplementary Order Paper and the proposition within is that the meaningful constituencies within the teaching profession should be specifically represented. That is in fact what this Supplementary Order Paper would enable. It would enable for example a teacher representing the early childhood sector to be elected by their peers. It would enable a teacher representing the primary sector to be elected by their peers. It would enable a teacher representing the secondary sector to be elected by their peers.We have the national constituent organisations that would enable that process. We have the Post Primary Teachers' Association (PPTA). We have the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) which is made up of principals teachers and support staff. We have the New Zealand Principals' Federation because another constituent group is a principal representing the primary sector and also a principal representing the secondary sector. I see no reason why this particular Supplementary Order Paper should not merit at least some consideration and a comment or kōrero from the Minister about why she disagrees with this proposition. Essentially if the Education Council is about a professional body for teachers then I would have thought that at the heart of it should be representatives of all the specific teaching professions as I have outlined. Within the Supplementary Order Paper there is also a comparison between the education sector and the health sector. So there has been a Minister previously under this Government who recognised that having representatives from the health sector on the governance board actually made sense so I think that the Minister should look at that and make some comment. I think from our perspective elected representatives bring something to a democracy—we are all here; we are all elected representatives.We on this side I think stand for local democracy. We stand for specific representation and we want to enable the PPTA the NZEI and the New Zealand Principals' Federation to actually have a say in the quality of teaching and education leadership specifically in our country. So I would implore the members of this Committee to consider this SOP. It is a very good SOP so I commend my colleague Chris Hipkins for bringing it to the Committee and I commend it to my fellow members. Kia ora.