Strange JamieJAMIE STRANGE (Labour): I am delighted to stand and talk about this excellent bill a bill whose time has come. I'd like to thank Jan Tinetti for bringing this bill to the House. Now I've known Jan for a while and her passion for the education system is second to none so thank you Jan. Jan believes in putting children first. I'd like to also congratulate the member opposite Erica Stanford who almost did do her five minutes—I think she did maybe four minutes 10—so that wasn't too bad.But I just pick up on something the member said. The member was talking about partnership schools and she was talking about partnership schools in terms of consulting with the children in the partnership schools. Well she has spoken about that a lot in the House. Well this bill does talk about consulting with children and that's a key aspect—a key aspect of this bill. Children do know a lot of things. In fact I've got four young children and sometimes they think they know a bit more than dad. They probably do actually particularly on my phone. Whenever my phone gets broken I give it to them and they tell me to do something there. But certainly young people do know about their education system and I think it's absolutely fantastic that we've just heard from the Minister about how he is also excited about putting young people at the centre of our education system.We do have a world-class curriculum and it's a diverse curriculum. There are a huge amount of aspects to it not just literacy and numeracy as we've found out this week. This bill here is about amending the Education Act to align the enduring objectives for the education and learning system more closely with that curriculum and obviously—as we've talked about—requiring consultation.So some of the key learning priorities that this bill supports—so it supports learners who are resilient. Now as most of us will know and most of us will agree resilience is vital for young people. As we go through life we have ups and downs and the importance of getting up again is vital for lifelong learning.There's a key aspect here around creativity. Teachers are preparing students for jobs that don't currently exist and that's one of the challenges that teachers have in our education system. How do you prepare someone for a job that doesn't currently exist? One of the key aspects of doing that is the word creativity". So areas like the arts where you develop a creative mind are absolutely vital and this is another of the learning priorities that this bill will support. Employers want creativity in the changing workforce.Another aspect is around communication and interpersonal skills. So these are also involved and like I said it's in our world-class curriculum. This bill helps improve these by putting the child at the centre of the learning.I once taught a young boy—I'll name him Jimmy—and he struggled.Chlöe Swarbrick: Ha ha!JAMIE STRANGE: It's always Jimmy. I'll name him Jimmy but he struggled in school with various aspects of literacy and numeracy. In fact he was well below so in terms of national standards he was a failure for eight years of his schooling. I came across him when he was 12. So he was labelled a failure for eight years under national standards but when it came to music Jimmy was a natural. He naturally excelled—Dr Duncan Webb: Hendrix?JAMIE STRANGE: —yeah Jimi Hendrix!—and I made a big deal out of this because I could see his confidence start growing. Confidence is one of the key learning priorities that this bill supports because without confidence it's very difficult to go through life and to achieve your full potential. There's other aspects around learning priorities that this bill will accentuate: collaboration independent learning—so young people taking ownership of their own learning.I believe education is one of the most important investments a Government can make. Education is one of the key things in life that opens up opportunity. It's a great leveller and I'm proud that this Government is valuing our education system. We've had a number of bills come through already around education and this is just another in that long line.So I commend this bill to the House. I thank the member Jan Tinetti for the incredible amount of work she's done on this and I look forward to it passing and going through a select committee. Thank you."