Curran ClareHon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Thank you Madam Chair. I'd like to address some remarks to clause 13 in Part 1 of the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) which go to where the bill ensures—and to clarify and to I suppose try and move away from the highly emotive and inflammatory language that is being used by the Opposition; to try and inject some sensibleness into the debate—that the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand's decisions on matters relating to the teaching profession are made within the context of Government policy. As the bill went to the Education and Workforce Committee the phraseology was where the Minister was able to issue a Government policy direction to the Education Council as it was then known regarding one or more of its functions as set out in section 382(1) of the Education Act 1989. So essentially that means that the Minister may develop and publish a statement at any time including when responding to a particular—now known as the—Teaching Council decision. I note that in the second reading speeches last night the Hon Nikki Kaye referred to—I think she used the phrase State control" with regard to this part of the bill and I just wanted to clarify this and talk about the actual discussion in select committee on this and what the officials said to us about this. What we were told was that in relation to concern that Government policy direction would undermine the then Education—now Teaching—Council's independence officials considered that the council's independence is safeguarded by the requirement that it quote " 'must have regard to' a Government policy direction as opposed to being required to give effect to it."This is one of those times in the House and for the people listening at home when words really do matter and they are technical phrases but they really do matter in the way that legislation is written. We've got expert advice from the ministry but also from the Parliamentary Counsel Office who are independent who pay particular regard to the phraseology. What this means is that this allows the Teaching Council to continue to make its own considered independent decisions. Now I've said those words slowly for the benefit of the Opposition who used the phrase "State control" last night which I thought you know—it's important to have considered debate to call things out when they need to be called out but if you're just making it up then let's have a debate about it. That's what the committee of the whole House stage is about. So the officials went on to say to us that the distinction between—Hon Nikki Kaye: I raise a point of order Madam Chair. I just want to seek a bit of clarity. I heard the words referred to me that I was making something up. Well I don't believe that a member should be able to say that and I would have thought the appropriate thing to do is withdraw and apologise.CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): I apologise to the member—I didn't actually hear that.Hon CLARE CURRAN: Speaking to the point of order Madam Chair I think I used the phrase "if" the member was making it up and that this is the time to have a debate about it.CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Let's carry on shall we? The Hon Clare Curran.Hon CLARE CURRAN: Thank you Madam Chair. So the distinction—I think it's important. For members that are new in the House it's important to pay attention to this and for those that aren't then I'm sure they've had these debates many many times in the House but there is a real distinction between the phrases "having regard to" and "giving effect to" which is a well-established set of phrases in law. The statutory requirement "to give effect to" means that the decision maker must give consideration to the requirement but determine the weight that it will give to their requirement whereas "having regard to" requires the decision maker to give genuine consideration to the matter but the decision maker is also free to come to the conclusion that other factors outweigh the thing that he or she must have regard to. I think this is a very important distinction and while this particular measure the statement of Government policy is a way for the Government to influence the work of the Teaching Council in order to protect the public interest in the council's work—and the Minister said this in the second reading speech yesterday—by ensuring that Teaching Council decisions are made within the context of Government policy. Which is what the public would expect us to do for goodness' sake—that is without requiring that the council's decisions support or give effect to Government policy—a really important distinction. I hope that's cleared that up for the Opposition on the other side of the House and let's hope we hear no more phraseology such as "State control" tonight."