Hughes GarethGARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Deputy Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I will just follow on from the member who last spoke Todd Muller. There is a debate in the media at the moment around whether we have hit post-politics in terms of Trump and everything else. We heard a new phrase here which is post-history". According to that member we should put aside 30 years of history and the debates the big challenges we have faced and the opportunities that have arisen from history. Let us put them all aside and let us "embrace the lens of opportunity". This sounds like something out of The Thick of It the British TV show. It sounds like something that has come out of the brainstorming message room and been intensively polled by David Farrar. The "lens of opportunity" is how we are going to talk about it in the future.We have to take history into account because it is important but also it is something Minister Hekia Parata referenced in her speech and in all the media around this bill. She is describing this legislation as the biggest update to education in nearly 30 years. You could also call it one of the biggest risks to and biggest experiments on our children's education in 30 years. You would not know it though from the Minister's speech as she read it in her bland monotone. It was no doubt written by advisers. She did not have any passion in her presentation. If this is the biggest change in 30 years I want to see some passion from the Minister. I want to see a sense that there is a vision because what we heard from that last speaker Mr Muller is that change is coming globally and it was an argument for change for change's sake. How about change that is based on international best-practice literature change that looks at the trends around the world and brings in the best and discards the worst? The fear with this bill is that we are bringing in the worst and discarding some of the best of our current system.As a dad to two kids currently going through the State education system I want to start this contribution by saying what a fantastic job our teachers our principals our boards and our schools do. We have a tremendous education system. Collectively we should be incredibly proud. Just last Friday night I got an email from my child's teacher—in the evening just a short update about what had happened. I cannot say how proud I was of our education system how impressed and how good I felt as a parent to have that level of teacher interaction—updating me on what I care most about which is my kids and their future. I thought it was a fantastic example of our education system. We have got a great start but let us make sure that we are delivering for all New Zealand students and that we are building an even better education system.In this contribution I want to touch on three areas of this legislation which are the communities of online learning the so-called COOLs; secondly Te Reo and the Treaty of Waitangi; and thirdly the careers advice.The Green Party is opposing this bill because of the huge risk to our children from these so-called COOLs which I do not think are particularly cool at all. There are some good parts and some neutral parts to this legislation. It is a big change to the Education Act. But it is these COOLs these communities of online learning that are quite worrying as a parent and as a member of this Parliament. When you look at what the headlines and what the experts in the sector are saying you see words such as "gobsmacked" "incredulous" "Principals hot under the collar" "out of line: principals" "Education reforms half-cooked and not so cool" and "The risk of harming learning". This is what our educational experts are telling us. We saw the president of Tai Tokerau Principals' Association say: "I would abhor the day when a computer and programme could replace the teacher—the importance of socialisation hasn't been considered. The really rich holistic parts of education cannot be learned from a computer but from interacting with people."The risk is that through this legislation we are basically opening up online charter schools. It is socialisation that is so important to children's development and so important to the educational experience and those educational outcomes.Minister Parata says that the guidelines and eligibility criteria around these COOLs are going to be rigorous. I have got no confidence when we saw those exact same words applied to the likes of Serco and applied to the likes of Novopay—I have no confidence we are going to see it. This is the Government that has delivered charter schools and private profit to the education system and now it is trying to do the same thing via the online environment to more of our kids.When you look around the world this approach has failed in the US and it has been tried in the UK to a large scale. There is a huge risk that what we are doing is simply opening up our educational system to these private for-profit companies and I think you have got to ask the question why. I think Angela Roberts put it quite well when she said what the assumptions behind online learning were: "One is that online learning can substitute for face-to-face and the other is that a more competitive market in education is going to lead to better results. Both of these fly in the face of all the evidence." Let us not have change for change's sake because we know that change is coming; let us have change based on the evidence. Pound for pound and page for page of the international reports you will see the risks of going down this approach.The Minister said that COOLs are about embracing online digital fluency. This is something the Green Party takes seriously something it has advanced in Parliament for many years. We have got a great opportunity to not only build a more digitally fluent country and society but also have a better educational experience for our kids. The problem is that just teaching them online is not digital fluency. That is not teaching them—that is focusing on the means of delivery the mechanism and the technology which is not digital fluency. I would point out—and I know this from my own experience—some excellent programs such as Reading Eggs and Mathletics which my kids really enjoy where the appropriate technology is used as a tool to further enhance existing learning and stuff that they have done in class. When you just put a kid on an iPad or in front of a screen that is not teaching digital fluency. Our schools are doing that at the moment—there are no barriers to it at the moment. It is simply a way to open up classrooms to private providers of online education.If we did want to have a debate about digital fluency—which is something I am always up for and think this Parliament needs to spend more time on and take more seriously—let us also look at the way the Government has recently decided after 7 years of consultation multiple meetings and rounds and rounds of consultation to just make digital technology on a par with sewing and woodwork and metalwork. It is just making it another vocational side thing. Digital technology is something that our tech industry which is crying out for workers and is seeing the largest growth as a percentage of GDP of any OECD country since between 2002 and 2013 wants to see as a stand-alone subject. If we were really going to be focused on digital fluency that is what we would be doing—not just putting kids in front of a screen and letting overseas for-profit providers teach regular classrooms.So we have got some very big concerns. We note the concern that although there was considerable consultation about these changes—I believe there were some 1800 submissions and 120 meetings—online learning the most controversial and the most far-reaching provision in this bill was not one of those topics that was consulted on. That is a worry but I am sure those 1800-plus people will no doubt be making a submission to the select committee and we welcome that. We look forward to getting into the detail.I have run out of time to talk about the other issues but it is good to see the Treaty of Waitangi in this legislation. We want to work out through the select committee what that means exactly and what the actual outcomes are going to be.When it comes to Te Reo our vision is that every New Zealander has the opportunity to learn what is a taonga—something that is unique and exists only in Aotearoa New Zealand—but unfortunately in the way this bill has done it it is basically up to parents to choose whether they want Te Reo. The fact is that when you look at the status quo it has not really worked out and we see so few speakers.When it comes to careers advice I think there is consensus in this House that we are not doing it as well as we should be. It needs to be modernised. A key thing that we need to be doing is professionalising it—taking it much more seriously. I want to make sure that every kid in New Zealand gets the best high-quality most in-touch advice from someone who is taking it seriously who is a professional and who is up to date with best practice so that they are giving the best advice. A concern with putting it through the Tertiary Education Commission is that we are simply going to get more of a focus on some of the STEM subjects: science technology engineering and mathematics. The arts are incredibly important. A general educational background and critical thinking are so important. In fact that is what people tell me in the tech sector as well. It is one thing being able to code; it is another thing being able to code and explain what you are doing to a customer or to someone else.So there is a mixed bag in this bill. The reason we are voting against it primarily is because of these not-cool COOLs. We cannot be gambling with our kids. We are using digital technology; we could be doing it better but let us have that conversation in a select committee. Thank you very much. Kia ora."