Stanford EricaERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you Mr Chair. I'm going to speak tonight to Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 98 in my name. It hasn't been spoken to yet at all so it is absolute new material. Before I do so I do want to go back to my first contribution because one of the things that I specifically asked the Minister of Education wasn't addressed. I have to agree with my colleague Tim Macindoe in that some of the Minister's answers haven't been as full perhaps as they could be. I specifically asked and I think we owe it to the Graduate Women of New Zealand to have this question answered because they did specifically say in their submission that they would like to see better representation in terms of ethnicity socio-economic diversity and have one Māori representative on the council. Now I'm not saying that I agree with what they're proposing but what I am asking and what I'm really interested in is to find out what the Minister of Education thinks. All the Minister did in fact tonight was talk about gender balance which was only one of the four things that I mentioned so I would like the Minister to address those things.Moving on to my SOP I have to say that I am a victim tonight of the pre-emptive strike. Mr Hipkins did come up tonight and dismiss my SOP basically by saying it was very similar to another one. I would like to use the Minister's own words back at him and suggest to him the virtues of listening to a contribution on an SOP before passing judgment. He did disregard completely my SOP without listening to what I had to say but I have to say that is entirely in keeping with the way that this Minister operates.I'd like to just pre-empt my SOP argument by saying that what Nicola Willis said earlier fits in perfectly with my SOP. Nothing that the other side of the committee or the Minister has said has given any reason as to why the current council is in any way acting inappropriately or making bad decisions. In fact their only argument is that teachers want to elect their own people to the boards. But what we've said is that only 13.7 percent of these people actually vote so what that means is they're open to influence. That leads me perfectly into my SOP.Basically what I'm advocating in my SOP is proper process. We want to ensure that the process of nominating and electing members does not undermine the independence of the Teaching Council from any relevant industry advocacy organisations;". This is specifically talking about making sure that the process is proper fair and that the body is in fact independent. This is the first time anyone's spoken on this SOP. We oppose the view that members of this council should be elected for reasons that I've outlined earlier tonight. But given that this Government is going to get its way because they've got the numbers the votes it's important—Hon Tim Macindoe: Well we might persuade them.ERICA STANFORD: Well I know. We like to think that we get our way every now and then but we're not going to in this case. It's important that we discuss the fairness of the process. There are legitimate concerns around the way in which teachers have a fair and free opportunity to elect their peers to this body. There are going to be elections. They have to be conducted properly. They have to be conducted fairly and it's a concern that we have that the unions—the NZEI Te Riu Roa the Post Primary Teachers' Association and other industry organisations—have a monopoly on what good teaching should be. In fact they don't. They have an important contribution to make but in no way do they have a monopoly on good ideas. They don't know everything about teaching and in fact they don't represent all teachers. What's important is that we have a set of processes in place to ensure that teachers can nominate and elect members and that they conduct these elections in a way that does not undermine the independence of the Teaching Council.If we look at elections in general the biggest elections we've got are of this Parliament and local body elections and there are a number of things that when we hold these elections have to be adhered to. When we change the law under this bill we change the way in which teachers are appointed and elected. There must be a proper process in place. I'm not going to devise that entire scheme but what I do want to ensure is that there are important safeguards that are in place around the conduct of these elections to make sure that they're fair and that the Teaching Council has independence from industry advocacy organisations.The Teaching Council has an important role to play in the lives of teachers and the governing of their professional conduct. The Teaching Council is there for all teachers a large number of whom belong to unions and believe in what unions stand for. But in a free country like New Zealand where we value independent thought and the freedom of individuals these are principles that you hold that are important whether you're red blue yellow or green. If the Teaching Council is to fairly and properly represent—[Time expired]"