Lee Melissa; Tisch LindsayMELISSA LEE (National): It is a pleasure to take a call on the second reading of the Education Legislation Bill. I heard Tracey Martin speak and I will just make one comment. I believe that during the select committee process which Supplementary Order Paper 176 actually came through the Education and Science Committee as a whole agreed on the process and we did actually open it up for submissions and we did get only five submissions. With the select committee there is a process that actually happens and the committee does it together as a whole. It is not like we in fact strong armed the Opposition to reduce the time or extend the time; it has actually happened. I thought it was actually quite a nice committee. Even the Opposition members—I have tremendous respect for them. Their opinions differ from mine but I do actually feel that they care about education in a different way and I thought the Education and Science Committee worked very well. It was a key bill for the select committee for the first half of this year and I would like to take my hat off to the chairperson Dr Jian Yang who does a tremendous job and quite a difficult job I would have thought. Sometimes I think it is sort of like he is the teacher trying to keep the students quiet and in order at the committee. [Interruption] He was a professor. I do not know if he actually went to school to become a teacher however but he did a tremendous job. I would also like to thank the committee secretariat for all its hard work during the discussion of this bill. As the Minister of Education and other members have actually said this Education Legislation Bill is in fact an omnibus bill that updates eight Acts to better improve the administrative and governance arrangements for education entities and funding organisations. This bill is an example of the hard work that this Government is undertaking to ensure that all young New Zealand learners have the skills and qualifications that they need to successfully participate as a part of our community. One of the key aims of this bill is the ability to give more say to the school boards of trustees to determine when and how the required minimum opening hours of a school can be. During the select committee process we amended the suggested legislation in favour of a more streamlined process for when variances in operational hours are short term and on an occasional basis. I know some members have said that that kind of flexibility may not be a good thing. In my opinion it is actually a good thing because not all communities are equal. Schools in regional New Zealand may differ. Schools' needs and the students' needs are quite different from region to region as well and I think having the flexibility allows schools to operate in the optimum way that they can as a community and they can decide for that school community what is required for their student body as well as the school. I also believe it is important for the ability of tertiary education providers to help sponsor partnership schools and kura hourua schools. Such a process will help forge links between younger students and older adult learners and will overall continue to work to create better learning environments across New Zealand. I think one of the best ways I can talk about the learning thing is through culture. We revere the elders and often teachers and mentors and seniors of universities actually come back to teach kids at school. In my culture that is actually celebrated and I run something called a Kimchi Club in my Korean community where a more experienced professional actually comes in and mentors the younger kids who are currently at high school or university to teach them about some of the pitfalls they can get into and also talk about the career prospects that they might face. I think young students both in high school and university appreciate this kind of mentoring and I think even in schools we can actually learn from that experience. This bill of course is just part of a great plan that we have undertaken to improve education in New Zealand and on that score I would like to commend the tremendous Minister of Education Hekia Parata. I have said this many times over in this House: every time I see her talk about education and children I see great passion in her eyes in her voice and in her heart. I know that some of my friends might actually laugh at my pronunciation but there is a great Māori proverb He aha te mea nui o te ao?" What is the most important thing in the world? "He tangata he tangata he tangata." This proverb has been quoted many times over in this House but for me the most important people are our children because they are the future of this country. They are the future of our families our whānau our districts our regions our country. Our children need to have the best education system in this country and I believe that this Government this Minister and this bill actually deliver for our children. I commend this bill to the House.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call. Jan Logie—5 minutes."