Yule LawrenceLAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): It gives me pleasure to speak in this general debate and as members on the other side have asked me to say a word I'm going to. I'm actually going to talk about charter schools. What I witnessed today in question time was the biggest set of sort of avoiding of the issue that I've seen so far in this House from the Prime Minister down actually—Ministers the Prime Minister the Minister of Education and the Leader of the House. What I saw was a contentious issue that nobody will actually front up on. I want to talk about charter schools a bit. I acknowledge the Hon Meka Whaitiri who's in the House with us today because we actually have a charter school Te Kura o Mangateretere. Before the election last year the Hon Anne Tolley and I visited that school. Sure it doesn't have all the registered teachers and it may not meet all the criteria of mainstream education but we saw about 30 young people that had largely been rejected by every other schooling system in the North Island—from Tauranga from Auckland and from Whakatū which is our own local community. That school has been set up it feeds the kids in the morning and it teaches them in a different way and actually for the first time they were telling us they had a group of people that believed in them were confident in them and that could make a difference. Now I accept that the Government may have an ideological difference in approach but what I heard today was a Government that will not front up to the decisions it's about to make and actually what that's about is fronting up. I challenge the Prime Minister and the Minister of Education and some of the Māori MPs who happen to be Ministers to front up in those schools look those kids in the eye and say We are about to change things and yes we might be about to change things but here's another way." You see today in the House the Prime Minister would not give the Leader of the Opposition a guarantee that those schools would remain open and I actually think—Erica Stanford: She can't. LAWRENCE YULE: Yes technically she may not be able to but what she could do is go into those schools and talk out the transition plan because that's what's missing at the moment. For the life of me I cannot understand why a leader—and I've been a leader in various roles myself. Sometimes you've actually got to front up to the people you are talking about and talk to them about the issue. You see this Prime Minister she says "We care." She talked about Waitangi—about walking the walk. Here is an opportunity for this Prime Minister to front up in a contentious area of change and make a difference to reassure these young people—these 1500 young people—who are in a good set of education that they're happy with by choice who are now being told that their school closes and there's no guarantee of a future. The Hon Chris Hipkins who sits in front of us—he too claims that he can't be involved because it's subject to ministerial processes and technical government processes. Actually have a heart. These kids and these schools don't know where they stand from the time this policy was announced to now and I watch members on the other side shaking their heads. Yes they can go and talk as a local member of Parliament but they're covered by a collective responsibility. I'm sure there are conversations going on. This is actually an easy thing to solve—a really easy thing to solve. Front up to these schools give them a guarantee that they'll remain open—even under the new arrangements—and talk with them about how that's going to happen. At the moment that hasn't occurred and I worry in this early stage of this Government that when the tough things happen nobody's prepared to front up and do the tough things. I challenge the Prime Minister and I challenge the various Ministers here to actually have some courage and some gumption to look these people in the eye just like the Hon Bill English did the day before he announced his resignation. He gets this. He understands the difference between talk and the walk. Here we have 1500 young people of New Zealand probably our most disadvantaged or challenged who have a system. It's working. It may not tick all the boxes in an educational critique but it's working. We're going to shut them down—that's what the law change says—and yet nobody to this day has properly fronted up to those young people. Thank you."