Macindoe TimHon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): It was lovely to see Ms Swarbrick's lovely smile there but I was struck by the fact that I hadn't actually said anything at that point so it's hard to know what it was she was disagreeing with. But I'm pleased to say I have every intention over the next five minutes of giving her plenty to disagree with me about.But I do want to start on a positive note and as I did with Jan Tinetti when we discussed the previous bill I also want to congratulate Jenny Marcroft as another new member who in the great parliamentary game of lotto struck the jackpot on her first attempt. As she'll have gathered there's sort of a seething resentment within me that I'm still waiting for that opportunity a decade after I first came in here.But what a shame—and I have to say this in all seriousness to Jenny Marcroft—that she has done that with a bill that is so poorly conceived and could really quite seriously have unintended negative consequences that I don't think she's even given some thought to. It certainly will have no value to anybody in our education system. It will not do anything worthwhile for our community as a whole.I don't think anybody in this House—and I doubt whether anybody who's tuning into this debate—would want people of dubious character teaching our children and they certainly wouldn't want people who are professionally incompetent in front of our children. If this bill was designed to try to stop that from happening we could look at it and have a serious conversation but it doesn't even go near that particular thing—it won't have that effect. This bill will not stop anyone from teaching; it will just change the name of the title that some of those who are currently performing that role in our schools and other institutions have. And I have to say to the member that is insulting and demeaning to the many people from whom she's going to take the title away.Now as the Hon Paul Goldsmith said—or at least I think he was trying to say—it seems to me that this bill is a solution looking for a problem. [Interruption] Well anyone who can congratulate the drawer-upper" of a bill deserves a little bit of—ha ha! But he was quite right and in his delightful way he was making the point that this bill is nonsense. And as I've said it may have unintended consequences and do actual damage to schools and other institutions that are currently dependent upon having a number of people working within them who don't fit the registration criteria that the member wants to impose in this bill.I have to say to her and I wonder if she's thought about this how ironic it is that she and the Labour-led Government are doing this at a time when they keep telling us what a real problem we have with the nationwide teacher shortage. Why on earth would you want to deter people—good people—from entering the education profession at a time when we desperately need as many good people as we can?So let me ask this: if someone is teaching children or even adults in a school in a classroom in a gymnasium or maybe in a workshop—wherever the learning environment might be—if they are teaching then why shouldn't they be described as such as teachers? What else should they be called? So I'm going to be asking the member perhaps in her right of reply at the end of this debate to tell us what she would expect all of those people to do. There is no evidence at all that has been presented so far of people misrepresenting themselves as teachers so again there isn't a problem to be solved here.So I hope that Jenny Marcroft will answer that question and I have another one for her. I have another question for Mrs Marcroft: what title is she proposing for those who are currently teachers but who will be required by her bill to stop doing so—Chlöe Swarbrick: It's on the bill. Read the bill.Hon TIM MACINDOE: No. Chlöe Swarbrick is saying it's there—she has failed to understand the huge range of people and they're not all covered in the bill at all. She cannot leave these people in limbo; it isn't fair.This bill is going to put into law the need for someone to have a three-year Bachelor of Education in teaching or a Bachelor's degree plus a one-year Graduate Diploma of Teaching or a four-year conjoint degree combining study in teaching subjects with teacher training. That all sounds very good but in fact it excludes a whole lot of people who are good teachers who have not done that qualification.And as has been made quite clear what it is really all about and there's another irony here is it's another attack on partnership schools. The irony is that her Government has already committed to abolishing partnership schools so the problem that she is trying to overcome will have already gone. Yet let me just point out to her in closing that those who are working in partnership schools at the moment are having a tremendously successful record. They are instilling respect and self-esteem in the very young people who have fallen through the cracks. Yet now we are saying to those people "We'll take away from you the respect that you deserve in that wonderful job.""