Stanford Erica; Hipkins ChrisERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Sorry I keep harping back to zoning issues but we've had so much feedback on this. I wanted to talk to the Minister about a case of a school here and I know that it's not in my electorate but it's here in Karori—or just over the hill from Karori. A school that has a special—they take a lot of kids with additional learning needs and they're really well-known for that. Parents want to send their children there the school is wanting to cater for these children who aren't in a set zone they're well-known for that and they've got really good teachers who are capable of looking after those children who have those additional learning needs. So I guess the question is—I've been made aware recently that they've been forced to have a school zone. So immediately that excludes all of those families. Now before the decision was made to put a zone on them they were sorting themselves out really well and the communities that they were taking children from were happy—everyone was happy—until this decision was made to come and create a zone.Now there will be more schools like that around the country who are well-known for certain things—you know either it's special needs additional learning support dyslexia dyspraxia—and their ability to take students from a wide range of suburbs that may not necessarily be in their immediate zone is really useful. Just hearing that case that Nicola Willis was talking to me about immediately raised some concerns with me because I can see potentially that—it's already happening but I can see this happening more—having school zones forced upon schools like this will actually have a detrimental effect to families who have children with for example additional learning needs being able to send them to schools who can cater for those needs.So I'm just wondering if the Minister has come across cases like that has taken it into consideration and what he sees as the potential solution to situations like this when there are schools that cater for those needs.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Health): Look I think again the issue the member raises is a really serious one. We've got a challenge I think in New Zealand around genuinely inclusive education. Some schools go out of their way to be inclusive and they become what we colloquially term magnet schools" where parents if they've got kids who've got additional needs seek out the schools who make their kids feel welcome and go to the ends of the earth to cater for those kids and I take my hat off to those schools. But I think every school should be making that effort and they don't and that's the problem. And it's not something that we should tolerate.There are subtle things that some schools do to make it clear to parents whose kids have additional needs that they are not welcome at their school and that is not acceptable. It is just wrong. Kids should be allowed to attend their local school and they should be given all of the support that they need by their local school in order to be able to thrive in their education. I think that it's wrong that that's not happening.Tying it back to the issue of zoning and where some of this pressure comes from there are subtle things schools do that are unacceptable and that we have to put a stop to. So a school principal saying for example "Oh yes of course you can enrol your child at my school. We'll look after your child—but you know that other school down the road they've got heaps more kids who are like your child and they'd do a much better job of looking after them." Now if you're a parent which school are you going to choose? The one who welcomes you with open arms or the one who sends that kind of signal to you? I've got to say to the schools who are sending those kind of signals to parents: they're wrong. It is not acceptable. Every school should welcome every child in their community and should do everything that they can to make sure that they are properly catered for.ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you. Look I understand the Minister's passion about this and yes they should and it's all very well to say that but the point is that there are some schools who just do it better. They cater better for children with additional learning needs. And saying that children can't go to that school because they have to go to the school that's in their local area just doesn't give them the best outcomes for their children.I understand his sentiment around it shouldn't happen—and it's not even necessarily that schools aren't welcoming; it's just that there are other schools that do a far better job. Giving parents that choice to send their kid who has an additional learning need to a school that can better cater for them—surely that's what we want. So I take your point but I disagree.What I would also point out and I'd like just to take this a step further is it's not only that they have better teachers or programmes but actually for an example in my electorate I've had many parents come to me and say "I'm in zone for this school. They don't have any single-cell classrooms; they're all open plan. My kid's got an auditory problem they've got an auditory receiver or they've got some kind of learning need that means that they don't deal well in the open plan modern classroom and my local school doesn't cater for that. Can you help me as my local MP get my child into a school out of our zone that will cater for their needs because they've got an audio receiver or some other learning need that means that they need a single-cell classroom or a different configuration of classrooms?" So you've got that issue as well.It's not about schools not being welcoming or having the wrong attitude. Often it's the case that the school—the property and the configuration of the classrooms—just doesn't suit that child. I have that again and again and again and I just think that yep there are some schools that do it better and they've got teachers who are more geared up for learning disabilities and additional learning needs. You've got some schools that have got a better configuration of classrooms and those parents already are facing such struggles getting their children to learn because of those additional learning needs that surely we should be offering them the very best start by allowing them to choose the school that best caters for their needs rather than forcing them into a school that perhaps doesn't and I would invite the Minister to respond to that."