Pugh MaureenMAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. I stand today too to speak to the Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill in its first reading. As we've heard this morning the National Party is opposing this bill but we are not as opposed to the content—some of the content in the bill—but the process that we are going through in this using the opportunity of urgency to push through these bills and with shortened report-backs. I think that speaks to the contempt for democracy that this Government often exercises. We've heard much about the three clauses in this bill that talk to the Māori Battalion memorial scholarship fund the Pacific Education Foundation Act 1972 and the health and safety at work regulations and we had quite a bit of pushback from Kelvin Davis when he was in the House about the lack of knowledge of the Māori Battalion memorial scholarship fund. So unfortunately he's not here to hear but I did actually do a little bit of research—Marja Lubeck: Point of order. I believe that members should not refer to people being absent from the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): If the member could continue on with her speech and not refer to those who are not here. Thank you.MAUREEN PUGH: The 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarship—a very very noble entity and definitely of huge benefit to those who do take advantage of it. It's about supporting students who are undertaking study or vocational education and training so some of the issues and the scholarships that they do support are very wide ranging. But I thought one of the things that impressed me the most was that the applicants must demonstrate the characteristics—their characteristics—which also align with the characteristics and the values of those who were in the 28th Māori Battalion. So in order to qualify the applicants must apply those characteristics and demonstrate how they actually will deliver. But the scholarships are available for three vocational education and training scholars—very generous $10000 each; three undergraduate scholarships—$30000 each; one master scholarship which is valued up to $20000; one master education research scholarship—again up to $20000; and one doctoral scholarship valued up to $40000. There's no question of the value of the Māori Battalion memorial scholarship fund and so as I said the National Party supports those minor changes that need to be made to that bill. The Pacific Education Foundation Act again is going through some minor changes and we look at some of those authorised expenditures that they already have and there were some questions around the need to increase that expenditure from $500 to $10000. They'll be things that the select committee will turn its mind to. We know that they support the education and training of Pacific peoples and that's again a very noble thing. They grant financial assistance for a whole range of various things to support education of Pacific peoples including for the purchase of equipment or material for the provision of bursaries; the provision of postgraduate scholarships; the provision of books clothing and other equipment for special bursaries or scholarships; and among other things the payment of costs to administer the affairs of the foundation. They are again providing a very good support network for Pacific students. I guess the crux of this and the opposition that the National Party feels to this bill is: how is this bill going to lift the achievement levels of Māori and Pasifika students and how is this bill going to get students back into the classroom? So in terms of the wider population of Māori-Pacific students this bill is going to have very little impact on the poor attendance rates and the poor achievement rates of Māori and Pacific students which is of course why we are opposing this bill because our attention has been focused on that rather than some of the tweaks that this bill is going to change. The health and safety and work relations section of this bill has been talked about earlier and I refer to my colleague Penny Simmonds who raised the question of tradesmen being called into the likes of creches—the ones that are called the limitedattendance" childcare centres: the gyms and the mall creches. Those things are very foreign to me—mall creches. We don't even have malls so we certainly don't have a creche that is available to many of our shopping parents. Matt Doocey: One day.MAUREEN PUGH: Yes one day we will get there Matt Doocey. But the question was raised about the employment of tradies on site and I think that's a question the select committee will clearly turn its mind to because if it's taking 20 working days to process a police-vet then certainly tradies can't wait that long so there has to be some practical solution to that. The example was given of a plumber—you know if you've got a blocked toilet you don't want to wait 20 days to get a tradie on site; and certainly if the lights go out you don't want to be vetting for 20 days to get an electrician on site. So there are some practical implications for the health and safety and work relations part of this bill. I also wonder whether the risk assessment has been thought about in this and no doubt the select committee will turn its mind to that: when you've got someone—maybe one person—turning up amongst a raft of other staff and perhaps parents whether the risk of that is warranted. But no doubt the select committee will turn its mind to that. One of the things that we have also heard about today in some of the speeches is this regulatory creep where they may seem insignificant changes—and especially the health and safety work relations part of this bill—on their own but the cumulative effect of more and more regulation is stymying the ability of businesses especially our early childhood centres and our limited-attendance centres to do their work and focus on the job that they have at hand which is of course to care for those children who are in their care. So we've got to be careful when more regulation is imposed on those organisations that we don't overburden them and sometimes this regulatory creep—you've got to look back to see how much of it has been imposed on hard-working people.It's been well traversed by my colleagues on this side of the House about the impact that this bill will have on education—which is zero. But I'd like to raise the issue of the amount of investment that has gone into education in the past few years. We have spent as a country $5 billion every year in education—extra by the Labour Government—but actually outcomes have become worse. It takes a very special talent to be able to reach that kind of a milestone. The National Party is in support of some of the detail in this bill but we are not supporting it today because we see it as a huge waste of parliamentary time using urgency to push through something of this nature and also to have a shortened reportback which of course is the democratic process that we enjoy usually in having the ability for the public to have oversight of the process. National is opposing this bill."