Logie JanJAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to rise on behalf of the Green Party and add our voice of support for this piece of legislation through to select committee.I will just go over the intent of the legislation again. The bill aims to ensure that every child in years 1 to 8 has the opportunity to learn a second language and would require the Minister of Education to set at least 10 national priority languages for schools following public consultation on what those languages would be. A requirement would be placed on the Crown to resource teaching a second language in primary and intermediate schools. Te Reo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language will be on the final list of 10 or more languages schools can choose from. New Section 60C inserted by clause 5 stipulates that every board for each primary school it administers would maintain a priority language programme. This programme would have to identify from the list of languages at least one school priority language. The purpose of this is to ensure all students are provided with the opportunity to learn the school priority language as a second language. A board cannot adopt a priority language without consulting with the school community and having regard to its views.I think and what I've been hearing from the speeches is that there is an understanding of the value in terms of child development of having multiple languages. And I echo the last speaker's sense of I guess a bit of loss about not having had that opportunity myself as a kid and how much harder it was for me to learn a second language in my late teens compared to the kids I see running around lucky in families with multiple languages. The fact is that language opens up worlds it opens up opportunities as well as pathways in our brains and this is something I think probably everyone in this House wants for our kids.The areas that we will be engaging on in particular in the select committee from that foundation is about the implementation of this and I also echo the views of previous speakers of needing to really hear from teachers and parents and hopefully students themselves about their views on how we could do this.But also for the Green Party we've been for a very long time an advocate for Te Reo being taught compulsorily through our schools. Because when we talk about language opening up worlds to me there's nothing sadder than the fact that the worlds that exist within the country that I find myself born into are not open to me because I do not have the reo to be able to access them. And that makes me a poorer partner in this country because of that. I am of the generation of activists who didn't learn the reo because we thought we were taking resources away from Māori and their attempts to learn the language. That tension that I experienced in consideration of learning or not the language is part of what we hope to address by making it compulsory in our schools—to ensure that that teaching resource is available for everyone that Māori don't have to fight for that scarce resource and that as Pākehā we're not taking it up and taking it away from Māori as it is their birthright to have that language.So we are pleased to support this bill and hope to see changes through the select committee that enable the compulsory delivery of Te Reo Māori and the resourcing of that through all of our schools.