Patterson MarkMARK PATTERSON (NZ First): It's a great pleasure for me to rise in support of the Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. I would also like to commend Minister Hipkins on tidying this bill up and bringing it forward. I also would like to acknowledge the Hon Tracey Martin who I am speaking on behalf of this evening. She has done most of the heavy lifting on behalf of New Zealand First for this bill and what a fine Minister she is proving to be in a number of fields. These are big boots to fill tonight but I will be doing my best. I'd like to also acknowledge the officials. I have come on to this Education and Workforce Committee and seen the wash-up of the bill as we tidied it up from those 2000 submissions that we heard about—both private and institutional submissions. I would also like to acknowledge Sarah Dowie the outgoing chairwoman of the Education and Workforce Committee. As a new committee coming in with lots of new members on our side she's been very fair and helped shepherd some of this stuff through and we wish you well in your new spokespersonship Sarah.I know that this is a National Government bill as the previous speaker Sarah Dowie has alluded to although the priority that she discussed probably is overstating a bit given that it took nine long years for them to lumber into action on this and given this has been such fast-growing sector with lots of publicity around issues I think it was probably a bill that is long overdue. The aim of the bill is to update the legislation and the running of tertiary education and the organisations. It's a wide-ranging bill. It clarifies many important issues and it adds accountability.I'd like to focus a little bit on the international student side of things. Of all our tertiary students 15 percent are now international students—some 50000 of them in 2016 and rising. The $4.3 billion in revenue that has been mentioned makes it our fourth-largest export earner and by gee do we need those funds. As we go around the country trying to rebuild under-invested infrastructure housing and regional development we need this money. The danger I guess with this sector is that it can be a commodity and we don't want to become the international education equivalent of what Nigeria is to banking. I think that from my agricultural background I can see actually that there are a lot of parallels in this. We need to be aiming at that high end. We need to be adding value not just going for numbers. We need to have really high-quality courses attracting the best and brightest pupils and students and this legislation gives us a strong regulatory base on which to build and continue to evolve and develop this very important sector.It is also important for our international reputation and the pride that we take in being good international citizens. Those 50000 young people coming here represent sons and daughters of people who have entrusted us with the care of their children. They're sending them here with great hope and expectations for their future and it's important that we have the legislation in place and the accountability and the structures to make sure that that is exactly what we deliver.Just in terms of the penalties I think that's a pretty important provision because the integrity of those qualifications that these international students are investing huge amounts in coming here to get needs to be beyond reproach. They need to be qualifications that they can take into the international market or indeed for those that choose to stay here they need to be of value and the raising of the penalties from $10000 to $50000 sends just that signal to the institutions.This bill gives these provisions teeth. It also responds to a High Court ruling. There was a high school that had its right to respond to some poor behaviour by a pupil or pupils outside of school—it had its code of conduct that was written into the contract that it had with those particular pupils overturned by the courts so we have to address that. The ruling found that schools could not stand down suspend or exclude international students for misconduct outside school even though it was part of the contract so the law actually overrode that. That has massive consequences for the safety and well-being of international students. We are as it stands effectively unable to manage risky or potentially harmful behaviour and imposing higher penalties on the perpetrators as mentioned also will be helpful in this regard.Just some of the other provisions: the discretion that it gives the Minister to let the wānanga apply for university or you know the protected terms—the polytechnic. New Zealand First did have a few concerns about this. We wanted to know that the bar was going to be high for that. I think given that we want to strive for quality our universities for example need to be of the highest level. We don't want to be watering down or diluting those institutions without thinking really carefully about it. So the bar's got be high but we felt that the provisions within this bill certainly meant that the bar was high enough. The Minister does have the discretion but there is a wide range of consultation that can happen and it allows the wānanga to level the playing field a little bit for them in that.The other side that was also mentioned by the previous speaker and others is Supplementary Order Paper 17 which looks to have private for-profit providers treated at the same level or be able to get the same subsidies as the public educators. New Zealand First makes absolutely no apology for backing high-quality publicly delivered education certainly with support from our colleagues on this side of the House within that. That is important for us that we back our public educational institutes. I guess the paradox there is if these private for-profit entities were any good they would be attracting that private investment anyway so it shouldn't really affect them too much at all. If they want to play in that space that's fine but we as a Government are here to promote the public-good entities and that's exactly what this bill does. So we will not as New Zealand First be supporting the Supplementary Order Paper.But we will support the wider bill. It is a bill that tidies up adds accountability to the current laws adds to the credibility of this incredibly important emerging sector of our economy as we try to add some value not just volume and that's got to be a mantra that we have across the spectrum of our economy. This is a very important sector so New Zealand First has great pleasure in supporting this bill. Thank you.