Yang JianDr JIAN YANG (National): As a former university lecturer I support this bill. Andrew Bayly: Very important.Dr JIAN YANG: Yes. I am very proud of our tertiary education. We have eight universities and all of them are ranked in the top 450 universities worldwide. My former employer the University of Auckland is ranked in the top 100 universities in the world. So this bill will further strengthen our tertiary education by increasing funding flexibility strengthening accountability monitoring tertiary education organisations (TEO) and also by ensuring consistent treatment of public and private tertiary education providers. Increased funding flexibility will reduce compliance costs for TEOs will provide TEOs with more incentives to focus more on student demand and outcomes and will also be able to enable them to innovate. It is important that we enable our tertiary education providers to innovate to remain at the cutting edge of technology and innovation. This will enable them to attract domestic and international students. Strengthening accountability and monitoring of TEOs means that we are able to ensure these TEOs use funding more appropriately. These changes mean that we are able to deliver better services to our students which is crucial to the growth of a globally competitive workforce in New Zealand. According to the OECD Survey of Adult Skills 2016 New Zealand adults are ranked the fourth-highest in literacy fifth-highest in problem solving and 13th-highest in numeracy. So we are doing well but we can do better. This bill also attempts to further strengthen regulations of for education. International education has become increasingly important to us. It supports 32 jobs in New Zealand and contributes $4.28 billion to our economy which is an increase of 50 percent from 2014. This growth did not come easily. We experienced ups and downs in the past two or three decades in our international education. We can do better. This bill responds to a court ruling that a school had no rights to manage international students' misconduct outside school. This bill proposes to amend the law to enable our schools to monitor or to manage international students' misconduct outside school. This will ensure our schools or tertiary education providers can provide better services to our international students. This bill will certainly enhance our reputation in terms of international education. This Government is committed to providing better services to our domestic and international students. This Government has done a great deal in terms of enhancing achievement and in terms of improving the management of the education sector. So I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Before I call Jenny Salesa there is one further matter that has come to my attention which I do want to place on the record of the House again and that is that the Prime Minister has written to the House and has tabled the date for the 2017 general election. While I was relying on general comments that were made in the media he has actually informed the House. I do accept the argument that it is within the prerogative of the Prime Minister to change his mind but I think what we have got to do at the moment is go by the intention as formally notified to the House.