Martin TraceyTRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): We are speaking on clauses 117 to 143 145(1) and (2) and schedule 3—miscellaneous—which includes Part 2. There are six Supplementary Order Papers on the Table on these particular clauses and I hope we get the opportunity to traverse all of them.Can I first of all start with clause 140 which inserts new section 410AA Competence Authority". This is a good move. This is a good move and one of the reasons why New Zealand First believes that this is a good move is that it will finally we hope put out there into the public the very intensive appraisal and competency process that our teachers already participate in. But it is relatively behind closed doors. So to raise the status of the profession there must be trust by the general society that what is actually already happening—the really intense appraisal of our teachers and the competency to do this when it needs to be questioned—has a body to allow this. We believe that that will go directly to raising the status of the profession.Just with regard to Chis Hipkins' Supplementary Order Paper 305 New Zealand First will be supporting this. We believe—and we have always said—it is appropriate for teachers to have the right to elect their representatives on to the body. This was a major conversation during the creation of the Education Council and the Education Council came to the select committee recently—and it is doing a fabulous job actually. It is doing a fabulous job. Its members are well chosen. They are highly qualified people who have strangely enough actually been elected to the top of their profession—most of them. So we take that on board—and the Minister is nodding—and we give a pat on the back where it is deserved. They are doing a really really wonderful job. However the problem is that it is at the whim of Ministers. And again can I just point out that some of us may be those things in the future so we understand that when we criticise the current circumstances and suggest different parameters some of us may have to live with them in the future. It is about the vulnerability of being at the whim of a Minister in the future.I move on to Supplementary Order Paper 297. This is just a small niggly little change of language. In clause 49 new section 77(ab) refers to "form 1". There is no such thing as form 1 any more. It is year 7 and if we are going to modernise the Education Act 1989 then let us actually use the language that is used inside our education system.I then go on to Supplementary Order Paper 307. Unfortunately we cannot agree with the Labour Party or with the National Government with regard to the absorption/disestablishment of Careers New Zealand. We do not see this as a time when there should not be an independent body outside the education system. It should be expanded and should be working more closely with industry. It should be doing more workforce planning and it should be part of those that then inform the Tertiary Education Commission through the vocational pathway skills that are required. So we do not—we cannot—support the Labour Party perspective with regard to the abolishment of Careers New Zealand and its absorption under clauses 119 120 122 and 128 in this area. There are now three other Supplementary Order Papers still on the Table. I go to Supplementary Order Paper 299 which is also in my name. This would delete clause 131A. This is around the chief executive of Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu no longer being required to be a registered teacher. We feel that that is a move that is a step too far. Te kura is a registered school and therefore its leader should be somebody from the education profession who understands education as opposed to opening the door once again for a business professional to be at the head of an educational facility. So we would request the support of the Committee for Supplementary Order Paper 299.Supplementary Order Paper 291 again in the name of Chris Hipkins is around some of the dates. It goes to clause 2 and it goes to the dates on which the Governor-General by Order in Council would be able to implement this Act. We will be supporting Mr Hipkins' Supplementary Order Paper 291. It also inserts in clause 38 new section 35X(3) around communities of learning. It says that a community of learning must teach the New Zealand Curriculum and be able to demonstrate an understanding of all these other Acts. It is interesting that the purpose of this is to provide a new creative legislative framework for communities of online learning and this Supplementary Order Paper would delay its implementation so that we could have a more thorough analysis of policy proposals that have been suggested in it.I go to the final Supplementary Order Paper on this particular section and that is Supplementary Order Paper 309 in the name of Catherine Delahunty. This would insert new clause 38A which would create a parent advocacy council. We will be supporting this Supplementary Order Paper because we feel that as I was mentioning before if in the disciplinary hearing process a student is excluded or expelled from school at this time—under current legislation—the Ombudsman is the only port of call for parents if they want to argue that issue. A parent advocacy council was supported by the Ombudsman because they know what their workload is. They know the delay. They know how long that student is outside the education system when the parent is unable to get any other mediation or advocacy service apart from their own. Probably the fact that it is just called an advocacy council may be a bit misleading. We think that there should be a mediation role of this council. Strangely enough—Catherine Delahunty: It's in the bill.TRACEY MARTIN: —thank you Ms Delahunty—it is inside the explanatory note. That is great. So we would strongly recommend and we would hope that the Government would support this particular Supplementary Order Paper in order to give parents somewhere else to go.Often what we heard was that it was predominantly the special needs students who had to fight and fight and fight—children with autism and Tourette's and so on and so forth—and who needed to have this service available to them. They do not want to take schools to court. They do not want to go through the process of waiting 12 months for the Ombudsman's office because it is so overwhelmed by work at the moment and so under-resourced. They want an opportunity to go to a body that will mediate between them and the school that will advocate on behalf of their children and that will gain them access to services that the Minister and the ministry say are there but unfortunately they are known to very few people. That was the answer that the Minister and the ministry gave around the inquiry into students with dyslexia dyspraxia and autism spectrum disorders—that the services are all there but there is a lack of understanding. So perhaps the parental advocacy body could be the body that would keep that information in play and people would know what it was. Thank you."