Delahunty CatherineCATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Kia ora koutou katoa. Tonight we examine a bill that I looked at and thought: Oh this can't be the one that they talked about being about re-examining the purpose of education—the one where there was going to be the conversation the one where we really look deeply into the meaning of education for our country's future." I thought I must have just mistaken this update bill—this is just a minor mishmash of confused endeavours as we have seen throughout the last 8 years I have been on the Education and Science Committee—because we have been sold a pup. We were told that this was going to be a magnificent discussion of purpose but it actually exemplifies everything that we are losing: the narrowing the technocratic and the testing testing testing which is not 21st century; it is actually 20th or maybe even 19th century learning. I have had the privilege of talking to some fantastic modern educators and none of them—including the Singaporeans—believes that testing testing testing is the answer any more. So as usual the Government is lagging behind and is trying to enforce a failed idea.The Green Party in terms of this bill and the seclusion rooms—I was very active in bringing this issue to Parliament because I have been working very hard with families whose children have been experiencing some of the failures of a broken system. We support the end to the legal right to use those rooms but as the families told us what will change if there is not serious professional development and funding support for schools? Just closing the rooms does not solve the problem. The problem is that schools do not know what to do with children with high needs. Some schools do but very few reach the standards that I have seen in the best of schools—and those are not the "best" schools: the rich schools the private schools and all of that; they are the schools where inclusion is deeply understood. I am talking about places like Berhampore where the school is very very shabby on one level and a stellar environment on another. That is why we need to do more than ban a practice; we need to replace that practice with a genuine and deep support for teachers who have one of the hardest jobs in the world—that of dealing with the diversity of student needs. Just banning the seclusion room is not enough.However back to the rest of the bill. Hmm hmm hmm! Just imagine if we had really done it if we had really had that conversation—that brilliant deep cross-sectoral conversation about education. If we had done it we would be like other countries where they have been able to develop real consensus and actually make genuine progress. But we did not do it. This is not it. This bill is just another little mishmash of privatisation anomalous and confused in ideas many of which have got no policy behind them and no developmental work—so I actually think it is a lazy bill.The Government put up calls and things with no justification. There was no evidence presented at the select committee on many of the changes. We were supposed to take it all on faith and the submitters did not. We had extraordinary submissions. The Ombudsman was very very clear that we had actually created enormous risk for children who could be dumped in communities of learning (COLs) because it is the easier place to put them than to have them in schools. How serious is that? The Ombudsman said to us: "I never come before you lightly. I come before you with a deep concern." The Children's Commissioner came and said we were in breach of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child because we had ignored the requirement of a modern legislative framework to consult with children.Again the bill should have stopped right there and we should have done the work properly. But no the Government was not interested in that because it is not about the rights of the child it is not about children it is not about education; it is about playing with some ideas that actually there is no great demand for. We heard that clearly especially with COLs. We heard from the blended learners that this was not what they wanted. They actually just wanted to be able to work with schools not instead of them—in an unregulated market place with no proper pastoral care.The National Education and Learning Priorities—this could have been a wonderful conversation about creating equity vision and lifelong learning. We could have stepped up to the Greens' great policy on universal core curriculum Te Reo in schools. There were so many things that could have been in the conversation. Fundamental to that conversation and at the heart of my most profound objection which is supported by the Children's Commissioner and others like UNICEF—what would they know about children UNICEF and the Children's Commissioner—is that we have failed in this bill to acknowledge what other countries do. That is to put instruments such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women the rights for gender equity the New Zealand Disability Strategy—all of those things should be at the heart of this legislation so that we have an Education Act against which people can test whether the system is actually delivering on its promise to protect our children's right to a quality education.But there was no interest in that. There was no interest from the Government in protecting those rights in a modern convention-based piece of law that would provide for everybody let alone provide an opportunity to appeal when the system breaks down and fails your children. Time and time again submitters came and they talked again—it was like going through the whole inquiry into dyslexia and dyspraxia and autism again because so many families came back and said: "No this is not it. Please protect our children's right. Make inclusion real. Do the hard work and put it into law so that there is somewhere to test it." But no the Government just flatly refused to do that. It just flatly refused to listen to the Ombudsman the Children's Commissioner UNICEF the endless families who gave evidence and the organisations that specialise in education.It is hard to sit on the committee after 8 years and in my last term of Parliament and not feel a sense of shame that every time the people come before us with detailed passionate expertise and human stories we are not interested in either of those. We are not interested in the human story or the legal conventions that our country is signed up to to protect our children's right to a quality education. All that the bill talks about is COLs and targets and achievement data which are outdated and fail to create a holistic and effective education system. It is very disappointing.And then you can talk about all the small weird stuff. The cohort entry—no one wanted it. The teachers did not think it would be more efficient. The parents did not want it. It was not about a demand. Efficiency is what you do with widgets not what you do with children because—read my lips—they all learn at a different rate and they all are ready at a different time and their birthday is enough. We need to listen to what we were told on that issue.The COLs—you know people are struggling with the COLs and in this law they are going to struggle more because the Government the Minister will now have power to sign off their learning agreements. The COLs were sold to the schools as being able to identify in their groups their learning priorities but this bill says: "No the Minister has to sign off your priorities." That is a shift. That is not how the communities of learning were told they would be able to operate. It was going to be responsive. It was going to be "The schools will decide." If we really believe in the capability of our educators and our education communities what is wrong with that? Why cannot the schools decide? That could have been visionary.There are things that are so deeply disappointing about this piece of legislation. It is really sad. The purpose of education is not advanced by this bill. The opportunity for child consultation the opportunity to create a set of learning priorities that are modern holistic and genuine around inclusion and equity and fairness and rights—completely ignored. We have been told that a few bad ideas such as the COLs will work. But I met a young woman who came and talked to us. She said: "I would have loved a COL. I could have then hidden away for the rest of my life in my room. But it was a school that saved my life. Do not allow young people like myself to hide away in our rooms playing on our computers avoiding the world because that is easier. Support our schools to support us." She was a passionate young woman to whom I wish the Government was prepared to listen.There will be some Supplementary Order Papers there will be some challenges on this bill because it is not what it was promised to be. We have got some great educators and some wonderful ideas and there are international educators who share with us modern practice. But this is another small privatising minimalist disappointing and actually quite abusive piece of legislation for what it fails to do. It could have been something great it could have been the chance to come together and it could have been about education but regrettably it is not. We cannot support it. Kia ora."