Henare PeeniHon PEENI HENARE (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): Excellent Madam Chair. Tēnā koe. Tuatahi māku e te Tūru ka tukuna atu ngā mihi ki tōku tuahine ki a Willow-Jean kua hoki mai e mau nei i te kākahu taratara o ngā maharatanga tonu ki tōna pāpā. Kāti ki a tātou e te Whare tēnā koe.[Thank you. Firstly Madam Chair I extend greetings to my sister Willow-Jean who has returned albeit wearing the cloak of bereavement for and remembrance of her father.And now to us the House greetings.] Tēnā koe Madam Chair. It's fantastic to have this opportunity to make a contribution. I do want to touch on a couple of points that have already been made and I want to keep my contribution rather specific to the consultation part which is covered under new section 1A(4A)(i) in clause 4 in particular. It talks about the national bodies representing the interests of Māori education organisations;" and it's important. The part that I want to explore a little bit in there is around organisations because we have heard rhetoric about the voice of Māori educational leadership speaking out against some of the policies of this particular Government but in recognition that actually more Māori students attend mainstream schools and more Māori students are engaged in the educational sector right across the entire spectrum from early childcare all the way to the tertiary sector—so exploring what a Māori organisation looks like and how we might be able to engage with them to make sure that those voices are heard in this particular bill.I think that is important because as the point was made in some of the submissions about needing to ensure that a child's voice is at the centre of this type of legislation and the rhetoric around it and the contributions made to it just as important are families' voices too. Well we know too that given the statistics we are all too well aware of in this House regarding Māori educational achievement and Māori educational participation I do think it is important that we do have Māori consultation. So the question I have for the member in the chair is simply exploring consultation for Māori organisations: how broad is that what are we looking at is it simply a tribal-based thing are we looking at educational organisations—is it a combination of both?That's important because we've heard regularly over the past couple of days actually how Māori leadership—according to the other side of the House—is embodied in the voice of one person. I'd argue in this particular instance that it is broader than that and I do ask the member then: what do those organisations look like and how will they be engaged to ensure that those voices come to the fore as consultation as described in this particular bill is achieved? That's an important part.Of course the same applies to much of the other areas of consultation not specifically to Māori alone and I take the point that in this particular bill it is clearly identified. As the Minister for Youth of course one of the other aspects that we're quite keen to build a movement around is of course the disability sector. We want to make sure of course in the same vein as I did for the Māori sector in this particular bill that it is the same for the disability sector because if there's one thing I've noticed—and it's not just in policy documents but certainly in strategies and visions over many many years for education and in a multitude of other areas—it is that the rhetoric's good. The disability sector is indeed an important part of our community that we need to be hearing from and that we need to be engaging with but I'm curious as to how. I'm also curious as to well how can we make sure that the consultation—regardless of the sector that's being engaged with—actually translates further into meaningful contribution in the principles and the leadership of the educational sector that we're trying to build. I do want to commend the member Jan Tinetti for this approach because it is that inclusivity that's actually going to make an educational sector far more responsive to the learners to the families and to the wider community.So a couple of questions there just to recap are around the consultation. What kinds of organisations are we talking about here? Are we simply placing the onus upon one particular part of Māori education which was the example I gave but I also make the same point with regard to the disability sector. Then the second part of course is: then what? Consultation is fantastic and I think we can get some meaningful feedback but how will that feedback actually feed right into the principles that I know the member is intending to achieve with this particular bill?"