Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I would like to thank the member who just resumed his seat David Cunliffe for a genuine engaging and humorous address. If only he could have done that a few years ago he might still be the leader of the Labour Party but such is how things go. I would like to address my comments to a couple of provisions that have already been widely debated by members tonight. I would like to pick up on some comments that Catherine Delahunty made—that every student is different and that one size cannot fit all and that it is the role of the education system to bring out the greatest potential in every single student which is something that Peter Fraser that great Labour Party education Minister was so fond of eloquently saying. When we come to Part 1 of this bill there are several aspects of it that are very much in pursuit of that objective. We in this House do not know precisely what each and every child needs. When we talk about evidence-based" what we are often talking about are statistical methods of trying to establish what the average child needs not allowing communities to use the knowledge they have about what their child needs. So I agree with Catherine Delahunty in her empathy for each and every child being different and special and needing to be educated to the greatest of their potential as the great Peter Fraser once said.Jenny Salesa: Not by tertiary people.DAVID SEYMOUR: But Jenny Salesa might want to ask herself why it is that so many Pasifika groups and so many Pacific parents are enrolling children at partnership schools kura hourua. That is the answer to the Hon David Cunliffe's question as to why we have partnership schools kura hourua. We have them because in the first instance community groups no longer satisfied with the service they are getting from the State school network go to considerable effort to put in applications and establish the school and in the second instance the parents of those children come along and enrol their children to attend the school. I would just submit to members opposite that they might get a little bit above 26 percent if they were prepared to resonate with and listen to the communities that are making their choice even in the electorates of the members who have been speaking. The part of this bill that enables a principal to operate several schools was touched on by Jenny Salesa. Jenny Salesa said she was aware of a principal—who no doubt is a hard-working noble empathic principal who goes well above and beyond the call of duty in her job and is the kind of principal whom all of us should be very grateful to have here in New Zealand because we know to the extent that we want to take aggregate evidence that the quality of school leadership is one of the most important determinants of how our children will succeed in times to come. It might be if we were to alter Jenny Salesa's anecdote or thought experiment just a little bit—what if such a wonderful principal was actually ambitious to extend and expand her skills to a second school and help more children? What is so special about the number 800—the number of pupils who Jenny Salesa tells us are in that particular school? I have schools in my electorate that have 2400 students and more and 2400 is three times 800. Is it the case that that principal has too few students or is it the case that the principals of those schools have too many? And what on earth is the Government going to do about it? Surely the most important thing the Government can do is actually allow choice and allow people to use their local knowledge. There may well be principals who wish to look after several schools and extend their knowledge and help even more children and what exactly is wrong with that? Why would we ban people from having a particular freedom just because not everyone wants to use it? Did we hear any members of the Labour Party using that kind of argument when we had the marriage equality debate? I should certainly hope not. This bill is about enabling people to use their freedoms to better educate children. Then we come to another section of Part 1 Subpart 8 which enables—and let us just focus on that word for a moment members; "enables"—tertiary institutions to become sponsors of partnership schools. We heard Tracey Martin say that she believes that there are good examples of schools that are run in parallel or in combination with tertiary institutions where the exchange of information and knowledge between the tertiary institution and the compulsory sector school actually benefits the students—and that is another phrase that members opposite should focus on. Let us just tally up a few words here: "enable" and "benefits the students". This is what education is supposed to be about. So why would it be so bad if for instance Stuart Middleton and the Manukau Institute of Technology or any of the other universities or tertiary institutions in New Zealand were able to open a partnership school and start helping New Zealand's children in a wider range of ways? Well we heard from David Cunliffe—actually he was guilty of misleading the House whether he meant to or not when he said that partnership schools—Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The member—I know he is relatively new but he should know that that is an unacceptable thing for him to say and I am sure that you know that that is an unacceptable for him to say.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): No I do not. I see that this is a fairly robust debate. He has made an accusation. I have heard many accusations made from across the Chamber during Committee stages about all sorts of things and I have not found in favour of the member's point of order. I will call on David Seymour to continue.Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am pretty devastated by that remark on two counts: firstly that I might have misled the House and secondly that it might have been unwitting. I would ask you to take that into account and ask him to withdraw and apologise.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Well I note that the member has said that he has not taken offence which is good because I do not see how he could bearing in mind the robust speech that he made earlier in the debate. I call on David Seymour.DAVID SEYMOUR: Thank you Mr Chair. And for the record the member was not unwitting but what he said was that partnership schools receive five times as much funding as other schools and any reasonable member of the House who believed the moniker "honourable" before the name of David Cunliffe might have come to believe that partnership schools are deliberately funded at a higher rate than other schools. Well that is simply not true and the official information is out there that partnership schools are not funded a dollar more nor a dollar less than a State school with the same number of students. Some members will disingenuously mislead the public by saying that because most partnerships schools are new and all schools get additional funding in their early years as they grow somehow they are receiving more money that way. But that simply is not the truth and it would be better for the quality of public policy debate and for the education of New Zealand's children if the Labour Party members could focus their debate on the facts rather than inventing their own facts when the real ones do not suit them. But tertiary institutions sponsoring partnership schools will be an enormous advance for education in New Zealand and I am very proud to see that in this bill. In the short time I have remaining I would also like to speak to Supplementary Order Paper 220 which would bring the legislation into line with actual practice. An important part of the partnership school policy is the Partnership Schools/Kura Hourua Authorisation Board. That is the place that people in the community including Su'a William Sio's community including Jenny Salesa's community including Carmel Sepuloni's community—Carmel Sepuloni: Please don't tell us what's good for our communities David Seymour.DAVID SEYMOUR: —all of which have had applicants from—no I am telling the member that people from within her community know what is good for them and have chosen to make an application and they make that application with the partnership school authorisation board. That member should stop telling people in her community what is good for them because they know what is good for themselves and they are applying to operate partnership schools at the partnership schools authorisation board. Try a bit of empathy; the polls might go up. The fact of the matter is that this policy depends on having a clearly signposted professional robust process that applicants who wish to open partnership schools can enter into to be approved if they have sufficient quality. Where there have been difficulties with charter school policies overseas it has often stemmed from poor-quality authorisation. In the past in the legislation it requires only one member of the partnership school authorisation board. Legislation should reflect real practice and in real practice one member is not sufficient to carry out the processes that I have just described. That is why I am advancing a Supplementary Order Paper that will change the legislative requirement to have five to nine members of the partnership school authorisation board rather than merely one. In conclusion this really has been a debate about one side of the House which would like to enable educators to have a wider range of permutations of arrangements for helping children and the other side which can see only the worst in giving people freedom and giving communities choices. I am very proud to stand on this side of the House where we believe in communities we believe in education we believe in freedom and we are not afraid of it. Thank you."