Lee DeniseDENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to the Education and Training Bill this afternoon in the first reading debate. As outlined by my colleague Dr Parmjeet Parmar we oppose this bill at the first reading but we wish to reserve our final support or non-support for the remaining stages of this bill for some very sensible reasons—because we like to take a sensible approach a pragmatic approach to anything that comes across our desk our party our table and our select committee team when it comes to education.We do believe that it's a good idea to consolidate educational legislation and that is what this bill is doing. However we've just got some serious concerns around several topics and again Dr Parmar outlined it. Zoning is one of them. I'm going to come back to that particular topic and attempt to address it in a little bit more detail in terms of where we're coming from on that.We wish to say that we'll be looking for sensible changes and support for those changes come select committee time. I'm here in the House this afternoon with several of my colleagues on the select committee team from the National Party side and we'll look forward to taking this through that process.This of course is coming out of some of those Tomorrow's Schools reforms. We supported the Government on NCEA reform. What I'm trying to do here is show how we take a pragmatic approach piece by piece to education legislation. We're very pleased that education hubs—the big 125 schools per hub idea—has gone from the Tomorrow's Schools reforms. So kudos to the Government and others for seeing the sense in that.But now we've got here a bill that incorporates some of the other changes that Tomorrow's Schools reforms and others are putting forward. What we oppose in the bill—just some of the headlines—is of course and I've just referred to it that school zone issue: developing consulting reviewing. Currently school boards do that but this particular legislation strips that away. We don't believe that that's a good idea—it'll lead to less school choice and I'll come back to it. We don't think that educational achievement should now just be one of four objectives. It used to be the primary objective and now of all things educational achievement is only one of four. Now if anyone on the other side of the House might think OK well the National Party's overly hanging their hat on principle." one need only look at local government and the careful consideration from the other side of the House around principles and wellbeings. Well here we are wanting to make our say and our stance on these particular principles. Educational achievement should always be the primary—not one of four but the primary; the only primary—objective for our nation's education system.Now there's a couple of items in the bill that we think—well we actually know we'd like to see more detail on. So it's OK to raise the discussion it's OK to have them in there but where is the detail? One is the Minister setting minimum eligibility requirements for principals. So we've wanted to see standards lifted in this area but what does that look like? What is the detail on that? Before we can even remotely start to give support what will that look like? We'll see what happens during the select committee process.Offshore institutions will no longer be able to award NCEA—again what does that look like? We really value export education but can we be confident that the case is truly being made adequately for creating this particular cut-off for offshore institutions Pacific specifically to stop awarding NCEA?One more area we would like more detail on is boards following a mandatory national code of conduct set by the Minister. Where's the detail on that? That could be incredibly wide scoping and we'll want to interrogate that during the select committee process.Now there are four areas where we think there's some good merit in the bill. One is enshrining rights for enrolled students to attend the school where they're enrolled. So making sure that it's locked in for students we think that's a good idea. Where a school board is invalidated right now the Minister can't appoint a commissioner to run the school. Previously he or she had to reinstate the previous board. Now this legislation allows for that. We think that's a good idea. We also think that it's a good idea that you are able to—we live in a modern-day era now—advertise for board vacancies online. Previously you had to go to the old school community newsletter. There are a few bits of legislation in these past couple of years I must say where the good old looking online is coming back in vogue; that's great. And then finally another good area is boards consulting with staff and students when making bylaws. That's obviously a good thing to do—making sure that consultation takes place.Now as I said earlier I wanted to then head over and touch on the zoning issue. I was a school board chair for a number of years. I have—like other of my colleagues who have been involved either as parents or as board chairs and board members—been through many a zone issue and they are highly controversial. They are highly contested. There's a high expression of interest in what takes place. And we're very clear that that should be local by local for local. We are very clear that that should stay as it is and that is with the school boards doing both the developing and the consulting on the enrolment scheme. That's what we've got right now and that's what we want to keep.So what we've got in the impact summary on this bill and specifically this zone issue is basically a retort that an enrolment scheme—developing consulting working with it from a school board perspective—is just too much for them. We'd take exception to that. I've been through it myself. It's not too much for school boards to do it. It's exactly what they want to do and be involved in because they know the area they know the impact. We got down to the point in one particular zoning issue where we were down to a single house a real estate agent had said something different the school had said something different and the Ministry of Education had said something different. There were crossed wires cross-communication. This particular family was incredibly distraught and then wanted to make the issue much wider to the entire community. It was a massive issue.I very much struggle to see how taking that out to the regional option is going to work. Ministry officials will not know and cannot know the nuances that local communities do. School board trustees get elected for that stuff. They get elected because they want to know that they can back not only their community but back their school and back their families and this bill takes that away from them. We should be incredibly weary of that.Then we've also got one massive reality check with this zoning issue—massive reality check—and it's right here in the impact summary statement. There is an admission when you read it that going to this regional option two for school zoning will make the entire process of developing and implementing a zone "longer". "The consultation"—and I'm reading here from the impacts—"may be broader and more likely to involve multiple schools." So now you're making it bigger than Ben-Hur. It's going to be longer it's going to be more complex it's not just by parents for parents and working with the school; it's now bigger than Ben-Hur. So be careful what you wish for. We don't like this part of the legislation. We will be interrogating it during the select committee process. We reserve our judgment for final support in the end. Thank you."