Lee DeniseDENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I appreciate that contribution from the New Zealand First member of the Labour-led coalition Mark Patterson. I would like to start with referring to some of the contribution that New Zealand First—I don't think I quite realised there was going to be a New Zealand First speaker before me. I thought it very interesting back in the first reading—and then of course we highlighted this in the committee of the whole House stage—that New Zealand First had quite a significant contribution to this bill: it was ensuring that the term New Zealand" stayed in the title. Unfortunately that was the only contribution that I can recall and it was—I'll give them credit where credit's due—vigorously debated by the Hon Tracey Martin who said that she had an issue with the bill. They'd campaigned on it but the one thing was the name. If you want to see what quality debating looks like then have a whole entire first reading speech around the title "New Zealand" being inserted into the name—that was it. That was the sum total of the contribution. I think possibly New Zealand First could have done a little bit better than that. We had an entirely vigorous committee of the whole House stage—loads of Supplementary Order Papers loads of amendments and not a squeak from New Zealand First except for "insert the term NZ". It sort of reminds me of their attempt to do something else in education the Education (Protecting Teacher Title) Amendment Bill and we know how that turned out—Hon Members: Too soon.DENISE LEE: —too soon—trying to take away the term "teacher" from dance teachers and cooking teachers and music teachers. Look I will move on from New Zealand First to some of the points that I raised again in committee of the whole House and it was when we looked at as the committee reasons to delay the commencement of this bill. There were three really valid arguments that I raised and unfortunately it's not quite what we see here in the House today. One is that we do need—and the previous speaker raised this—to increase participation in these elections. There's no two ways about that. If the commencement was delayed and that particular amendment was passed—it wasn't and it was in the name of the Hon Nikki Kaye—then there may have been time to get some really good grunty decent work around increasing participation. If the honourable aim of making this teacher-led and elections-led is ultimately around participation then why not delay and plan for that? The other is lessening the financial burden. Perhaps if we had a little bit more time before this came into play that $700000 which has already been quoted tonight and I'm sure will be quoted again—$700000 is a very big figure. Now if you think that's just a figure that this side of the House is bandying about it was mentioned not only by the Education Council itself during the select committee process but also by the Waitakere Area Principals' Association strongly opposing that particular figure and lo and behold it was also mentioned by the New Zealand Educational Institute the union who said they urge "a cautious fiscal approach". So there you go: three really notable submitters who had something to say around the $700000 cost. The other third point that was raised in regards to delaying the commencement was the lack of clarity and direction for the education sector at the moment. Sixteen reviews are taking place right now. This is some change around a peak body the council that has some big work ahead of them and we don't know what the work is that they will be looking over. In fact they might find that coming into their jurisdiction and in their responsibility are results of reviews results of reports and working groups that they might want to take into account. Well they won't know what that is especially if the commencement date takes place early next year—and that's how it seems that this is going to roll out. I'd like to also refer to what I'll just call a really interesting thing that's taking place and you can see it for yourself on the Order Paper of today. I've got two yellow marks here for two particular bills on Parliament's agenda—Parliament's Order Paper—today and there's a really interesting point to make here. So right now we know that the stated purpose of this bill is to raise the teaching profession status and give greater independence going back to an elected membership model. In doing so we are arguing that it's going to sacrifice some of that really determinant direction that we had under our Government about bringing the skills and competency focus to the council. It's been extremely successful. No one has been arguing that the current council is not successful. That's I think a really strong point that should not be lost. We've never heard during submissions from the other side of the House at any point that the current council is not successful. It is. So we'd like to know: if you're going to sacrifice some of that skills and competency focus that's there now is it going to be worth it for what we see coming down the pipeline as potentially less independence? The irony is that what you've got now is a set of points and legislation for increased independence yet on the Order Paper there's another bill that we are possibly going to be debating later tonight and that bill would possibly see the Minister of Education being in our opinion extremely disingenuous by following up with legislation that gives him increased influence over the council. So here we are from the other side of the House saying we want increased independence and we want a lifting of teachers' status and the profession and then later tonight we're going to be debating the first reading of a bill that takes away some of that independence.I would like for someone to tell me how that stacks up. It does not stack up and I think the other side knows it. It's going to be a hollow gesture I think to pass this now and potentially have a first reading for something that blatantly takes away the independence that the other side of the House so-called longs for. I hope that we will not see the current system—the current council and all their work and all their proven work—sacrificed. If you're going to go from no resulting increase you're going to have no resulting increase in that independence as a result of these two bills somewhat back-to-back.I want to in relation to that topic finish by raising I think the travesty and the irony that when the Hon Nikki Kaye raised this back-to-back bill irony she was called out by the other side of the House—by members Jamie Strange and Mark Patterson—as fostering a conspiracy theory. Well to those two members take another look at your Order Paper today and tell me if you see a conspiracy theory here. [Holds up Order Paper marked with two yellow tabs] There are the two yellow check marks. This is the bill that we're on now. This is the bill that we're going to be on later. One undoes some of the other so that's something that needs to be incredibly locked on—do you want to see the yellow marks one more time? It's the colour of ACT. Is David Seymour contributing tonight? I'm not sure. So look I would invite members from all sides of the House to acknowledge the work that the current council have undertaken. I'd like to pay special tribute—and I've done this before but I'll do it again—to Barbara Ala'alatoa as the chairman of the council. She happens to be the principal of a school in my electorate of Maungakiekie. I know that Barbara not only does fantastic work in her local school but is often involved in education sector big pieces of work. She must be one incredibly busy woman. I'd like to lay down one final plea for the other side of the House: if it ain't broke don't fix it."