Brooking RachelRACHEL BROOKING (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker. Like many of the previous speakers in the introduction to the inquiry I'd like to start with acknowledging the death of Mason Pendrous and the tragedy that that was. Like his father has said it's good to see that there was progress made both in 2019 and now with the inquiry and further piece of work. I'm not on the select committee that was discussing or doing the inquiry but I was part of it for some of the time and I was able to hear some very moving submissions.My own experience with student accommodation is that I'm a proud Otago graduate but at the time that I was at university living in Dunedin I was not able to go to a hall as they were because they were all so full up and so popular—and they are a really important part of that Otago University experience I think. The OUSA Otago University Students' Association submission said that there's over 4000 students at Otago in this type of accommodation. When I was going through university there was certainly the range and there still is of the trust-based—as in governed by a trust—type of hall and also the ones run by the university. My husband went to one that was run by—it was religious. Then when I was living in Dunedin as a lawyer I was on the advisory board of one of the university ones that was different from a lot of what we've heard about in the inquiry because it was postgraduate and internationally focused. I was also involved during my time at the university as a university student representative on the university council which is obviously relevant to the governance of these university-run student hostels. But what I heard when I was sitting in the select committee was that there was much more diversity than what I witnessed as a student and adviser and that in fact there are a lot of privately run for-profit and also joint ventures with different universities and institutions with private providers. So what I'm particularly interested in with that background is the role of students in leading and directing and improving what it is that student accommodation can offer and I just would like to go now to the Otago University Students' Association submission that was on this point at 3.4. It says that Many students' accommodation providers currently do not allow for student input within their governance structure. Given that student accommodation is inherently provided for students it is imperative that students be given a say in the services they are provided and the governance of the organisation which provides them. Therefore we believe that all student accommodation providers should be required to have student input and representation in their governance. This will ultimately make student accommodation better for everyone." and that is something that I endorse.My experience is that where students are involved in participating in what happens with their place of residence that does then support the wellbeing that some of the other speakers have spoken about. My friend Ibrahim Omer is not able to be in the House today and he is a permanent member of the select committee and cares greatly about this topic and so I asked him if there was anything that he particularly wanted me to say. He did say that this pastoral care code really does need to be the focus of the continued discussion from the inquiry and that it's important that we get it right. Like me he's a fan of student involvement and thinks that it's very important to work with students because they are best placed to speak for themselves. Being a permanent member of the committee Ibrahim Omer heard a lot of emotional testimony from students who really shared their views and they do need to be listened to both for the work of this inquiry and the future. He also noted that some student accommodation has been toxic especially for migrants and that it's especially important that student providers do have cultural competence training—and this has been part of one of the recommendations of the inquiry at recommendation 7. So on that note Madam Speaker thank you for enabling this discussion of the inquiry and thank you to the select committee for the very good piece of work that they've produced."