Tinetti JanJAN TINETTI (Labour): Madam Deputy Speaker thank you. I'm delighted to be here speaking on the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). Something that I'm quite passionate about is what I'm going to discuss in my time here this evening which is cohort entry. Now we heard from the previous speaker Denise Lee that this would give parents confusion about when they start school. Actually this tidies up that confusion. If you want confusion I suggest that the previous speaker goes and looks at the current website now that explains how the current cohort entry works. That actually takes quite a bit of time to get one's mind around. Now the reason that I'm quite passionate about this is because actually it was under the previous Government's policies that they had the advisory group for early learning. They talked about cohort entry in that particular group. The then Minister Hekia Parata brought together a fantastic group of early childhood educators academics and schooling representatives. At the time in December 2014 it was stated in their press release that Minister Parata has appointed an advisory group to help children get the best possible start to their early learning and schooling." Academics were appointed to that group such incredible amazing gifted and talented people such as Dr Joce Nuttall Dame Iritana Tāwhiwhirangi Dr Jeanette Clarkin-Phillips Dr Lesley Rameka Ali Glasgow Carol Hartley Brenda Soutar Jan Taouma and the two schooling reps Adelle Broadmore and one Jan Tinetti. In that group there was actually a willingness to look at cohort entry. We absolutely talked about how that could be beneficial to children and to schools. But that group who the Minister at the time said were some of the cleverest people involved in the early childhood sector said under no circumstance should children ever start school before the age of five years old. So why was it that the then Government could listen to some of the recommendations from that advisory group but not a critical and key recommendation that said that those children shouldn't start school? Now where did that come from that recommendation? Evidence—strong evidence that I sat and had to read through as part of that group. Evidence worldwide evidence and New Zealand evidence that said that actually at that time a few weeks could mean a lot to those particular children because as we all know child development changes a lot at that particular age and it was most important that we kept our children in the early childhood settings. So those academics were absolutely adamant and when this was changed and the cohort entry allowed for sometimes up to eight weeks before the age of the fifth birthday this particular advisory group led by Dr Joce Nuttall wrote to the then Government suggesting that they'd made a mistake in allowing early cohort entry to happen. This is why I'm so passionate because in this bill we are able to put this right. We are putting our children at the centre. We're not using some ideological basis to do that; we are using evidence. We're not putting other people at the centre. We are putting those children right at the centre of our policies and our legislation and that is the most important and strongest thing that we can be doing for these children. That's why I am so proud of this bill and proud to be putting a very big wrong right."