Kaye NikkiHon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): I am not pleased to have to speak and oppose a piece of education legislation to the House. I'm on the back of as I've said before 70-odd meetings across New Zealand and a big message from the education sector is where possible they would like to have greater cross-party agreement in education. I acknowledge the thousands of teachers that have been at paid union meetings some of them this week and the hard work that they do. But the reality is we do have to oppose this legislation. While we may have supported one Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) within this legislation we are opposing it on the grounds actually for what the Minister mentioned at the beginning of his speech. This is an incredibly ideological piece of legislation and I'm going to walk members exactly through those areas of ideology that have been driven by this Government. The first issue is the issue of cohort entry. Again let's look back at the history. The Hon Hekia Parata under the former National Government recognised the real issues being raised by new-entrant teachers who saw the disruption in their classrooms for not having a decent cohort entry policy for New Zealand. What we recognised was very pragmatic and it was very much about recognising that not a one-size-fits-all approach works for children and for families and that actually when you get across New Zealand there are some children who for their emotional well-being it makes sense and whose parents' circumstances mean that potentially at the most—at the most—a group of children may start up to eight weeks before their fifth birthday. Now for many children the reality is it would have been a couple of days maybe a week but that isn't the case for this Government. They don't back parents. They don't support working parents. They don't realise that actually for some children that may make sense. I get all of the media and all of the spin that the Government's put out that this is about a whole lot of four-year-olds starting before their fifth birthday. The reality is under our law now parents have a choice and they don't have to put their child into school until much later. This was about recognising that for a small group of parents and children that made sense. So at a principled level it doesn't matter whether it's partnership schools and they scrapped them because they don't like the diversity that exists it doesn't matter whether they're putting up Tomorrow Schools reform; it's all about a one-size-fits-all approach in education and it's all about not backing parents. That's why at a principled level National was concerned with where they were going for cohort entry. I do want to acknowledge though that at least they haven't scrapped cohort entry—that actually cohort entry will remain as a result of this legislation. They're not completely getting rid of it despite some big statements that the Minister has previously made. I do want to acknowledge that there will be more options in terms of cohort entry mid-term as well. However it still doesn't change the fact that a group of parents across New Zealand in my view are being denied the right because their school may take up cohort entry to have their child start at the age of five.Anyway the second core issue in this bill relates to in my view—as I said before in the committee stages—a core difference between National and Labour. National believes that there are huge changes and disruption coming in education. We believe as a result of the future of work it is critical for young people to be able to understand computational thinking. Here's our record. Our record is $200 million invested in ensuring that schools have access to uncapped data and fast connections across New Zealand. Now here's the deal: we also understood we needed to mandate the digital technologies curriculum with that so that children weren't just spending a whole lot of time on screens; they also had access to quality curriculum. But the key part of that is there are a whole lot of children in parts of New Zealand that don't have access to specialist subjects whether it's mathematics—and I am looking at Minister Salesa there—or whether it's the issue of other languages like Pasifika languages and Te Reo. The reality is digital technologies via quality supplementary learning or potentially virtual learning networks offer huge opportunities for young people. But the reality is that this Government doesn't care. The reason we know that they don't care is they have put up a piece of legislation without any other alternative regime. The reality is that this would have kicked in and provided other contestability to organisations like Te Kura. It would have provided additional opportunities to organisations like the Virtual Learning Network. But the reality is that this Government doesn't care because they have not provided anything else as an alternative. My sadness is that not only does it deny a group of young people additional opportunities in rural areas; it also denies opportunities to some of our most disadvantaged families. The reality is if the Government was so ideological about virtual schools when the reality is that this would have provided additional subject learning in certain schools then it should have provided an alternative regime. National is very focused on ensuring that that happens not just in the next couple of months but over the next 20 to 30 years. The next area in this bill was around private schools. The reality is again we have an intensely ideological Government. National recognises that actually we need a very strong State system. It's about 85 percent of our education provision. Private schools integrated schools and partnership schools make up a very small proportion: about 15 percent. The reality is there is no parliamentarian in this House that wouldn't support a change that would do something to improve a situation where you have children's safety at risk so of course we would support any regime that would strengthen that. All we asked during the select committee process was Where is the evidence that there is a whole range of reasons to change the law?" Now the Minister's answer is "Well we're not going to wait for the evidence; actually we're going to pass the law to make sure that if a situation occurs in the future we can effectively close down that school." There are also strong arguments that we can actually do that now. So again there was a lot of fear in the sector that this may be something a little bit more sinister a bit of a closed will of private schools. I think we got more clarity in the select committee process.The next issue that I do want to raise is around the name change issue. Can I take a moment to acknowledge my parliamentary colleague Nicola Willis. She did a fantastic job. She's a great example of a local member of Parliament who fought an issue that was providing a huge amount of angst for thousands of young people out there—and older people—who have degrees that were worried about this name change. I do want to acknowledge that the Minister listened and he made the right decision. But also through the select committee we heard from the likes of Sir Geoffrey Palmer the need to tidy up this area of the law. So while we can't support this bill because of the deep ideological issues in many other areas and the fact that it snuffs out future opportunities for many children in disadvantaged areas and rural areas I do want to put on the record in this House that we have supported that amendment—and I acknowledge Dr Shane Reti and the work that he's done on it as well—because from my perspective National is very pragmatic when it comes to education. What I hope that people see in the future is that we are part of a party that believes in doing the right thing that believes in making pragmatic changes. I want to leave you with this: we oppose this legislation and what we are hearing on the ground—whether it's the issue of collective bargaining not being resolved and the Government wasting money in a range of other areas whether it's the issue of scrapping partnership schools and the many emails that have come into our inbox and the people that we have met from the families that have been affected whether it's scrapping communities of online learning or whether it's ideological changes to cohort entry—is a growing number of New Zealanders and families that are saying to me they thought they were going to get a Labour Government that was going to invest heavily in education. They thought they were going to get a Labour Government that was going to do the right thing for a number of communities particularly Māori and Pasifika children particularly children growing up in rural communities. They were sorely wrong. What they have is an ideological Government that is absolutely focused on their ideology not in doing what is right for children in New Zealand and more and more people are waking up to that. That is why we oppose this bill."