Hipkins ChrisClauses 1 to 3Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): We come to the summing-up part of the debate and all I can say is thank goodness for Gerry Brownlee. At least he was here to call for a vote on the Supplementary Order Paper put forward by the Hon Paul Goldsmith which no one in the National Party wanted to speak to. So passionate were they about the issue that they didn't want to speak to it.Hon Gerry Brownlee: Relevance. Relevance.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: So as we sum up—I'd accuse the member of many things but balance is not one of them—but as we come to this summing-up part of the debate it's very clear that there are some themes that have emerged from this. There is only one side of the House that is actually willing to scrutinise the actions of the Government and that is this side of the House—clearly not that side over there despite the fact that that is actually their job. But that's OK that's OK. We're getting used to that—the largest and laziest Opposition New Zealand has ever seen.But there are also some other broad themes that have come out of this debate one of which is that only members on this side of the House seem to be taking seriously the fact that we do have a responsibility to ensure the welfare of international students in New Zealand and we do actually have a responsibility to crack down on some pretty dodgy practices that have been happening in the international education sector. The only members who actually spoke to those issues even bothered to raise them in the committee were members of Labour New Zealand First and the Green Party—not a jot from the National Opposition on those matters despite the fact that they are big and serious matters. So I think we can draw that as a theme from this particular debate.Another theme that we can draw from the debate is that now that they are in Opposition and the Māori Party is out of Parliament the National Party doesn't really care what happens to the wānanga. The wānanga have campaigned for a very long time to have the ability to apply to use the term university". It's not a guarantee as I stressed earlier on; it's their ability to apply. This was something that the previous National Government were encouraged to adopt by the Māori Party as one of their partners when they were in Government and now of course they've just completely forgotten all about that now that the Māori Party are out of Parliament and the National Party are free to revert to type.So it's interesting that they didn't have anything to say on those provisions at all. They didn't have anything to say on the provisions around providers who are ripping off the system by falsifying student records. I thought that was interesting and I thank the members to my right who took the time to scrutinise those provisions in this particular bill.So overall I think this bill is a positive development for the tertiary education system in New Zealand. It updates and modernises legislation. Another piece of scrutiny that we received from the Government side of the House was around the modernisation of meeting provisions for tertiary education institution councils—nothing on the National Party side of the House with regard to those provisions of course. One or two members are still figuring out how to actually use their phones so I can understand why they found those provisions slightly perplexing. But overall this is a good bill and I welcome the National Party's support for it. I think it does deliver welcome and needed changes to our education legislation."