Hipkins ChrisHon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Thank you Madam Chair. I just want to make a few quick comments at this point. I'll run through the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) and the Government's position on those just for the avoidance of doubt.With regard to the comments that have just been raised I think it's important to note that these provisions around private schools simply bring them into line with State and the State integrated schools and it goes no further than doing that. With regard to the definition of safety for example it is not defined for State and State integrated schools but it has operated very successfully over a long period of time. Actually the definition of students' physical and emotional safety and so on needs to be considered in the context of which an issue may arise. This simply brings private schools into line with every other school in the country—State and State integrated schools and the private schools support it. So I don't think that there is a particularly big issue here.I do want to correct a claim that's just been made suggesting that the bill puts existing private schools on to a provisional registration: it does not—and I think even an elementary reading of the bill makes that fundamentally quite clear.With regard to the Supplementary Order Papers that have been tabled by the Opposition in my earlier contributions I outlined the SOPs tabled by the Government and explained the rationale for those and what they do. Although I should be clear that actually in speaking to them I gave the impression that the extension of time for planning and reporting was only one year; that was inadvertent on my part. The extension of time is actually three years and that's clear for those who look at the Supplementary Order Paper.But just to run through the Opposition Supplementary Order Papers: Supplementary Order Paper 231 in the name of Nicola Willis to delete clause 13—the Government will not support that because it clearly undermines the intent of the bill.Supplementary Order Paper 232 put forward by Nicola Willis suggesting that if the Teaching Council disagree with a Government policy statement that it should have to be tabled in the House. The threshold for those types of provisions—there are some provisions in law around tabling things in the House—it's a very very high one and that would put this part of law well out of kilter with others. So the Government does not support that.Denise Lee's tabled amendment which deals with stating: In the event [that] the Minister has issued a statement of Government policy" the report "must include a summary of how this statement has impacted on the independence of the Teaching Council its operations and its ability to fulfil its core functions"—that's unnecessary because it can't by definition. It's only a statement that the council has to have regard to so therefore it does not infringe on its independence because it doesn't ultimately have to follow it; it's not a direction.Nikki Kaye's tabled amendment regarding the review by the Minister of Education around online learning—this is actually a legitimate point. I think Nikki Kaye is saying that we do need to do a lot more work around online learning; no question about that I don't think we need to put that in law in order to do that but I'm certainly happy to give the former Minister and the National Party spokesperson my undertaking that we will do that work. I know that she's passionate about this and if she wants to be involved in that I would certainly welcome her involvement in that. There is a lot more work to be done around online learning. Even if the communities of online learning provisions were not deleted it's clear that the work still needs to be done because it was not done in the way that last law was imposed. The last law basically set up a framework with a whole lot of blank space so that work still needs to be done.With regard to Simeon Brown's provisions around clause 14—I think is the correct number of the clause—it's unnecessary because as I've indicated I think he was working on the misunderstanding that the bill puts private schools on to provisional registration when it does not do so.With regard to his other tabled amendment around clause 9 requiring the ministry to publish a detailed definition of physical and emotional safety as I indicated the ministry have been required to consider those issues with regard to State and State integrated schools for a very long time without the need for a very rigid definition of that. There's no good reason why we would need to define that for private schools when we don't define it in a prescriptive way for State and State integrated schools.The final contribution: I do want to welcome the Opposition's support and thank Nicola Willis for her contribution with regard to the proposed change of rules around the way a university name change will be considered in the future. As I indicated before there is some ambiguity in the law around this and therefore while there is now no longer any current case because no university is asking for this at the moment—which is a very welcome development I have to say—it is important I think that for the future we clarify that law so that any applications in the future can be dealt with and I'm pleased we're able to do that on a bipartisan basis across the House."