Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Ngā mihi nui. Thank you very much. It's great to have an opportunity to speak on this bill. I'd actually like just to go back to what Mr Brett Hudson's point was which the Minister was refuting here. I think given the very low turnout of only 13000 they might need votes from all sorts of sectors to cover it because it's such a poor turnout. I think that's a really small number. We're going from nine to 13 members and certainly in my Government's experience eight is an ideal size for a board; nine you can live with—that's fine—maybe even 10. But going up to 13 it becomes far less workable. It actually is quite an issue for a board to get some sensible discussion and sensible decisions being made with some progress. Having 13 around the table will slow that down quite significantly. And you'd have to wonder why we've gone to that going for representation as it is. In fact I'm sure my colleague Nicola Willis has already worked this out: that's one person on the board for every 1000 votes. So that's a pretty poor result I would've thought in terms of numbers.I was really stunned. I thought David Seymour's contribution was outstanding. And you know he's quite right. This isn't about kids and it isn't about education; it's about teachers. And I think while they are connected I suppose one would hope the primary focus of Parliament would be to get education right and to get everything right for the kids rather than some sort of quasi body that's looking after teachers—particularly when we look at the reference to the policy statement that the council will have to take regard to. And I think that is really quite concerning. I think Mr Seymour might not have been aware of that when he made his contribution in that he was making a claim that the Minister would be able to see how the elected members go and then judge their political leaning and then he could stack the deck with the remaining appointees. I think that while that might be a valid argument that's actually not going to be the case because it seems like this is really a stalking horse or a shroud if you like for this policy statement. Effectively the Minister will run the council because they will have to take direction from his policy statement. I think that is a very dangerous position to be in and I suspect the teachers will be very disappointed when they find out what they have really been delivered. I'm sure it has been delivering on a promise. You can take that any way you like but I'm absolutely certain that will be the case.I also wanted to mention Nicola Willis' Supplementary Order Paper (SOP)—No. 95 I think it was—where the Minister would have to report on the skills of those appointed to the board and elected to the board. I think that's a really important SOP. I think the Minister has dismissed that without really going into why he would dismiss that. One thing we do know is that sunlight is a great disinfectant. If we can see and it was plain for everyone to see who was on that council what their skills were what they were bringing to the table that would be a real incentive for them to deliver on those skills on their mandate to represent those teachers. I think it's a pity that he didn't take that a little more seriously. I do think he should reconsider that.I do note the New Zealand Catholic Education Office was very keen for a greater representation.Simon O'Connor: Be careful of those Catholics!STUART SMITH: Yeah well I think they do raise a very good point because when charter schools come back in and that's not going to be very far away—I mean they just made such a significant contribution to education. They were punching way above their weight. It's really important that we have good representation and I'm sure we should cut it back to nine and certainly make sure that charter schools are well represented on that Teaching Council. We could perhaps even rename it. I'm sure we could do it for less than $700000. It's not that expensive to do a bit of rebranding—quite popular with this Government. I think Damien O'Connor probably gave the Minister the idea because he's rebranding the Ministry for Primary Industries. So thank you Mr Chairperson.