Davidson MaramaMARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): Kia ora tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou my colleagues in this House. The Green Party will absolutely be supporting Chris Hipkins' Education (Charter Schools Abolition) Amendment Bill which will abolish charter schools. I want to remember the New Zealand Educational Institute Te Riu Roa and what it has said: All New Zealand children deserve to be taught in a properly funded public education system by qualified teachers." That is a fantastic starting point. I want to completely tautoko all the words of the previous speaker my colleague Tracey Martin. I am going to focus somewhat on Māori children because absolutely the evidence is thin for whether charter schools will lift Māori achievement levels. Thin is not good enough. Thin evidence is not good enough for tamariki and mokopuna Māori. There should be far more support and endorsement of the movement of kōhanga and kura kaupapa Māori in supporting Māori tamariki and mana Motuhake in Māori education. The privatisation of education undermines public education. I totally do not agree with the direction of privatising education especially when it is going to undermine public education. The research into charter schools and partnership schools relating to minorities around the world is inconclusive—that is the same as thin and that is not good enough. That is not good enough as an experiment or as giving something a go. It is not good enough that the evidence is inconclusive around the world relating to minorities and partnership and/or charter schools. So we have to think collectively and understand that the benefit to Māori is likely to be minimal. I also want to acknowledge that my colleague Tracey Martin referenced South Auckland Middle School. I went there I visited there and I understand what is going on at that school. I was very clear with Mr Poole right from the get-go. I explained to him that I was coming to see the school and I was coming to get an understanding of how it operates but that I am very clear in my opposition to charter schools. I was very clear that all of our children deserve publicly funded and fully qualified teachers. David Seymour: Ideology trumps anything the member—MARAMA DAVIDSON: No it was not at all about ideology because ideology is charter schools Mr Seymour. So I was very clear that absolutely we need a strong publicly funded education system to benefit all of our children. We need qualified teachers. We need accountability to ombudsmen and so forth. That is what our communities deserve; that is what our parents and whānau of our children deserve. I want to talk about special character schools which can happen within the public system such as Kia Aroha College in Ōtara which was previously led by principal Dr Ann Milne. It is an amazing school that really does model innovation and raises warrior scholars within their special character school. That we are able to initiate and allow for public schools to come up with schools—Kia Aroha College has a particular focus on social justice on upholding the identity and the learning ways of every individual student and the collective group as well heralding students who are critically conscious from a school that is culturally responsive. It is able to do things differently without undermining the public education system which in our country needs to be better supported especially for Māori tamariki and Māori students. We can do things differently. Independent thinkers and collaborators can happen but not at the expense of public schools. So just to sum up we also need to focus back on the societal drivers and issues such as poverty housing health and employment instead of making education for business. Kia ora."