Watts SimonSIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. I wish to talk on the Education and Training Amendment Bill in its third reading. National support this bill. I've heard previously from my good friend and colleague Penny Simmonds that this bill is a clean-up bill and while we appreciate in National and acknowledge that from time to time we will need to in this House undertake fix-ups of errors and mistakes or gaps potentially that were missed through process this is another example of a bill where we are here because of failures of actions previously. This bill amends the Education and Training Act 2020 an Act that National opposed and we opposed it for a number of reasons—and that's why it's relevant to this bill today—including because of the fact that that process was a truncated process. As we know through this House when you don't provide due time and consideration you run a much higher risk of making mistakes and what we are seeing as a result of that today is a process in which we are now consuming this House's time to fix up a bill in which the opportunity cost I guess is that we could be doing other stuff. We've seen earlier today and actually last night some great examples of bills that should have gone through the House in a bipartisan manner that will make a significant impact. Time is short in this House and it is a reflection that—you know let's get it right the first time and do due process. I wanted to also just refer to the fact that this bill obviously will impact a number of elements across our education sector. It will impact a number of the elements that are so important to the fabric of this country I want to—if you will just allow Mr Speaker—call out to Belmont Primary School in my local electorate of the North Shore. The principal Bruce Cunningham does an absolutely amazing job. Yes that school will be impacted by this bill but so will all of the teachers and teacher-aides—as my colleague mentioned before—who do an absolutely sterling job in terms of supporting and educating our young people through what has been a very challenging year. This bill will have impact on them. I think my colleague mentioned quite rightly—and I have a number of those schools that work with children with disability within my electorate as well through teacher-aides and the impacts around the changes in the clauses around restraint etc. will impact them. They do a hugely important role and they bring great value and I've visited those schools before lockdown. Of course we've been in lockdown for 107 days so it was a little while ago but I have visited those schools and seen the amazing work that those teachers and teacher-aides do. I just want to acknowledge them and wish them all a very merry Christmas. As we've heard the select committee—and I acknowledge the deputy chair of the committee that went through the process on this bill—received a massive number of submissions. I think it was four in totality. I'm sure they were all of extreme quality and it's quality not quantity by its sound. But I think what we really want to reflect on is not the select committee process that we're referring to in regards to this bill; it's actually the select committee process that should have been done with a more detailed rigour for the legislation that this bill amends which is the Education and Training Act 2020. The Act is set in a context of an education system in New Zealand which has a significant number of issues and challenges and this bill will impact that. But it is important to recognise some of the key issues that are not addressed actually I guess in this bill which probably could have likewise been amended through the select committee process and that is in regards to the fact that 40 percent—or two in five—of children are not attending school regularly. That is a significant issue for our children and for our country and one in which I know the education system that this bill will impact will reflect on and say that that is not good enough in terms of performance. The reality for our young people is that if they're not at school they cannot learn and they can therefore not succeed. So the importance of using these opportunities in the House when we have such bills as this to make amendments that will improve or mitigate such issues is so important and it is a great shame that we aren't using this opportunity to deal with some of the more significant issues impacting our education system. That is important of course because that education system will help grow a more productive economy and help us get our young people focused in the classroom and able to contribute to society. In regards to the clauses changed here I think there are a number that are reasonably minor in the context in terms of their implications around the system. But going back to the point that my colleague mentioned around the impact on that teacher-aide portion it is actually something that I think is very very important. It is a significant consideration that maybe we should have thought a little bit more about in terms of this process and I think that's probably just a little bit of a learning as we go forward from here. So as I said National support this bill. We acknowledge that the process which we're going through is one that we would prefer not to do but that's where we are I guess. We are hopeful as we move forward from this point—as are other new colleagues in this House—that we don't have to go through this process very often unless it is in circumstances which are considered exceptional. We are confident that we can move on and we hope that this Government starts to reflect on some of the bigger issues that we face in terms of our education sector such as declining achievement and attendance which I've mentioned and bring some of those bills to the House to complement such bills as the bill we are looking at and talking about today. As I said we support this bill and I commend it to the House.