Turei MetiriaMETIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): I am very pleased to take a call on this legislation. When the charter schools were first proposed they were well regarded by the education sector—by those who are experts in education—as simply a means by which some private organisations would access significant amounts of public money with less oversight and with a great deal of less control over the standards of education than you would expect. It was a policy that was proposed by ACT which has very very small support in this country. So there was a lot of concern about what charter schools would actually deliver. The first lot of charter schools were put in place and all of the concerns about the failure of oversight the excessive amounts of money that were going to charter schools compared with public schools and the failure of those charter schools—all were met. All of those concerns were actually met. In fact the charter schools experiment on our children has proven to be a failure repeatedly. One of the major concerns I have about the charter school experiment—failed experiment—is the fact that concerns about Māori education were used as an excuse but in fact it was an abuse of those concerns about Māori education. As a result charter schools that involved Māori communities failed because the system itself the concept is so repugnant to good education in this country. So I welcome this bill. Although we unfortunately still have this failed policy repugnant policy of charter schools in New Zealand this bill at least tries to bring those schools under some greater public scrutiny. It is absolutely essential that increased scrutiny because of the extra amount of money that these schools are getting because of the freedom that the neo-liberals on the other side of the House have given to the private organisations that are taking that public money. So therefore—David Seymour: This is like a high school essay.METIRIA TUREI: Well Mr Seymour you were the one who claimed that we should not be using ideology if I remember rightly in a public session I had with you recently. I would argue that it is your ideology. It is the neo-liberal ideology that has put in place this policy and it has therefore been an experiment on our children whose education is critical—[Interruption]; thank you Mr Assistant Speaker—particularly Māori education. So this is why I welcome this bill to at least provide greater oversight for these charter schools which are taking so much money and performing such a terrible experiment. At least it would give members of the public parents and others who are involved in the education sector the ability to investigate the decisions that are being made by charter schools abuse in the schools and bullying in the schools. I mean there is a whole range of issues. Let us be aware too that one of the reasons why these schools have been—because they are schools. They are not NGOs. They are not private organisations. They are actually schools at their hearts so they need to be treated like schools. There is a real concern that there are kids in these schooling institutions where there is not sufficient public oversight over the quality of their education what is happening with their pastoral care inside those centres and what is happening with the financial management of these schools. When these schools close down—like they have because there has been a number that have closed because it is such a scandalous policy—it is not Mr Seymour who suffers as a result of that school closure. It is not National that suffers as a result of that school closure. It is the kids. It is the kids who have been experimented on. Even so far as their schools have failed the fact that these school institutions are not subject to the Official Information Act means that we do not have the real information about why they failed and what could be done to protect those kids in the future. So I fully support this legislation. Thank you very much.