Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I stand on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand still as our tertiary education spokesperson although unfortunately no longer on the Education and Workforce Committee.Mark Patterson: Boo.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: So I send my condolences particularly to my colleague Mark Patterson who I very much enjoyed sitting next to.But the topic of this legislation that brings us here in the Chamber today is actually of quite a sombre tone. I want to acknowledge as all of those speakers who have so far Mason Pendrous from the University of Canterbury and his whānau who you know I have a limited understanding of the grief of that loss but I'm sure you'll still be grappling with that. So I want to acknowledge that.I'm gutted—and the Greens and I'm sure all of us are gutted—that it took a tragedy like this a loss of a young life to actually look at such a glaring gap in our legislation and in our care for young people who are going out there into the world often leaving home for the very first time and engaging in what should be a really exciting first new chapter out of the compulsory education sector.When I became our mental health spokesperson for the Greens in 2018 I went on a tour around university campuses to understand mental ill-health as it was presenting on those campuses given that tertiary students are often those who are pretty good at voicing and communicating their concerns and what they perceive as political failings. In speaking to those university students a number of themes presented themselves. Actually a number of Residential Assistants (RAs)—those being students who are put in a position to look after at times hundreds of students in university halls—recounted to me that they had been put in positions with a huge amount of responsibility next to no backing to do it and a very limited period of time—that being their supposed working hours—to actually address those issues as they were presented.The way that one of these RAs put it to me is that students and parents in particular are sold this vision of university halls on these glossy magazine covers—where you know why would you choose to go into a flat when you can go into this place which is going to look after you and help you transition into a university lifestyle—which for me actually brings out the point to address what had been raised just then by my colleague Simeon Brown around the potential for increasing costs. I believe it was put quite well by the Minister Chris Hipkins with regard to how any of those university halls and university providers who are speaking about increasing their costs in response to this are gouging. Because quite frankly it's indicative of how they have cut costs through cutting wellbeing through cutting the pastoral care that they are supposed to be providing through that advertising that they've put out into the world on those glossy magazine covers.Why on earth would any student any parent decide to put their child in one of these halls when it's cheaper to put them into a flat if not for the supposed level of service that is provided through this kind of pastoral care that's supposed to be there?It's been raised by a number of those who have addressed the bill so far the intricate details like how no pastoral care actually existed for domestic tertiary students no code existed prior to the passage of this legislation at the end of these speeches today. A voluntary one was set up in 2004 but it hasn't been regularly reviewed or updated. I would hope that in light of this tragedy and in light of the anomaly particularly picked up between international and domestic student care we don't let that lapse again that we continue to keep that emphasis that is required on wellbeing and on the mental health of students and indeed of all in the society.I also want to speak about the point that had been raised by a number of my colleagues most notably the Hon Nikki Kaye. I sat on the Education and Workforce Committee up until the point that we reported this back to the House. I'd just like to correct the record that it was actually myself who prompted the fact that there should be consultation with the Privacy Commissioner in here. That was off the back of a brilliant submission from the Privacy Commissioner. I did receive support from National Party colleagues at that point in time but due to the bizarre vagaries of voting and all of us walking in and out of the room I don't think we passed it through the select committee stage but we did end up getting it through by amendment from the Minister. So thank you Minister Hipkins for paying attention to that detailed report from the select committee.That's really important to me that we have that consultation with the Privacy Commissioner. It's really important to the Greens because we've seen an abuse of that privacy of students in a number of different situations in the past few years. University students at Otago University will be aware of their proctor engaging in some mischievous behaviour and walking on to their property.But we also want to make sure that we don't end up with a hyper-paternalistic model which talks down to our young people just as they're seeking to get their foot out there into the real world which is also why it's crucial that alongside speaking to providers to staff and to parents students are central to this conversation. That was a thread of argument that we heard from a number of student associations who submitted.Just in summary the Greens are proud and happy to be commending this bill to the House on a day that it appears that we've got another piece of legislation with unanimity particularly because it is so crucial to guarding the wellbeing of our young people. I hope very strongly that it is the case that we never again see the tragedy that fell upon Mason Pendrous and his whānau. Kia ora.