Stanford Erica; Tinetti JanERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you. That leads to my next question to the Minister of Education around the appointment of these people. The ministry seemed to say in all of the Education Committee process that this change requires no collection of information or asking of awkward questions. But in many of the submissions that we heard from—and I also have the belief that this will be a problem—this simply can't be true that there won't be awkward questions. A number of people that spoke to us in committee who are current or former board members reflected that in many instances they simply didn't know the sexualities of their board members or if any had a particular gender identity. Some said that they'd made the assumption based on things like partners or spouse's names but on reflection they really didn't know. So others mentioned it wasn't a topic of discussion. They were focused on what they were there for: to govern the school well for every student. So my question to the Minister is: the ministry is saying there won't be any awkward questions how does she think that co-opting members of different sexualities to school boards will happen without asking any awkward questions or will it just be guess work?Hon JAN TINETTI (Minister of Education): Because I trust the schools.Erica Stanford: My next question to the Minister is around—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Erica Stanford.ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Oh sorry. Madam Chair? Thank you. My next question is around definitions. The ministry has not defined what they mean by gender" in the bill leaving it up to boards simply to guess. For the record I was hoping that the Minister of Education could put on record—so that it's in Hansard and we can all see it—the difference between "gender" and "sex" for the purpose of this bill.Hon JAN TINETTI (Minister of Education): Here "gender" is referred to as a person's social and personal identity as male female or another gender or genders that may be non-binary. Both "gender identity" and "gender expression" are included in the definition.ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): I ask the Minister of Education once again how is it that a board will know someone's gender identity as opposed to their sex without asking questions or collecting information? The Minister may want to think about that question and answer it later because she hasn't answered it either time that I've asked it.The other question I want to talk to her about is the inclusion in the section of socio-economic diversity. One of the submitters to the bill made a very similar point regarding the reference to socio-economic diversity and says that it's outdated—giving a quote here—"It appears to simply be a Wellington way of insinuating that poor people may not be able to be elected on merits so they may need to be co-opted." I read that as a direct quote out of one of the submissions that we got. I'd like the Minister to answer the question of whether or not she thinks people of low socio-economic means are not able to be elected on to a board by their own merits and therefore need to be co-opted and added as a separate category under this bill.Hon JAN TINETTI (Minister of Education): I don't like doing this but I'm going to. The member hasn't had experience of working with a low socio-economic school before—I have.Hon Gerry Brownlee: Oh here we go.Hon JAN TINETTI: Thank you. I don't like doing this.Hon Gerry Brownlee: First-class Labour arrogance.Marja Lubeck: It's experience.Hon JAN TINETTI: It is experience.Hon Gerry Brownlee: No it's not. That is ignorance. That is—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! Order! This is a robust House.Hon Gerry Brownlee: Yes it is.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Thank you the Hon Gerry Brownlee. I can do without his contribution. So can we just keep this to a respectful not hectoring time? Hon JAN TINETTI: Thank you Madam Chair. What I was going to go and say is that in many experiences that I have had there have been many people that have had the skills to work on the boards of trustees before but have not necessarily put their hands up to do that because they've had a lack of confidence in their own ability. This gives them the ability to stand alongside the board just as it does in many other sectors. We have the same processes in many public sector boards many private sector boards have the same processes where they see skills that might exist in people who won't necessarily have that confidence. This gives those boards the ability to be able to think about those people who might not necessarily have the confidence but do have the abilities and skills and knowledge to be able to be on a board of trustees successfully.I think this is a really good amendment that we are making here or a good part of this bill that we are showing here. And I actually do thank you for the ability to be able to get up and talk about this. I've had it from experience—I've seen many many people who have had that experience those skills and that knowledge but they do not have the confidence. This gives those boards the ability to be able to have that pathway for them to come on and develop their knowledge their skills and their abilities to be able to not only work on this board of trustees or their school's board of trustees but to be able to take that through to other boards as well. That's why this is here.ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you. I thank the Minister of Education for her answer. It was really interesting that she talked about confidence in terms of their skill and ability but never actually mentioned the words "socio-economic conditions" of that person. I guess the next question is: how would a board know? I mean I guess that the board could seek out people who they didn't think were confident in their ability but that's very different than socio-economic conditions. I guess the question to the Minister is: how would a board know the socio-economic position of someone that they were co-opting to the board? It's a very similar question to the one that I asked earlier about gender and sexuality and she couldn't answer those questions or wouldn't.The next question then is around socio-economic conditions of that family. Will they have to provide a statement of financial position? How will it be that a board will know that a particular family is in a low socio-economic group to then co-opt them onto a board? Because all the Minister just said before was their "confidence". How will that be defined and also how will the board know when they're co-opting that someone is in that situation? Rather than talking about just confidence I'm specifically talking here about what it says in the bill because this is important—it is making a change. It's talking about the socio-economic diversity of the student body and the community. So that indicates that the board will have to know the socio-economic status of the person that they are co-opting to the board. How would they know that?Hon JAN TINETTI (Minister of Education): I'm sure the member knows how well schools know their community. Schools know their communities inside out. They know the connections within communities. They know more than what people think they know about their school's communities. Just as I said to an earlier answer—and this actually could cover all of the questions that I've been asked so far—I trust schools because I know that they know their communities inside out. Absolutely."