Martin TraceyTRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora Mr Deputy Speaker. Hekia Parata should thank the chair and the majority of the Education and Science Committee. When I came to this Parliament in the last term of Parliament one of the things I was most proud of was that the first delegation from overseas that came here was from the United Kingdom and it came here to look at our select committee process because it provided the voice of the people inside legislation. It provided real-life examples of what may be wrong or what could right about legislation that we wrote here. The chair of the Education and Science Committee at that time was Nikki Kaye followed by Cam Calder. The Education and Science Committee was balanced with members of the Government and members of the Opposition and so real legislation with real conversation and real negotiation took place to provide legislation that has stood the test of time. This is not what is happening now. I agree with Catherine Delahunty. I am ashamed to have to stand before the community and the public of New Zealand and try to tell them that it is still worthwhile to come to the Education and Science Committee because the Government has a majority and in the last year we have become a dumping ground for ex-Ministers who have followed the Minister's decisions regardless of any information that has come from the sector or from any member of the public. It is an embarrassment to the New Zealand public what is going on at the Education and Science Committee and this bill is an example of it. So certainly the Minister should stand up and thank the chair of the Education and Science Committee and the majority and I want to make it very very clear that it is the National Government that holds a majority on the Education and Science Committee. I encourage people to go and read the minority views that are there because the Opposition certainly does not agree with the Government on this bill. The Opposition certainly heard and listened to the people who submitted on this bill and I say to them please do not give up on democracy. Please do not give up on putting your voice into the select committee process because it is now on the record. When this Government goes on 23 September of this year we will be able to take the evidence and the submissions that you gave us and we will be able to create legislation—particularly for education—that will be for the benefit of New Zealand not for the benefit of a few who will make money. Catherine Delahunty is right. The national education and learning priorities were an opportunity to have a nationwide conversation and decide what success looks like for Kiwi kids in New Zealand—not what it looks like in the UK and not what it looks like in America but what it looks like here. The national education and learning priorities could have been a conversation for New Zealand to set a 30-year direction that would have got politicians out of the classroom. Our job is to fund education not to deliver education but this bill is the last piece in Hekia Parata's puzzle that actually ties up schools from what they were originally supposed to do under Tomorrow's Schools—that is to represent their communities and deliver the New Zealand Curriculum. Dr Jian Yang seems to not know that the New Zealand Curriculum which was developed with this sector with massive conversation across this country and is world recognised was developed in 2008 not 1989. It is that sort of ignorance that frustrates the members of the Opposition when we talk about education. How dare people who do not upskill themselves decide that they will put this thing upon our children and upon our future. Let us talk about the communities of online learning. The reality is that e-learning has been taking part across New Zealand for the last 20 years. Schools are so far ahead of this Government that it is not worth talking about; what they did not have was the funding. The only thing that stands in the way of e-learning—so therefore students in a face-to-face school being able to Skype out into courses that cannot be delivered inside that school environment due to low numbers or lack of a skilled teacher—is funding. It is not necessary to create bodies corporate to deliver it. The virtual learning network and other e-networks across the country already take place; it is just that schools have to take it from their operations grant or from their staffing. If only the Government members had listened at the select committee instead of shutting themselves down and delivering what the Minister had decided was right. These members are intelligent members. It is such a shame that in the final days of this National Government they have decided to not participate. The cohort entry—that is a diversion. Schools have been able to do cohort entry since 1989. Any board of trustees can consult with their community and decide that they will participate in a cohort entry for their students; the thing was that it was after the age of five. What is so important about the age of 4 years 8 months? Here we go—in the briefing papers to Cabinet the ministry modelled the cost of all schools operating a cohort entry. In that case there would be an overall reduction of funding to early childhood education (ECE) of $11.2 million. This is what 4 years 10 months is about—$11.2 million a year. It is nothing to do with the education of students. So why why did the Government members not accept that we could just change the wording to a cohort entry after your fifth birthday" as opposed to "before your fifth birthday"—4 years 10 months? Perhaps one of the members from the Government benches could stand up and justify it but they will not. They will not because they do not know why because at no stage have they been able to articulate why these changes should take place. They have accepted them along with their salaries on face value rather than looking into the real reasons and the real effect of what this is going to do. So cohort entry is not new. What is new is the fact that 5-year-olds or 4-year-and-10-month-olds can now be placed in the truancy process. That is what is new. Now if a child—and let us remember the pressure is on with the Government subsidising ECE for only 20 hours and then those parents who are in 30 hours to 40 hours of employment have got to pay the rest of that money and can see an opportunity here to actually place their children in school and pay for no ECE. If their child once it has been enrolled in a school in a cohort entry at 4 years 10 months—if it is not actually working out for the child too bad. If you do not show up to school you will be placed with the truancy service. That is what is different here. I really wish that the media and people would get their heads around it. It is not cohort entry; it is truancy for 4-year-and-10-month-olds—all right? Let us get real as to what is actually happening here. The Minister stood up and said that changing from having national education and learning priorities to having charters has introduced a situation whereby boards of trustees now need to consult with their communities because she made a statement that they have not had to do so since 2002. I was elected to the board of trustees of Warkworth Primary School in 2004 and every 3 years it was a requirement to consult with your community on the charter that was taking place in that school. So I would be interested to hear from the School Trustees Association—which I guarantee will be listening—who is right. Is the Minister correct or are all schools that have been consulting their communities on the charters correct? The difference is—with the national education and learning priorities to the strategic plan that the Minister now wants—that it is not the communities' vision that is going to inform the strategic plan; it is the Minister's. Once upon a time we had a Department of Education which was here to service schools. Now we have a Ministry of Education which is here to service the Minister. This has gone too far down the track. I will be introducing a raft of Supplementary Order Papers to this bill in the Committee stage. There are so many things wrong with this bill. It is the last nail in the coffin of New Zealand education. Thank goodness there is an election on 23 September. Thank goodness that none of this can be implemented except by a signature of the Minister of Education and I hope—I believe—that there will be a different Minister of Education who will not sign a damned thing that is in this bill and then we have got an opportunity to turn it back. Kia ora."