Hipkins ChrisHon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): It's a pleasure to take a call on this bill and I too want to begin by acknowledging the bill's original sponsor the Hon Nikki Kaye who as Paul Goldsmith so eloquently put harassed me into agreeing to support the bill at first reading. I did so with a good degree of enthusiasm but with also some concerns about the bill.Let me talk about the enthusiasm first. Ultimately I understand completely how important language is to everybody throughout the country but also particularly to those communities where English is a second language for them and where they want their young people to grow up with access to what has been their primary language. I absolutely understand how very significant that is. I understand and the Government understands how important te reo Māori is to our Māori communities but actually to the wider New Zealand community and how important it is that we foster and cultivate te reo Māori as a language in New Zealand. We have not done a good job of that in our recent past and we need to do better. I want to acknowledge the many Pacific communities who have indicated and expressed their passion for their languages and their desire to see them better represented within our education system and I also acknowledge the importance and the special role that we have in New Zealand in protecting the Realm languages—those for the Realm countries—and I acknowledge that. Language is intrinsic to who we are and therefore it is important that people see their language represented in learning. But there are wider benefits to language than just that. There are actually cognitive benefits in learning a second language. People who learn a second language tend to do better in their first language than they otherwise would have done. It can help with things like long-term problem solving. There are really good studies that demonstrate the benefits of second language learning. So Mr Goldsmith is absolutely correct that the Government completely supports the objectives of this bill. When we approach this topic though it's worth remembering we're not starting from scratch. There is second language learning happening in our schools at the moment. So if we just take last year as an example there were 126000 enrolments in years 1 to 8—primary and intermediate years—for students learning a language other than English or te reo Māori. To give a breakdown of those 54700 of those were enrolments in Asian languages—these are Asian languages at the primary and intermediate school level—49400 were in European languages 7900 were in Pacific language—I have to confess that was lower than I thought in terms of Pacific languages—and around 14300 were other languages. These are all second languages. There are a further 176500 year 1 to 8 children—primary and intermediate aged children—who are learning te reo Māori either as a second language or as their primary language of instruction through our Māori-medium settings. Already more than 15 different languages are offered in our primary and intermediate schools so it's not correct to say that we haven't already made a start as a country. We are doing language learning. There can be more of it and we should certainly be focused on that.But I want to turn now to the concerns that I raised when the bill was introduced. I had many conversations with the Hon Nikki Kaye about these because they're not insurmountable challenges. But unfortunately the bill that we have before us in the House today doesn't deal with these issues.First and foremost I have to say—as the Minister responsible should this bill pass with implementing it—there's no reference whatsoever to the very significant resourcing implications of this. We could not pass this bill in good conscience knowing that the education system would not be able to deliver. We would passing a law that the education system would not have the capacity or the capability to adhere to and that is one of the fundamental problems with the bill. So we need to have a pathway. If we want to improve language learning in our schools we must put in place a pathway that leads us there. It is not going to happen simply by Parliament passing a law. We're talking hundreds of millions of dollars in extra funding. We're going to need to be strategic about that. We're going to need to make sure that we've got the workforce in place who are able to deliver on the commitments. This bill is completely silent on those issues. No consideration appears to have been given by the member currently sponsoring it to how those issues might be addressed and that is realistically a big stumbling block to being able to pass the legislation in its current form.It also doesn't consider the language learning pathway through a student's life. While it focuses on primary and intermediate school levels it doesn't then consider the language learning pathway through secondary education. I think it would be wrong to say to young people in a primary school that they could undertake language learning which they then couldn't continue in secondary schooling because we just haven't thought that far ahead. Actually if we're going to do something like this as a Parliament we have to actually make sure it's coherent it's well-thought-out and it's well structured. This bill does not do that unfortunately.It doesn't recognise that te reo Māori has special significance in New Zealand and that is a flaw with the bill and it also doesn't recognise the importance of Pacific languages and the Realm languages in particular. So those are weaknesses.I want to recognise the recommendation of the select committee that the House not proceed with the bill and instead propose the development of a national languages strategy. I think that provides the opportunity to take this debate forward to take forward the very many positive submissions put forward at select committee—the very heartfelt and passionate submissions asking for more action in this area. We can take those forward with the development of a national languages strategy and that is exactly what this Government is going to do. So I have already asked the Ministry of Education to start working on that to ensure that we develop the strategy in consultation with parents teachers schools and communities so that people can continue to have their say on this they can continue to express those views and so that we can work through the very many issues that this process unfortunately was not able to address.That can also deal with issues like the place of the Realm languages and other Pacific languages in New Zealand. It can deal with issues like the capacity and the capability of the teaching workforce to be able to deliver on it. It can deal with the debates like how prescriptive we want to be in our curriculum around which languages schools should offer and how we guide school's decisions about this. Simply putting another burden on schools without giving them the resources—and by resources I'm not just talking money; I'm talking other resources—to be able to actually grapple with that that wouldn't be right it wouldn't be fair and we can deal with that through the development of the languages strategy. That will align with the work that my colleague the Hon Jan Tinetti is doing around the refresh of the New Zealand curriculum so I think the development of the languages strategy is the way to take this forward.The Government is not opposing this bill because we're opposed to the concept of second language learning; we are absolutely very very supportive of that we absolutely recognise the views that were put forward by submitters and we do want to see this work progressed. The bill itself is flawed. It doesn't provide a platform that is implementable. It doesn't consider the resourcing issues that passing the bill would throw up and they are not insignificant. They are hundreds of millions—not quite $4 billion but hundreds of millions—of dollars that would have to go into implementing this. No consideration of that has been given. I want to acknowledge again both of the members. The Hon Nikki Kaye I think did put her heart and soul into this legislation and into the topic and into the portfolio in fact. I had a good working relationship with her in the time that she was the Opposition spokesperson for education and I want to thank her for that and thank her for the work that she has done there. I want to acknowledge the current member in charge of the bill. I won't let the fact that he just now did an absolutely dreadful speech introducing the second reading of the bill dissuade me from the fact that it still has a lot of merit and that the topic in fact is one that is worthy of taking forward. I certainly hope that we can continue to progress these debates. I know the member will be disappointed that the Government's not supporting the bill but I hope that he will continue to engage constructively—maybe start engaging constructively given that he hasn't actually spoken to me about the bill at all since he took over the sponsorship of it—with the Government on the topic because I do think that there is common ground that we can find here. I do think we can take forward the issue around getting more language learning happening in schools. I think there would be huge educational benefits for all of our tamariki and if we can continue to progress that then certainly the Government is keen to take that forward.