Stanford EricaERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker for the opportunity to make a contribution on this bill. Minister Hipkins came down to the House today and he said that he wasn't prepared to take a call but he couldn't help himself that he really needed to have his say—and I'm glad that he did. I'm really pleased that he did because it gives us now the chance to compare and contrast his speech at the first reading to his speech at the third reading. They are very different speeches and the reason for that is most of what he said in the first speech is completely redundant and the reason for that is the bill has been completely gutted. It's a shell of its former self. In fact most of the comments made at first reading and indeed at second reading are completely redundant at this point because the bill is as my colleague Nicola Willis said really just a few short phrases. Most of the bill has actually been thrown out. Minister Hipkins went on to say that many of those things that have been taken out of the bill will be deferred. The question then remains: why are we not deferring the whole bill? Why are we not having this conversation in 12 to 18 months when all of the education conversations have been had and decisions have been made? That's the question. We are arguing that we are wasting our time at select committee we're wasting this House's time because the issue is timing. There may have been some good things in this bill. In fact there may be some very good things that we need to change in the National Education and Learning Priorities (NELPs) in 12 to 18 months.I'll tell this House why we're not getting rid of this bill why we're not tossing it out. It's because they already had to do that with the Education (Protecting Teacher Title) Amendment Bill. How embarrassing would it be to then have to throw this one out as well? Because they're too embarrassed to have two of their members' bills in the education space withdrawn because they are frankly appalling we are now in a position where we have to debate this shell of a bill.It all comes down to timing and I have to say—and my other colleagues have done this at this stage of the speech—congratulations to the proponent of the bill and what a wonderful job she's done. But actually do you know what? I feel a little bit sorry for her. Having this bill drawn at this particular time must have been actually really gutting because that member well knew and knows that this couldn't have been worse timing. We've got 16 reviews under way—millions of dollars being spent—and she knew that it was a terrible time because she had to gut four of the seven clauses which is more than 50 percent of the bill—cross it out and throw it away leaving just a few points about consultation which are already enshrined and don't need to be there. Frankly it's embarrassing and what I would say to this Government is just let it go—let it go. We can do this again in 12 to 18 months after the conversations have been had after things have been changed when actually we can have a really good grunty conversation around our overarching education vision document. But this frankly is an appalling piece of legislation that really is inconsequential and doesn't do anything as much as the members across the House like to try and say that it does. But I would say today: let it go; let's do this all again in 12 to 18 months when we can actually make some decent changes. Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker.