Willis NicolaNICOLA WILLIS (National): I rise in support of this excellent bill by the fine member from National's class of '17" Erica Stanford. This is a bill that seeks to repair the broken rungs on the ladder of opportunity. It is a bill that takes an old-fashioned decile system created in 1995 at the same time as the oldest Nokia brick phones and says actually we can do a bit better than that because we've got a lot better data now. We don't need to rely on an old system that creates stigma that's poorly targeted that only gets updated every five years; it is time for the iPhone X. It is time to use the best resources and technology we have to best target support at the children in our schools who need that support most.This is a bill that acknowledges that here in 2018 we have far better data that allows us to target the children who most need help. So we ask ourselves: what is it about this evidence-based approach that the Government members are so afraid of? We hear from them that actually they want to work with the other side of the House on advancing education objectives. We hear from them that they care about disadvantaged children. But what are the reasons that we've had for why this legislation shouldn't progress? We were told by Tracey Martin that this is a Government aiming for the sky. Well with all respect to that member this is a Government that is stuck in the review mud. What we have in front of us is a bill that would allow us to make progress on this significant issue right here right now.Now members opposite are very honourable as they outline little details of the bill that could be corrected or amended and I would recommend to members on the other side that that is what the select committee process is all about. What we should be doing is saying "Yes this is absolutely the right direction. It is not OK to let schools that are decile 1 2 and 3 be labelled as poor schools any more. We shouldn't put up with that for another six months we shouldn't up with that for another year and we shouldn't put up with that for another week. Let's progress this legislation now to remove that stigma and to make progress for those schools. It's not good enough to let children who are coming from the most disadvantaged circumstances—that all of the data all of the research tells us are at high risk of educational underachievement—not be supported properly. That's not good enough so we're going to act."But no no; instead what we have is a Government with a very different approach. We have a Government with a Minister who says to the member "Oh yes I'll talk to you about your bill." then sends her a letter about the bill the day before its due to be read—the day before—attached to it a report written a month before by his officials that he could easily have given to the member earlier to ask to work with her. But that shows poor intent. This was not a Minister who wanted to work on this bill.So I ask the members opposite—and I challenge them to answer these questions in their coming speeches—is this actually something that you're prepared to do for New Zealand's children? Are you actually prepared to change the 1995 Nokia phone funding system to something that works for disadvantage children that harnesses our data and harnesses our technology? And if you are prepared to do that why would you not support this bill to select committee and progress that with haste?What we are effectively doing today in this House—what the members opposite me are doing—is effectively putting at risk the children who most need our help. They're effectively saying "Put your needs on hold because we've got some petty politics over here that should take precedence." We have got a Minister who would prefer to sit on his 22 reviews and come up with something that he can take all the credit for later and we say that is not good enough. The time to use a social investment approach to put rungs on the ladder of opportunity is now.It has been broadly acknowledged across this House tonight that the decile funding system has had unintended negative consequences. It's a system that we all embraced with the good intent of helping those who needed our help most but it is a system that is no longer fit for the times. Here we have in Erica's excellent bill a system that would allocate money much more efficiently and that is not something that anyone here tonight has argued against. Instead what we've had is nit-picking about details that would be best examined by a select committee. What we have had effectively is a rejection of the great work that the former National Government did with the education sector in reaching out to stakeholders sitting down and saying "How can we work on this system and make it better?"What we've heard from members opposite is that they don't work with the Parliament on this; they want the Minister to sit in his office by himself and come up with something that suits him. We say that's not good enough for New Zealand's children. You can do better."