Lubeck MarjaMARJA LUBECK (Labour): Tēnā koe Madam Assistant Speaker. It's a pleasure for me to take this call on the second reading of the Education (National Education and Learning Priorities) Amendment Bill. And this is the face of an embarrassed MP—yes! First of all I'd like to congratulate my colleague Jan Tinetti for having her bill drawn and bringing this legislation to the House. I'd also like to echo the sentiments from our previous speaker the Hon Jenny Salesa with regards to Jan's longstanding and staunch advocacy in the area of education. It seems very fitting on Suffrage Day that I take a moment to actually say thank you to my friend Jan Tinetti who I only first met when I became an MP myself and we had the sheer luck of having offices next to each other. I've learnt a tremendous amount of education-related information from Jan so I'd like to say thanks to her. It seems very clear—the chair of the Education and Workforce Committee Parmjeet Parmar keeps telling us that she's trying to understand. Well she's the chair so one would actually think she might understand but I'll explain. We heard from quite a few speakers previously and the Hon Nikki Kaye also mentioned it that the member in charge of the bill Jan Tinetti considered the Government's very ambitious and forward-thinking plan—a bit different from just reviews—in education. She heard the feedback from the submitters and then she wrote to our select committee on 19 June and she asked if it would be prudent maybe to remove some of those—[Interruption] ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Do not have conversations across the House while someone is making a speech.Kieran McAnulty: Yeah.MARJA LUBECK: —perhaps some of these proposed substantial provisions are removed.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): That includes you Mr McAnulty—it definitely includes you. Thank you. Can we just settle please? Thank you. MARJA LUBECK: My turn?ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Marja Lubeck.MARJA LUBECK: So she wrote to the committee. The committee considered it. Jan Tinetti didn't tell us to remove it. The committee considered the merits of her request and we considered it was a very reasonable request. So yes I agree this bill changed significantly from when it first came to the House and when we had our first reading speeches. But one can't say that this bill is completely gutted like the Hon Nikki Kaye said and it's not been a waste of time like the chair of our committee has said. That is because what the other side of the House is missing is that there is a crucial component of this bill that is preserved and that is the wide consultation requirements. These are not just a list of some extra people that the Minister has to talk to; this is a very significant and important part of this bill. So I'd like to go back to the beginning and talk about what this bill does perhaps to aid the understanding of the other side of the House.This bill amends the Education Act 1989 and it requires the Minister of Education to consult very widely on the statement of the National Education and Learning Priorities (NELPS)—and for obvious reasons I will refer to that from now on as the NELPs. Currently what the Minister does is he or she consults with a couple of teachers that they like or maybe some of the family and under the current law as it is that would be completely sufficient as consultation. Now we don't believe that is good enough. It is really important that children get a say on the education that they receive and this bill will do that with some really explicit requirements that children and young people are consulted in forming the statement of the NELPs. So in line with many of the other investments that this Government is making in education this bill puts children back at the centre of learning and it involves them in the process of creating any changes to the statement on the NELPs. So what will wide consultation on the NELPs do? Well it will actually give an opportunity for children young people parents whānau and employers to express their views on priorities for education. Existing requirements when developing the NELPs as they are now mean that the Minister must consult with those in early childhood education and the education sector that he or she thinks should be consulted. What this bill does is it amends section 1A in clause 4 and it sets out a much wider range of stakeholders for consultation. Now it's important to note also that this bill as it originally came to us only included six stakeholders. I think it was paragraphs (a) to (g) in subsection (4A)—is that six? Was it paragraphs (a) to (f)? Anyway it had six stakeholder groups to consult with. But we listened to the select committee submissions and their feedback really was very clear that we needed to expand on that list. So as a result for those of you that have the bill in front of you you can see that subsection (4A) of section 1A in the amended clause 4 includes (a) children and young people;" right at the top but it also has another 11 named national bodies. This is another thing that I would like to clarify that perhaps may help our chair. She said that she thought that the wording was too prescriptive. Well in fact we had the officials tell us that the original wording needed to change so as to not be too prescriptive. So the wording "representative organisations" was changed to "bodies representing the interests". I guess that point was missed.The bill as it was originally drafted has been amended by majority and it has reflected that feedback that we received during the submissions.It has been mentioned already that we received 20 submissions in total on the original bill. This is the thing: yes we have an incredibly busy and hard-working Education and Workforce Committee but it is not much of a big deal to hear some of those—not all of the 20 wanted to be heard—submissions during gaps that we had while we heard other submitters on other bills. What it did mean is that I had to have a very clear head on which education bill it was—whether it was the Education Amendment Bill the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) the Education (National Education and Learning Priorities) Amendment Bill or the Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand) Amendment Bill—but that is actually a very efficient way for us as a select committee to do our business. So it's also important to point out that of the 20 submitters 17 supported the intent and direction. Some of the submitters did ask us for further changes and I guess the changes reflect that feedback.I'd like to make some comments on some of the submitters. We had the Office of the Children's Commissioner who expressed his strong support for the requirement to consult with children. So once again this is a change that the Opposition says hasn't really got any effect. Judge Andrew Becroft the Children's Commissioner told the select committee that everything in the amendment bill is consistent with what we have seen come out of the consultation document. On the consultation of children he stated that this bill is much more holistic and—I quote—"in fact it's bang on." The Office of the Children's Commissioner provided us with some verbatim feedback from their engagement with children and young people on the NELPs. It actually shows how important it is to get the children's voices heard. We want to make sure that they reach their full potential and we need to consider that achievement means different things to different people. So when the Children's Commissioner asked children what achievement means to them they had comments like "It means gaining knowledge about myself others and the world around me." This was from a 13-year-old student. Another student said "Knowing that you're more than capable to achieve the highest of your abilities." Another student who was 14 years old described achievement as "Working to the best of my ability and also being confident about whether my life is going the right way." Now the comments show that children have a range of views on what achievement means to them and the objectives in the system should be to provide learning experiences that support children and young people with the opportunity to reach their potential.We had other submitters who pointed out how important it is to get more stakeholders heard in the consultation process. The IHC commented that they "strongly support the proposed [change] … to include a list of who must be consulted by the Minister". They quoted New Zealand's obligations under article 4 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and as a result of hearing them we did include an extra stakeholder being "national bodies representing the interests of the disability community;".The National Council of Women of New Zealand Te Kaunihera Wahine o Aotearoa submitted that they support ensuring that consultation is full and authentic—so once again complete agreement and support. So I am really confused you know the National Party says there's nothing controversial about this bill—it's really nothing controversial—but it says "Let's vote against it." To me it's like everything else that they do: they vote against something because they just don't want to support the good work that this Government is doing. It is sad because it's the children who will benefit from this legislation. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you."