Lubeck MarjaMARJA LUBECK (Labour): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Thank you Madam Speaker. An absolute privilege to be the last speaker in this first reading debate on the Education and Training Bill. Now it has been said that bigger is not necessarily better but I have to say that in this case this is a very significant piece of legislation. I actually take offence to the previous member who's just sat down Simeon Brown for calling this a back-down. This is a huge amount of work led by the honourable Minister Chris Hipkins and his team to make sure that we are actually addressing a lot of those long-term challenges that the previous Government shied away from. This Government is not scared to pick up those challenges and make sure that we are making the education legislation fit for purpose.The Minister has already said on a previous occasion that the rewrite of the education legislation is long overdue. Basically it's our whole legislative framework that needs a revamp. With this bill we are creating a new Education and Training Act once it's gone through all the stages. So what the bill does—I'll just recap what we've heard in the House—is that it brings legislation on early learning schooling tertiary and vocational education into a single statute by merging the Education Acts of 1964 and 1989 and updating the language that we find in both those Acts.Mentioning the 1989 and 1964 Acts this is legislation that is in some places 55 years old and it hasn't been amended or has haphazardly been amended and it's well overdue that we're looking at some of the outdated language that actually in some of the provisions could be referred to as somewhat discriminatory.Basically we're introducing a new structure with this bill that is more easy to follow and thereby creating a bill that deals with a journey of students that starts at early education early learning schooling and then goes through to tertiary and vocational education.I was going to mention some of the examples—many examples—that this bill has of updating and bringing into the current times some of these provisions but also making the whole system more fluid. But they have actually been very well covered by my colleagues on this side of the House and sometimes also even on the other side—I'll give them that. I do want to make a specific mention of one particular provision that I've found that is mentioned in the Education Act 1989 and that goes to the fact that there is at the moment a provision where a principal can actually stop a student from attending school because the principal has reasonable grounds to believe that a student is not clean enough to continue attending school. That's the wording at the moment in that Education Act. So obviously that is something that we do need to change.Another really significant piece in this legislation is the fact that school boards' primary objectives should be a little bit more than focusing just on achievement. So there is a very broad range and in all of these nearly 600 pages that I was up late with last night sitting on my desk—it is focusing on not just achievement; it is actually broadening that out to make sure that there is a safe and inclusive environment for our students that's free from racism and free from discrimination and bullying. Also schools are giving effect to Te Tiriti so the bill is making sure that the schools' plans policies and also the local curriculum actually correctly reflect local tikanga Māori.Now the Minister already spoke at length regarding the use of what is now referred to as physical restraint and we had a marvellous speech from my colleague Mark Patterson earlier on that I'm going to enjoy watching again and again as soon as we finish here in a few minutes' time. But I just want to finish off by saying that this is a great piece of legislation and it shows so clearly the contrasts with National who basically left us an education system with increasing financial and other barriers to access. So this Government has started to tackle that making sure our children can make the most of the opportunities of the future building more schools and classrooms planning for future growth taking financial pressure off scrapping NCEA fees and even providing funding to many of the schools so they don't have to ask the parents for donations.This is a positive Government focused on tackling the challenges that are facing New Zealand and these nine years have taken effect but we will take our time to fix it and we're making good progress in the meantime. So we're looking forward to this 600-page bill and I commend it to the House.