Lee DeniseDENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Kei te whakamana au i Te Reo Māori mō te kaupapa i tēnei wā.[I wish to honour our current focus on Māori language.]I really appreciate the chance to take this call and would like to refer to one particular submitter that also represented another peak body and that was the Association of Proprietors of Integrated Schools (APIS) which is the body along with the New Zealand Catholic Education Office (NZCEO)—the bodies that represent integrated schools here in Aotearoa New Zealand. They represent over 360 State-integrated schools here in New Zealand some 11 percent of all students that are in our education system. As we will know back in 1975 under the Private Schools Conditional Integration Act State-integrated schools were established. This particular submitter—and I wish to thank Paul Ferris who appeared before us as a committee—was very particular about what he wanted to see. It's a real pleasure to be on the Education and Workforce Committee and as a committee we thought especially those of us on this side of the House that he was very reasonable in that he didn't ask for or request an actual position on the council. What he did though was request that the council and the Minister lock in knowledge and understanding of what it is that State-integrated schools face when it comes to their partnership with the Crown. Of course they were very particular about this piece of legislation seeing an opportunity to progress and move forward.What Mr Ferris raised is that while it's important that the council has at least one member that understands the principles they want to see that the Minister of Education understands this as well. So this is a question that I have specifically for the Minister—in fact I've got two. One is: how will the Minister address the valid concerns of Mr Ferris and APIS and NZCEO on how State-integrated schools will be given regard if not through a council position—which to be fair they didn't ask for—but through the Minister having regard? My second question is: does current legislation and I'll refer to—actually I retract that. It's not legislation; it's a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Association of Proprietors of Integrated Schools and the Crown and this is a particular piece of documentation that Mr Ferris presented us with. How will the Minister take into account that sort of documentation an MOU and how will he warrant more specific attention to the needs of State-integrated schools?What Mr Ferris specifically was wanting to know was that if there was one member that had specific regard to what they have to go through in terms of their partnership with the Crown that person—and we can't guarantee that as the bill is proposed there will be a person once the council is fully elected under the new regime that has State-integrated school knowledge to the degree of knowing specific rules of knowing and being able to understand when to take specific actions and also when that particular council member or council members—it would be great to have more than one—would have knowledge of the principles and the legal requirements under which State schools need to operate.These are the principles these are the valid concerns that were raised to us by this particular submitter and I repeat again that I would very much appreciate the Minister being very clear about how these valid concerns will be addressed given the very reasonable request that they not have an actual council member but that the Minister can prove that there will be regard to their particular requirements as laid out in their partnership between Crown and proprietors.So Madam Chair—in fact Te Kaiwhakahaere—I really appreciate the Minister addressing those concerns.