Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you very much Madam Chair for the opportunity to take a third call on this bill the Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand) Amendment Bill. I'd like to talk about my Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 96 which the Minister was very quick to say was something which needed to be thrown away and he didn't really want to get into the detail of but he did make the comment that this was something which could be done. Well my message to the Minister is: why not legislate it?So let's get to the substance of this SOP. Supplementary Order Paper 96 in my name inserts new clause 5AA Section 385 amended (Reports)" and it is to ensure that "The Teaching Council must present to the House of Representatives an annual report on its operations including but not limited to—(a) the audited financial statements of the Teaching Council; and (b) a summary from each elected member of the Teaching Council outlining the impact of the Teaching Council's operations on the group from which that respective member was elected."The purpose behind this SOP is to ensure that this body—this Teaching Council which is going to be renamed at a huge cost to the taxpayer—will be accountable to the taxpayer and accountable to the people who will vote the people onto this new body. At the moment we know the history of the Teachers Council and the Education Council. There was a review done. There were some issues which were uncovered which were then reviewed. And then we moved to a competency-based model with a high degree of people put in place with competency. Now we're moving back to an elected member body which will be in charge of funds and in charge of the functions of this body. What my amendment is saying is that there should be a high degree of accountability particularly over the fact they have taxpayers' money and that they have responsibility for the money of their members and that these reports—the financial reports—should be brought to Parliament to be scrutinised. So that is the first leg of this Supplementary Order Paper.The second leg is to ensure that each of these elected members is providing a summary which outlines the impact that they have had on the Teaching Council. The purpose behind this is because it really is being contested here in this debate over what the value proposition is for changing from having the current model where they're appointed by the Minister to this elected member model. What we're saying is if teachers are going to be represented through this model where there's seven different categories and they all vote through their different categories—and yep Mark Patterson added to the debate that only 13 percent of teachers voted or something very minuscule like that. If they're going to be well then there needs to be that accountability back to those people so they know exactly what value was put forward.I think there's this healthy degree of scepticism over these different groups. We had submitters coming to the Education and Workforce Committee and the New Zealand Post Primary Teachers' Association said they wanted their own special person on that Teaching Council and another union wanted their own special person on the Teaching Council. It could be looked at by reading this legislation that the seven different bodies could easily fit into one or two unions to get one or two slots on this body each. That's something which could easily be read into this piece of legislation because we understand the other side are having to pay back the unions through legislation and this is one of them.Kieran McAnulty: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. It's as I understand it clearly against Speakers' rulings to suggest that the Government is—in the words of the member—paying back a certain party.Brett Hudson: Which Speaker's ruling?Kieran McAnulty: Speaker's ruling 49/1 Mr Hudson is specifically the one I'm referring to which clearly states that "A member may not (1) impute improper motives to the Government; (2) suggest that the Government has received orders to put a bill through; (3) impute dishonesty to the Government; [or] (4) suggest domination by outside bodies."CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): The member is absolutely correct so the member on his feet needs to be very careful about those imputations.SIMEON BROWN: I apologise Madam Chair. Thank you very much Madam Chair. There is concern over the influence and there are concerns over the management of funds and so this Supplementary Order Paper is required to ensure that there is a high degree of accountability. I guess the questions I've got for the Minister—he said this should be something which naturally happens. Well why is he not prepared to put it into legislation? If he agrees with the intent of this Supplementary Order Paper why is he not prepared to put it into legislation to ensure that that accountability is in place? The question needs to be asked: where is the accountability in this legislation? Where is the accountability back to the taxpayer and back to the people who are voting in these processes which will be set up for the Teaching Council? I'd like the Minister to take a call and answer that question. Where is the accountability? Where is the scrutiny by Parliament over the Teaching Council? Where is the appropriate level of scrutiny so that everyone can have that? Thank you."