Baillie Chris; Stanford Erica; Tinetti JanCHRIS BAILLIE (ACT): Thank you Madam Chair. Just following on I'm a bit confused. Can you just confirm that you're saying that there are a group of people that are under-represented in school boards but you don't know who they are?ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): What I take from the Minister's previous answer when she eventually got to the point and said she has the data—didn't actually say what it was—is that she actually doesn't have data. The reason I'm asking this question is not from me but from our submitters. Our submitters in particular said—and they were LGBT groups themselves. They came to our select committee and said that they felt that the fact they couldn't get elected on their own merit was offensive and it was untrue that they are being elected on to school boards and that they don't need to be singled out. So their question was we already know that LGBTQ people are being elected to school boards in numbers and they don't feel that they need to be singled out. That was their submission. It's not me saying this Minister; it's a submission that we have which I want to know her view on. And they specifically asked whether or not there was any data to show that their groups were not already represented on school boards so that they would need to be singled out. They felt—it's not me—that this was unfair. They felt marginalised by this and they wanted to know whether or not there was any actual data showing that LGBTQI people were not already represented on school boards so that they needed to be singled out. And as I said in my previous contribution they said they didn't want to be called out as being different when they've been fighting for so long to be just ordinary and in their words boring just like everyone else. They felt that being singled out in this way was not something that they wanted to do and they didn't think that it was required.So the question again Minister is: what does the data say in terms of LGBT representation on school boards—what percentages are there so that this change is required? That is coming from a submitter. I'm interested in her answers to their questions.Hon JAN TINETTI (Minister of Education): In April and June 2021 the Ministry of Education did consult publicly about the changes to the school board elections framework. They gathered the data at that point around representation. So as part of this they asked whether the criteria for co-opting and appointing board members should be updated. So the proposal was put that that criteria could be updated so that boards should reflect as far as reasonably practical disabled students and the school's disabled community; the genders sexualities and sexes of the school students and of the school community; and Māori students and the school's Māori community. Overwhelmingly submissions supported the inclusion of those criteria for the co-option. Can I remind the member once again that we are talking about 5 percent of boards who use co-option. This is a prompt to prompt people to think about the different demographics who they represent within their school. It is a prompt. Then they are trusted to make decisions based on the needs of their school. That's what the co-option process is for. The co-option is there to make sure that those full demographics are being represented. These are prompts only. It is very very disappointing to hear that people would not think that that was important to ensure that wider representation within a school board of trustees—very disappointing.