Kaye NikkiHon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): Firstly can I acknowledge you Madam Assistant Speaker. I was on the side line of the Coast to Coast after I had completed the mountain run and I saw this person running through so can I acknowledge your achievements in the Coast to Coast. Well done.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): And to you Nikki.Hon NIKKI KAYE: Look the National Party is opposing this bill and we're opposing it for a range of reasons. I think my message to the Government is they may be quite surprised at how many people end up submitting on this bill. The number of parents that are writing to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Education regarding the removal of national standards is phenomenal. I'm getting messages. I've had messages via ministerial advisers saying they're dealing with this correspondence. So we will be fighting on this side of the House to oppose the Government's move—although they've already done it through the National Administration Guidelines; this is effectively tidying it up—to get rid of national standards. There are a whole lot of schools out there and we heard it at the Education and Workforce Committee that are also opposing the Government's efforts. In fact the Ministry of Education said in the select committee that out of all of the communities of learning that have national standards in their achievement challenges none of them have got rid of national standards at the moment. None of them out of about 70 or 80—that is significant. The reason that we supported national standards but also the reason that we support a shift to progression is we fundamentally believe that parents have a right to know how their children are doing but more than that they deserve to have confidence in the quality of information. In order to have confidence in the quality of information we don't think you can have a laissez-faire system. You have to have the ability to report to the ministry so that they can get a nationwide picture of achievement. Now what the Government has done is they have scrapped effectively national standards without enabling us to have that quality picture of achievement across the country. What does that mean for some of our most vulnerable and disadvantaged kids? Well here's what it means and here's what the ministry I know is saying to Ministers: the ability to target numeracy and literacy programmes as a result of that is severely diminished. So what does this mean for the people in Kelvin Davis' electorate? What it means is less ability to lift young Māori achievement.Look we know that under the last Government we saw significant shifts in achievement for young Māori and Pasifika students. We went for year 12 NCEA level 2 achievement by Māori students up from 51 percent to nearly 75 percent. We went in terms of year 12 NCEA level 2 achievement for Pasifika students up from 50 percent to 79 percent. On this side of the House we are not going to take lectures about achievement from members opposite. So we will be opposing this bill on the ground that all New Zealand parents deserve to know how their children are doing not only in reading writing and maths but across the curriculum and they deserve as well to have quality information.But also New Zealand schools and New Zealand principals deserve to have confidence in that system of reporting and the message that I'm getting from many principals is that they do support a shift to progression; however they think that the way that the Government and this Minister has done it has been absolutely shambolic. He put through the National Administration Guidelines. He didn't even talk to a whole lot of principals and parents and we've seen this in the polls around parents. Something like 85 percent of parents were not on board with that decision and we see it in the correspondence going to Ministers. So that is a major reason that we will be opposing this bill.The second area of the bill that again we're really opposed to is around partnership schools. I've given speeches in this House and as I said before I protested on the weekend. I know that there are members opposite including Kelvin Davis who threatened to resign if these partnership schools were closed. The reality is—here are the facts.Hon Kelvin Davis: So when they're all open next year what are you going to do?Hon NIKKI KAYE: The facts are that what this legislation and what the ministry is doing—and they confirmed this at select committee so members can yell all they want but they actually can't deny these facts—is that the partnership schools are being given these options: mutually terminate terminate or see out your contract. The model is gone. That means that those partnership schools close. Now I completely accept—I completely accept—there is a parallel discussion going on as to whether they can open in some shape or form. But the point is this—Hon Kelvin Davis: Oh so you did read the memo.Hon NIKKI KAYE: No the point is this: it's severalfold. Firstly they're not broken. That's why we don't support this legislation. In fact many of them are doing an extraordinary job. We have seen recently Vanguard Military School's achievement results: huge shifts for young people who've had pretty difficult lives. These partnership schools have been doing really well and if members opposite don't believe us then just listen to some of Willie Jackson's previous interviews on this matter or listen to Kelvin Davis' previous comments on this matter. They're total lions in Opposition and mice in Government.The next point that I would make is that separate to them not being broken the reality is when you talk to many of these schools what they want is a certainty about the future. They can't get certainty from this Government because they've got a Minister that goes out there and makes premature statements which have caused legal consequences for the Crown that his preference is for them to all close. Now this kind of behaviour not only has legal consequences; there are Treaty of Waitangi issues. It is a complete and utter shambles. This legislation should not be coming through the House without resolving a number of these issues.Finally I come back to the irony of this. The absolute irony of this is that these schools are making the most fundamental difference to young people some of which have had severe mental health issues some of which have had really difficult backgrounds. The model is working; we oppose this legislation around scrapping partnership schools. We'll be fighting hard to enable the schools to transition into some other shape or form but also to get basic certainty about their future—they deserve that. But also in an education budget where every single dollar counts we heard from the Ministry of Education this week that the taxpayer may be up for up to $15 million for pure ideology—pure ideology. Imagine how many young people could have assistance in areas like special education—but the reality is that this Government is purely ideological and that's why we've got this up to $15000 bill.The other aspect of this bill that we do oppose again is the provisions around fees-free. Again this is another example whereby the Government's priorities are very mucked up. We know that they have committed $2.8 billion to the fees free policy. I've got principals and I've got early child care providers saying that is an extraordinary amount of money to target to potentially some people who don't need that and that's another irony in terms of this Government.So on this side of the House there are some very common themes around the Government's education agenda: ideological a lot of waste not helping some of our most vulnerable children a reduction in quality in standards. We have a very good track record in terms of achievement. It's not perfect but we will be opposing this bill on the grounds that not only are parents not behind the move to get rid of national standards but also it's going to lead to a reduction in education quality and also we're going to see some of our most disadvantaged New Zealanders not doing as well as a result of the scrapping of partnership schools and getting rid of national standards. This is a bad bill and we will be opposing it.