Rurawhe Adrian; Strange JamieEDUCATION (TERTIARY EDUCATION AND OTHER MATTERS) AMENDMENT BILLThird ReadingDebate resumed from 20 March.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Members when the House last considered this bill Jamie Strange had the call and he has eight minutes remaining to speak should he wish to do so.JAMIE STRANGE (Labour): Mr Assistant Speaker thank you for the opportunity to continue my speech. I'm looking forward to the contributions on this bill in the next eight minutes. Hopefully we'll get a little bit higher quality from the other side of the House. I realise some of the big guns are away today but it's almost like we've had not the second XI but the third XI rolled out today. But look I'm looking forward to the contributions to come here.Now the Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Amendment Bill is a very important bill. This Government has brought in a number of bills so far in the past 6 months around the area of education. We've brought in a bill around national standards and other ones are about to be brought to the House particularly around the Education Council putting teachers back on the Education Council. This is a Government who will listen to the education sector. I began last time by sharing a little bit of my personal story around tertiary education and paying tribute to the quality institutions that we have and the way that this bill provides more power to them to do the job that they need to do. So as some people may know I've just finished my Master's in educational leadership and I'll be graduating next month from the Waikato University and I would like to particularly acknowledge the Waikato University today for the wonderful work that they do. Now we've heard from previous speakers around some of the key aspects of this bill. We've heard about increasing accountability—and specifically increasing the fine from $10000 to $50000 for falsifying records. The importance of that aspect of this bill is around integrity. It's around the integrity and the reliability of our tertiary institutions and it's ensuring that there's honesty within our sector. We've also heard from speakers around fair treatment between private and public providers—and I'm going to come back to that soon—but we've specifically heard the words better" and "fairer" and that's something that this side of the House fundamentally believes in. Parliament tends to love acronyms and there's an acronym in this bill the CTEP acronym which is particularly based upon distinguishing between the CTEP as opposed to the CTPP—Hon Ruth Dyson: CTPP—whatever.JAMIE STRANGE: —A. Ha ha! So it's the CTEP and that's about distinguishing between for-profit and not-for-profit institutions. Mark Patterson: Are they charter schools? JAMIE STRANGE: Well we won't mention charter schools today. So there is a key aspect that this Government believes in and that's supporting our public education system and ensuring that our public education system is honoured respected valued and supported. There's another aspect that we've heard about from previous speakers and that's around the international students. Now international students are an important part of our tertiary education market and we need safety mechanisms in place and so what this bill practically does is give the authority to school boards so that if an international student has some issues and they play up then the board can reprimand them if required and obviously work with their parents around those aspects there. Now the importance of education can never be overstated. As someone who taught in an education environment—all of us here have been to school; we understand the value of education. Previously today we've heard about prison and we've heard about increasing fines for people for various crimes but in my opinion still the number one key to particularly a young person achieving their full potential is around education. Education quite simply creates opportunity. It's important that we value this sector and that's what this bill does. I'd like to acknowledge the Hon Chris Hipkins for the excellent work he's done since becoming the Minister of Education and I mentioned some of those bills before. In this one in particular he's taken an average National Party bill and he's really improved it. It's sort of like taking a car putting mags on it—or maybe a tinted paint job like they have in the Wairarapa—and just really making this car go quick. So some of the key things around this bill: number one it gives Government agencies better tools to identify and manage questionable behaviour in tertiary education organisations. As I said before the key aspects here are you've got integrity honesty and reliability. The second one is imposing higher consequences where contract breaches or illegal activities are confirmed and the third aspect is broadening the protection and arrangements for students studying across our system to support student well-being. Now why is student well-being so important? Well student well-being is all about putting the student at the centre of the education system. Rather than just saying as a Government "We're going to do what we want to do." we are going to liaise with the sector. A key point of difference with this Government compared to the previous one is that we will listen and around education I'm proud to say that we will put the student at the heart of education. I wish to thank the members of the Education and Science Committee—now the Education and Workforce Committee—for the work that they've done on this bill. We heard 2000 submissions so it's certainly a bill that's garnered a lot of interest in the public space and the key reason for that—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I'm sorry to interrupt the member. It's come time for me to leave the Chair. Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 6 p.m."