Wood Michael; Williams PotoMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Madam Chair thank you. I'm happy to take a call on this part of the debate and I just want to start off by commending the member who's currently in the chair for putting forward this bill. I want to touch on a couple of the key changes recommended by the Education and Workforce Committee around clause 4. But just by way of context I just want to touch on why this is actually a really important bill and this is responding to some of the criticism that has been levelled that it's a very minor bill; that its changes are apparently so insignificant that we shouldn't be using House time on them. I just want to draw the committee's attention to the importance of the National Education and Learning Priorities (NELPs) and where they actually fit within the system. I think that helps us to understand why the bill's important and what the operative bits of this clause actually achieve. The National Education and Learning Priorities—what they do is they set out the Government's medium-term priorities for the sector specifically the compulsory sector and the early childhood education centre and that isn't just words on a page that sort of exist in a vacuum somewhere. If you've been on a school board of trustees like I have—I chaired my local school board of trustees for a number of years—you have to prepare a strategic plan and that strategic plan has to be aligned to the NELPs. If you are an early childhood education centre you have to demonstrate how what you are doing aligns to the NELPs. So this is actually really really important stuff and what the bill is doing is ensuring that we are building up the NELPs in such a way that it actually understands the needs and the issues within the sector so that when those institutions actually come to apply it's meaningful and it makes sense and it actually contributes to greater learning and achievement in those institutions. So it is really really important. If we turn to the specifics of the bill and the select committee—and just acknowledging the work of the select committee on this bill—there are actually some reasonably significant changes that were made at select committee level. What I note in respect of clause 4 is that the member did write to the select committee to seek some of those changes particularly around subclauses (2) (3) and (4) of clause 4. What Jan Tinetti has requested specifically is the removal of clause 4(7) which would make the statement of National Education and Learning Priorities a disallowable instrument. But what she's also done is write to the committee in respect of clause 4 and note that the Government has a significant body of work under way in respect of the national level Education Conversation that's going on at the moment and she's indicated changes and suggested removing parts of the clause there to ensure that we're not precipitating any work which may happen in that area. To me that was really a sensible move. The nature of members' bills like this one is that they don't necessarily have to change the world but all of us as members can make useful and sensible changes to legislation that advance things that are important to us as members and important to the communities that we represent. The changes that have been made in this area do that and I just want to go to clause 4(5) and new section 1A(4A). This is the section which I think is really really important within this bill because it talks about the stakeholders who we're actually going to consult with. This is one of the really big things we've got to get right in education. It is one of the critiques we have on this side of the House about the way that education was managed over the previous nine years. A lot of the key stakeholders the people within the sector—the teachers the learners the academics who apply their profession and their expertise to understanding and improving the understanding of the sector—were often locked out of policy development. This is actually about us saying within the bill: let's talk to the people who know the sector and let's talk to the people who are affected by the sector. So it's really important particularly within the context of this bill that we're actually talking to the learners; that we're involving children and young people.I was involved in local government before this role and one of my biggest epiphanies was actually the value of listening to children and young people when you are developing policy. When you are doing that you pick up on things that you otherwise do not pick up on. It's something about the nothing to us without us". So I really commend the member on that.One question I do have for the member is just to give the committee a little bit more explanation around the change from national representative organisations to national bodies representing the interests of specified stakeholders. I'd appreciate some clarification on that. Thank you Madam Chair.CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): I'm going to call Mark Patterson. I'm just going to encourage you—there has been a lot of repetition in this debate this afternoon. If I hear the same arguments I will actually ask the member to resume his seat."