Martin TraceyHon TRACEY MARTIN (Associate Minister of Education): I'll be honest with you I wasn't sure what I was going to contribute until I came down to this House and now I have so much material I'm not quite sure whether I'm going to get to do it in 10 minutes.Let's just start with the Hon Nikki Kaye and the conversation about cohort entry—let's just start there. The Hon Nikki Kaye quite rightly identified that this Government is rolling back some of the changes that the previous Government did but not all of them—just the stupid ones. What I found really interesting was the juxtaposition between the start of the Hon Nikki Kaye's speech and the end of the Hon Nikki Kaye's speech. At the end of the Hon Nikki Kaye's speech she said that this Government just doesn't put children first but at the start she said that it was really unfortunate that parents who wanted to go to work couldn't put their kids into school earlier to save themselves some money. That was the start of her contribution.Now let's get this clear. This bill has had 18 submissions 16 unique submissions—two that were apparently submitted twice—the bill that introduced this had hundreds of submissions against it masses of submissions against it yet only 18 when we're trying to unravel the dumb ideas. What this was about was that the reality was boards of trustees can still and always have been since the introduction of Tomorrow's Schools bring in cohort entry. All they had to do was consult with their communities. That's all they had to do. The previous Government did not create cohort entry—no it didn't. It dictated when you could do it so it limited the choice for boards of trustees by when you could do cohort entry and this Government has expanded on that choice for boards of trustees now.But what the previous Government did do was it decided to save itself money and that is what the regulatory impact statement in the previous legislation clearly identified. This was about saving the State early childhood education (ECE) dollars because the faster they could get kids out of ECE and into school they could save the supplementary cash that they had been paying into ECE.Mark Patterson: So it wasn't about the kids?Hon TRACEY MARTIN: It wasn't about the kids; it's never been about the kids. So it was either about—let's just take what the Hon Nikki Kaye said—people going to work faster it was about parents saving money and it was about the State saving money because that's what the previous regulatory impact statement said. So this Government is going to undo that capacity. Children need to be children for as long as possible.The other thing that I found fascinating was the change of statement. The other reason why the Hon Nikki Kaye said that this was about students—she said students that were capable". Now let's suggest that they're gifted students shall we? Let's suggest that the Hon Nikki Kaye is saying that the previous Government put in "four years and eight-month-old's ability to start school" just in case your child was gifted. The same Government that removed "well above" from national standards? The same Government that removed all funding from gifted students? Do we really really think that was the reason why this Government decided that four-year-olds and four years and eight-month-olds could go to school? I don't think so. We are undoing that. It was submitted on by many many people when it was introduced; only 16 unique submissions when we're removing it—we're removing it.Then we have the Teaching Council—a fascinating contribution by the last speaker Parmjeet Parmar around the Teaching Council and how the previous Government supposedly wanted it to be independent. It took away all democracy—took away all democracy—from the Teaching Council; no ability for teachers or the profession to actually elect their own members. Apparently that's really independent where you are beholden upon the Minister for your very job. But no apparently that's how the National Party sees an independent body. So what has this Government done? We have put back in the ability for at least the majority of the Teaching Council to be elected by the profession.But here's the trick: it is compulsory for students to go to school. Every single New Zealander is invested in the education system. So therefore the Teaching Council which has the ability to create the criteria for teacher registration—there is a responsibility on the Government to make sure that initial teacher training is appropriate and it is initial teacher training that is required the criteria that is required to make sure that teachers meet teacher registration. It is absolutely appropriate for the State to say that the Teaching Council must work with the Government when making sure that they set that criteria. Why the Post Primary Teachers Association would be surprised by it I have no idea. I'd be interested to have a look at their actual submission and the conversation they've had. But I find it very interesting that suddenly the party that decided to do away with all independence around the appointment of those on the Teaching Council now is very worried that there is going to be no independence.Let's get to the new registration criteria for private schools. The current provisions of the Education Act 1989 do not enable the Secretary for Education to consider student safety when considering private school registration applications. Oh my goodness! The Hon Nikki Kaye in a strange way even almost argued against that—even almost argued against that—by saying that integrated schools and private schools were freaking out because they might now actually have to be safe places for kids. Right? All they have to do is meet the same criteria as every other school.Simeon Brown: They already are—they already are.Hon TRACEY MARTIN: And who's checking on them Mr Brown? Because there's no criteria right now by which to check on them. So Mr Brown apparently is quite happy for students to wander off and we'll just trust some people.Now let's talk about communities of online learning (COOL) and the Virtual Learning Network raised by the Hon Nikki Kaye. Anybody would think that the Virtual Learning Network did not exist before the National Government created a piece of legislation and put COOLs into it. The Virtual Learning Network has been around for years. NorthNet has been around for years. HarbourNet has been around for years. For goodness' sake! They didn't invent it. What the COOLs that that party put in place did was allow five-year-olds to stay at home all day every day and learn online. That is what that piece of legislation that they put through this House did. This Government happens to want to listen to the mental health experts happens to want to talk to the science advisers that say that belonging—a sense of community being able to interact making sure that young children are not isolated—is an important part of growing up in a community and being able to interact for your long-term well-being. Communities of online learning already existed before the last lot decided they would open it up to privatisation ultimately.The previous contributor said "We've removed it but there's nothing to replace it." Actually they hadn't even started yet. That's the first thing. Secondly they'd already existed they're already in place and they're already in schools. Students who have the capacity now go into and start to do either with Te Kura or any of those other networks—they still are able to do it. This does not remove the capacity that they already have to deliver online learning to students and so therefore there is no need for the drama that is coming from the other side.What there is however is a need to plan the appropriate way to expand online learning for the future. We will be able to maintain a level of quality and we will be able to deliver it across different communities in New Zealand. The conversation from the other side around rural communities who are able to access online learning makes it sound like we don't need any teachers in rural classrooms. That sounds incredibly dangerous that the other side has this image of "If you're in a rural area we're not going to actually even put any teachers in there; we're just going to leave you with some computers." That is not what this side of the House is prepared to accept.Communities of online learning already existed before they were placed into the legislation; we are removing the privatisation of them. We are removing the capacity of five-year-olds to be able to stay at home—from five-year-olds through to 16-year-olds to be able to stay at home. Some of the most moving submissions I had on making sure that this criteria inside the legislation was removed were actually from the health schools and clients of theirs who said "My parents would have done anything to make me happy to stop me feeling anxious. They would've let me stay at home because they would've allowed anything to happen to try and keep me safe but I needed to go to school I needed to participate and I needed to get better." and that is why this was inappropriate. We need a safe way to do online learning. We are and we will expand it but we will not privatise it. Kia ora."