Hipkins ChrisHon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Thank you Madam Chair. Look I think it's fair that I go through the various Supplementary Order Papers put forward by members and provide some comment on those so I'll try and run through them in numerical order.Supplementary Order Paper 95 which is in the name of the Hon Nikki Kaye would require the Minister to report back following the election on the skills of the members who had been elected around education governance leadership financial skills and understanding of the partnership principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. This really would have no practical effect because they would have already been elected and unless the Minister was going to overturn the democratic election it would be rather irrelevant because the Minister would already need to consider those matters in making the appointment to the balance of the council. So there would be no practical necessity or benefit from doing that.Supplementary Order Paper 96 in the name of Simeon Brown would require the Teaching Council in its annual report to provide a summary from each elected member of the council outlining the impact of the council's operations on the group that that representative was elected from. There's nothing to stop the council doing that now and of course those members having been elected by that relevant part of the teaching community will have a direct interest in ensuring that that part of the teaching community knows what they have been doing on their behalf. So in terms of following the elected incentives they will probably have been wanting to do something like that anyway.Supplementary Order Paper 97 again in the name of the Hon Nikki Kaye basically would require that the Teaching Council's rules included a requirement for public disclosure of any union membership by those standing for election. I simply say why stop there? Why not ask them to declare any religious affiliation they might have any political party membership they might have—what would be the limitation on requiring them to disclose any type of affiliation or interest that they might have before standing for election? I think that ultimately teachers don't need to know that information. If they want to ask somebody of course they can ask somebody. That's part of the democratic process.Supplementary Order Paper 98 in the name of Erica Stanford effectively does the same thing which basically would require people to declare membership of a union in standing. Supplementary Order Paper 100 in the name of Denise Lee talks about integrated schools and suggests that there should be criteria around considering the understanding of the partnership principles between the Crown and the proprietors of integrated schools. The criteria listed in the bill are not exhaustive criteria of things that the Minister needs to consider. If the Minister considered—whoever the Minister was—that a sector or group of teachers was not represented then they can certainly address that in their appointments. Supplementary Order Paper 101 in the name of Nicola Willis effectively does the same thing but it talks about special character schools". In the law there are integrated schools which are special character schools and then there are designated character schools. Designated character schools do not have proprietors; they are part of the State school system. Therefore this effectively does exactly the same thing as Supplementary Order Paper 100 because there is no difference between a State integrated school and a special character school—they are one and the same thing. Supplementary Order Paper 102 suggests that the people being appointed should have an understanding of partnership schools or kura hourua. The Government is progressing a bill—at some point when the House gets around to debating it—that will remove that model of education from the Education Act.Supplementary Order Paper 103 in the name of the Hon Nikki Kaye deals with extraordinary vacancies and suggests that the Minister should have—no sorry; that's the next one. This one deals with the Minister's appointment of members and ensures that members must be appointed after consultation with "representatives of parent school trustee and community interest groups in relation to schools and early childhood education services." I think this is a legitimate argument but it's difficult to see how any Minister wouldn't do such a thing and it does somewhat contradict the principled position that the Opposition have been taking which was actually just recently elucidated by the Hon Tim Macindoe in arguing that there shouldn't be a representative structure. So having said that there shouldn't be a representative structure they're now trying to add additional representative criteria to it. It does seem to somewhat contradict their position.The final Supplementary Order Paper is Supplementary Order Paper 99 and that again is in the name of the Hon Nikki Kaye. I'm assuming that there might be some more Supplementary Order Papers coming but these are the ones that have been tabled so far. Supplementary Order Paper 99 deals with extraordinary vacancies. Again I think there's some validity in this. What this would do is—"If an extraordinary vacancy occurs within 6 months of the expiry of the vacating member's term the Minister may—(a) appoint a replacement; or (b) leave the vacancy open." The bill allows for the council to make that determination in the case of an elected member. So that does leave therefore the election and the integrity of the electoral process with the council so I don't see any need to adopt the provisions that are being suggested by that."