Muller ToddTODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): I rise to take a short call to speak in favour of the Education (Update) Amendment Bill. There are three areas that I would like to just step through: the National Education and Learning Priorities the communities of online learning and the cohort entry changes. I am very supportive of this legislation as you would expect and have been as we have run through the process—but I have been struck by the debate on those three issues.Firstly there are the National Education and Learning Priorities. For me I think it is absolutely appropriate that we require our boards of trustees to now take these priorities into account in their teaching and learning programme. I have not been swayed by the view that we heard through the select committee process that somehow having a set of priorities for learning for our children is going to so skew the delivery of the curriculum that the holistic approach that has underpinned our curriculum over the last few years is somehow going to be lost. I fundamentally have a much greater aspiration for our children and expectation of our teachers than that view and outlook and philosophy. I think these things are not mutually exclusive and indeed can be quite empowering when applied together.Secondly there is the debate that we heard on communities of online learning. It is quite an extraordinary framework in my opinion allowing our education system to breathe and evolve as technology changes—which every one of us agrees is changing in an extraordinary rapid transformational and fundamental way. So we need a legislative framework that enables online learning to be able to grow with that.Of course as part of that there is the potential for that to be entirely online with all the protections that you would expect around pastoral care and quality of delivery. But again those protections were never referenced by nearly all of the submitters who had this as a core issue for them. I actually found the resistance quite astounding. It appeared to me that for some because it cannot be imagined it needs to be barred for all—because it cannot be imagined by them in terms of how this could work in an operational sense it must be barred for all. I think that that is too narrow a view when reflecting on the opportunity that online learning will provide.Finally I would like to make a few comments in respect of the views around the change of cohort entry and the fact that this may enable kids who are 4 years and 44 weeks old to start school if the parent agrees if the board of trustees agrees and if the school genuinely thinks that that is a sensible way forward. It is not compulsory—we made that point a number of times—but again the resistance was driven by the view that because nearly 5 is too young for some then it must be denied for all. In my opinion that again is too restrictive an interpretation of how this will work. This is not a Government that says that if your child is 4 years and 44 weeks old he or she must go to school. It is providing the flexibility for boards of trustees for parents and for those who are so focused on the success of education in this country in a real community sense to be accountable for making those decisions. That in my view is how it should be—children at the centre of legislation. That is what this legislation does and that is why I am so proud to support it here this afternoon. Thank you.