Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou katoa e Te Whare.On this the third reading of the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) I would firstly like to acknowledge my predecessor in the education portfolio for the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand Catherine Delahunty who with both our current Associate Minister of Education and Minister of Education the Hon Tracey Martin and the Hon Chris Hipkins worked on the former Education and Science Committee to build consensus on a number of issues which now actually form a lot of the platform for the education policy that this Government is now progressing in. This obviously included the inquiry spearheaded by Catherine Delahunty into dyslexia dyspraxia and autism spectrum disorders in the compulsory school sector which the Government is now mightily committed—as per the confidence and supply agreement with the Green Party—to implement. Turning to this piece of legislation I can't help but obviously acknowledge some of the points that have been raised obviously primarily by members of the Opposition. The Hon Nikki Kaye the former Minister of Education called this Government ideological" when it comes to the education sector. This is a sentiment that was echoed by every other National Party MP who has stood so far to speak in this debate and it is a sentiment that has been stated multiple times throughout every single reading of this piece of legislation. So I turned to the dictionary to offer this House a definition of ideology and if I may quote it is "as based on or relating to a system of ideas or ideals." Fundamentally it's essentially about values. So I'm really wondering if it's the former Minister of Education genuinely trying to tell me that the National Party is absent of ideology and thus the values that inform their policy around education. I don't think that that's the case. I think that the National Party also has ideology when it comes to the education sector. There is a difference between our ideologies obviously as represented by the Opposition's opposition to this piece of legislation being most fundamentally that we on this side of the House believe that education is a public good and that it should be protected resourced and encouraged to flourish. But I also really want to drill down into that catchcry of ideology that the Opposition turns to so frequently as a rhetorical flourish because there is a difference between ideology and dogma. Ideology is about values but dogma is about being blinded by those values and a great example of dogma actually comes from the former National Government's ignoring of all of the submissions that came before the select committee that actually implemented the changes which this piece of legislation is now undoing. So I'm really quite confused as to how the National Party can attack this Government for being in favour of values and for wearing them on our sleeves and saying how they're informing the policy decisions somehow presupposing that the National Party is completely devoid of those values and that ideology and meanwhile maintaining dogma and not listening to submitters and members of the public who overwhelmingly opposed the policy that those members pushed through which this piece of legislation undoes. So too the opposite of dogma is consultation whereby you listen to critique and to constructive input and you improve in turn. This is exactly what the Government is trying to do through the Education Conversation which the National Party has been invited to engage in. It's been mentioned by previous speakers that 30 years ago this side of the House implemented the future of education at that point in time and we now have an opportunity to evaluate that because it's no longer fit for purpose. So turning to the core things that this bill actually does—which I think have been well canvassed but it's important to put on the record for the sake of Hansard the Green Party's supreme support for all of these brilliant policy points—the first thing that it does as was mentioned by the previous speaker Simeon Brown is it ensures that the Teaching Council acts in accordance with or makes its decisions relating to the context of Government policy with that being the decisions that are made relating to the teaching profession. It was mentioned by Simeon Brown that this side of the House has spoken about the revocation of democracy on that Teaching Council by the former Government and for those who may be listening at home I really just want to clarify what we meant when we said that. What we meant when we said that was that the former Government literally removed elected members from the Teaching Council and instead replaced all of those members with nominees of their own. If that's not ideological I'm not quite sure what is. What we're saying here is that we're going to add another layer of public accountability and transparency by making sure that the general public is aware of what the Teaching Council is doing because it must be in line with Government policy. It will be up to the Government of the day—whether it is National-led Labour-led or heck even Green-led—to justify that to the general public and therefore actually be open to far more critique and change their policy in turn. The second thing that this piece of legislation does is ensure that private schools are held to the same standards as our public schools in this country when it comes to providing a safe space for students whether it's physical or emotional and I genuinely can't get to the heart of the opposition that the National Party has to this. I've listened to their points of debate throughout this third reading and so far all I've heard is that they are concerned that there is somehow no evidence—which was completely dispelled by the Associate Minister of Education the Hon Tracey Martin—but then it's somehow that it excessively burdens private schools to need to provide a safe space physically and emotionally for their students. I'm concerned about that—I'm deeply concerned about that. We've also heard from Simeon Brown—and we heard the evidence in our select committee the Education and Workforce Committee—that there's no evidence that bullying is better or worse in public or private schools. Well surely that's a reason to hold them both to the same standards. Also surely that's a reason to ensure that we're actually being proactive here to make sure that we don't end up with an unsafe situation whereby the Government would have to intervene. That surely strikes to the heart of the principles that the National Party should be in favour of. Thirdly this piece of legislation removes the empowering provisions for communities of online learning. This has been confuddled somewhat by the statements made in public particularly by the former Minister of Education the Hon Nikki Kaye about how we're somehow removing any chance for young people to engage in online learning or education. Again totally untrue. Online learning existed prior to the empowering provisions for communities of online learning. When the former National Government actually implemented them it was critiqued by a number of stakeholders for being a hasty and rushed piece of legislation. So by removing them we are simply ensuring that moving forward we end up with a really robust framework for the future of education which is being facilitated through the Education Conversation which the National Party is involved in. Fourthly cohort entry. Now this is perhaps the most controversial—or at least what the National Party has tried to make controversial—part of this piece of legislation. We are somewhat removing the opportunity for cohort entry but are allowing for two entry points throughout the school year. Given that there are thousands of schools in this country and only 50—that's the evidence that the Education and Workforce Committee heard; only 50—have decided to take it up I can understand the National Party's position around choice. You know that kind of makes sense but it's not choice for parents. It's choice for the board of trustees and we have heard enormous amounts of evidence to the fact that kids are actually better off and learn better when they enter education later. I'm conscious of the very limited time that I have left. I just want to speak finally to Supplementary Order Paper 224 which implemented into this piece of legislation the requirement that any name change of any university is no longer a decision that is to be made just by a Minister of Education but it is to be made by the entirety of this House this Parliament. I think that that's a democratic provision and I think that it's fantastic. I for one never went to Victoria University of Wellington except to do a summer school but I can absolutely understand the feeling that alumni of that university had when that conversation was occurring. So let's get on with it. Let's ensure that we are actually engaging in a cross-partisan manner on the future of the education system and that we stop with this fearmongering. The Green Party commends this bill."