Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Madam Chair. I'd just like to respond to a few of the things the Minister said. First of all is his rather intemperate response to Paul Goldsmith's comments. The question that Paul Goldsmith asked seemed to be you know should representation and representative bodies that make decisions in New Zealand—this Parliament councils school decision-making bodies—be proportional to one person one vote or should there be some other proportionality as per the concept of a partnership under the Treaty? I think that's a legitimate debate that a lot of people would like to have. The way that the Minister tried to somehow make an equivalency with students being hit for speaking Māori many many many decades ago I don't think really is helpful to the debate to be quite honest. For context students were getting corporal punishment for just about everything in that era and actually in that period it was a different time. Many Māori parents actually wanted their kids to learn English instead of Māori. I don't think it helps to have these kinds of intemperate debates. We need honest conversations that unite New Zealanders behind better ideas but so much for that.I am really interested to hear the Minister elaborate further on what he has planned to work on attendance because his answer was quite helpful. He said Look we really have quite a coarse range of analysis either the student was there or they weren't. And if they weren't there it was either a justified or unjustified absence." And as he rightly noted people might have quite a range of ideas about what are justified absences. So if he could elaborate further on whether he might have a new suite of descriptions for why students are away I think this would be really helpful to know. As someone who grew up in Northland I'm very worried about the attendance rates there. I'm afraid I don't think they're as benign as he'd like to hope.Second of all he seemed to say that he could only get statistics for how many students attend 90 percent of the time. Well I'm fairly certain in my various travels I've seen more fine-grained breakdowns than that. And actually if the Ministry of Education has the raw data and the committee report it they now have that digitally reported for 85 percent of schools then you would think that actually the Minister would be able to give many more fine-grained breakdowns. So I guess the question is: when will we see a wider range of descriptors for absences and when will he present more fine-grained breakdowns you know 90 percent how many students attend 80 percent of the time and how many students attend 70 percent? And you get the picture. So those would be helpful questions.To return to teaching New Zealand history in schools I think there is a little bit of disquiet around the three big ideas that the ministry has developed and is currently consulting with. They're in the committee's report to the annual review. They say the three big ideas are: "Māori history is the foundational and continuous history of Aotearoa New Zealand; Colonisation and its consequences have been central to our history for the past 200 years and continues to influence all aspects of Aotearoa New Zealand society; and Aotearoa New Zealand's history has been shaped by the exercise and effects of power." Well that's an interesting take on history. It seems exceedingly backwards and exceedingly zero-sum I would describe it. Whereas for example technology if it wasn't for technological development none of us could have got here none of us would have anything to export we wouldn't be able to get it to market and wouldn't be able to communicate with people. Not only is our past inextricably linked with technological development so is the future of our kids.So this is a history curriculum which has nothing to say about the role that technology which made our country possible and will continue to make it possible has played in our history. No doubt there are quite a number of other concepts that might be more useful than the exercise of power and colonisation; interesting concept but hardly the whole story. And as for the idea that Māori history is the foundational and continuous history of Aotearoa New Zealand well actually if you read Michael King or James Belich they start long before any people arrived at New Zealand. I think it's said that a land without people was seeking a people without land. So I'd just like the Minister to explain what he thinks the thinking is behind these three big ideas. Thank you."