Muller ToddTODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you Mr Chair. I'm delighted to stand up this afternoon and speak to the Education (Vocational Education and Training Reform) Amendment Bill and particularly here in the committee of the whole House. I would like to build on the very good contribution that we have just heard from Michael Woodhouse reflecting on the perspectives that he brings from his community to this issue. In fact listening to the debate as I have now over the last 10 minutes or so what I am struck by is how very different the performance and approach and scale of each of our polytechnics are in this country. What we're pushing hard against this afternoon is a one-size-fits-all centralised cookie cutter approach when actually the lived experience of the communities of New Zealand with respect to their engagement with the polytechs their local polytechs talks to the fact that our polytechs are incredibly varied in terms of scale and approach and journey and experience. The idea that they all have to be subsumed to the centre I think is very much a retrograde step. I'd like to talk specifically about the issues of Toi Ohomai in my area in the Bay of Plenty which over the last five years has seen two substantive polytechs reflect on their structure reflect on their capability and competence to be able to deliver to the communities of the wider Bay of Plenty and agree that they should join forces and collaborate and actually merge to become Toi Ohomai. At the very time that they have merged and become this new entity with huge community engagement and stakeholder support they are subsumed back to a centre and have no ability to be able to be a subsidiary of the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology.I have a specific question here for the Minister. It's all very well to look at the spectrum of performance of polytechs which I think all of us in this House would agree has not always been first-rate but then why do you assume that the best model is to take all of those polytechs regardless of financial performance regardless of the fact whether over the last 12 months to two or three years they have confronted themselves their own sustainability and have found a solution which means they are strong they're economic they've got a great capital base they have the support of the community—yet you think what is best for Bay of Plenty is to subsume it back into the centre? It is as if you are driven by an ideology that is because there are some that are weak we are going to subsume those that are strong and force them into a model which is not fit for purpose in our view and is not actually going to deliver against the community expectation. Hon Scott Simpson: But it is ideology.TODD MULLER: My colleague says it's ideology and it is because you are not looking at the individual circumstances of each one of the polytechs. No one argues that those that are poor performers should not look to improve and have the necessary structural improvements to enable it but surely not at the expense of those that have already done this journey and have landed an outcome which I think certainly from a Bay of Plenty perspective from a Tauranga perspective Toi Ohomai has done remarkably successfully.So when I look at this particular legislation I think Supplementary Order Paper 440 that I have put in place which asks essentially for Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology to be excluded from the transitional arrangements in the bill converting those resources that the community have worked so hard to reflect on to focus to refine to get to the point where you've got a strong capital structure—and it's interesting. I look across the House to a colleague who is clearly of a different political philosophy and comes from that area and it'd be fascinating to hear her contribution when she knows the journey that Waiariki polytech and Bay of Plenty polytech in particular have been on and the connection those two institutions have now created as Toi Ohomai with the community of the Bay of Plenty with the community of Zespri and with the employers who look to that institution and see it as local relevant and delivering skills that the community and the business people of Tauranga want. This is a retrograde step and I find it quite remarkable that Kiri Allan would be able to put her signature on something which is going to take our community backwards. Thank you Mr Chair.