Lee DeniseDENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Thank you Madam Chair for the opportunity to speak here this evening and I do so alongside my fellow colleagues on the Education and Workforce Committee on both sides of the House and others who are joining us for what promises to be really good debate suggestions and commentary on this particular bill and in the committee of the whole House stage.I want to just get straight into it and refer to Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 123 in my name. What it seeks to do is—In clause 14(2) replace new section 222AD(5)" with a new subsection (5). That new subsection (5) would read: "An elected person specified in subsection (4) must have been deemed to satisfy responsible criteria to sit on the council and have appropriate and relevant skill sets to contribute to the deliberations of the council." So obviously this SOP refers to the make-up of councils and it's quite fitting that I follow the previous speaker Chlöe Swarbrick in regard to her commentary on the make-up of councils.What this SOP is seeking to do is to recognise that the governing council of a polytechnic is actually quite a demanding and important role and we'd all acknowledge that. But the suitability of an individual to contribute to those decisions and actions of a governing council needs to be a little bit more entrenched and set out in legislation. So what we're suggesting here is that this particular SOP would ensure that the relevant knowledge skills and experience of those who sit on the council are high and entrenched.Now if you look in the current bill what clause 14(2) is seeking to insert in the new section 222AD(5) is that "An elected person specified … (a) is to be treated as meeting any relevant knowledge skills or experience requirements;". So there is an assumption there that this is seeking to step one step back and say "Well before we get there and make that assumption that they've got the relevant knowledge skills and experience how can we get this piece of legislation to ensure that?" So if you step one step back it's about overall safeguards on suitability or if we want to spin it a positive way it's about ensuring that we have positive criteria for those who sit on the council.Now I'll refer to the previous speaker right before me and her comments on membership of the councils. This is incredibly important because if you look at say for instance the Tertiary Education Union—and I've got a number of other submissions right here with me. Let me see who else submitted on this: Auckland University Students Association Otago University Students' Association the Tertiary Education Union Tai Poutini Branch—so all of them plus many many others are looking at increased membership. In fact if you look at the Tertiary Education Union submission they're up to about 12 to 18 members. That's a lot. This is a question that I want to pose to the Minister: how can he assure us that this bill has appropriate mechanisms for ensuring responsible criteria in terms of governance suitability from what could be many council members and knowing that the selection process can be very varied? Governance is everything leadership is everything and it's entirely fitting and appropriate that if we're heading down this track we have appropriate mechanisms to ensure criteria. We need to get it right and this is the chance to do so.So I would like to see the Minister respond to this particular question around just switching out—it's a proactive stance rather than a reactive clause that we see now in terms of eligibility and criteria. Thank you for the chance to start with this. As my former colleague said we've got many SOPs to come."