Xu-Nan LawrenceDr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you Madam Speaker. So this bill has three parts to it. You've got the first part the first bit which is around charter schools. You've got the second part around the removal of the network's approval; and you've got the third part regarding the ability for the Secretary to collect data on attendance.This is a chimera of a bill and like the story of the kind of Chimera and Bellerophon this is not a beast that slays. Let's start with the charter school bit. The previous speaker the Hon Jan Tinetti has already mentioned in terms of the lack of evidence internationally—we have seen that unequivocally and unbiasedly if that's a word charter schools as a model work. This is something that we have mentioned before both in terms of the data from the US and also when we are looking at economisation in the UK. This is something that ruins education systems and this is something that ruins the future of a nation the future of Aotearoa in this case.I think to start with let's just draw attention to the regulatory impact statement. As you go into the regulatory impact statement it is riddled with Here are the risks these are the uncertainties these are the limitations. Due to the lack of time that we have given we have not been able to consult with X Y and Z." So this is not a serious solution to the issues that we are currently facing. Yes we admit that there are certain elements of our education system that need to be tightened up. There are certain things and there are certain parts of our education system yes that have let some students and some schools down.However the funding that we are looking at here $153 million on charter schools—imagine proportionally what that funding would do to the public sector in order to uplift all—all—of tamariki all of rangatahi all of our students across the country when we are looking at educational systems. So this is not a serious solution. It is simply a vanity project something to make people look pretty when they're looking at themselves in the mirror in the morning. We cannot gamble $153 million on uncertainty so this is something that the Green Party is unequivocally opposed to because of the fact there is simply no evidence that suggests it works. It is not the magical bullet that we see elsewhere that is going to magically fix the education system and some of the issues and harshness that we see our students and teachers and our schools go through currently.Now the second head of this chimera is around the network approval process. This is what I mean. Charter schools—we're looking at this privatisation it's about community-based in fact you know we're also allowing people from overseas to also invest in our education system with unclarity around financial scrutiny. But the second part of this in terms of network approval that was put in place for a reason because of the way that the early childhood education (ECE) sectors have been managed. Without it and without that level of financial sustainability the Ministry of Education is able to do—without the kind of work that is expected when we are going through the scrutiny process for setting up an ECE centre what we'll see is that we're going to be putting more young people more tamariki at risk. And not just the students in those ECE centres but also the teachers. This is serious especially when we hear the Minister of Education talking about consistency talking about what we need to do talking about structured literacy talking about the reduction in our numeracy and literacy—that starts at the ECE level. And without any form of scrutiny we are seeing that at risk.The last point I want to mention the third head of the chimera is around attendance. And while yes it's a good idea to collect attendance and yes an attendance action plan is good but data for the sake of collecting data is not worthwhile. What are we going to actually do with it? With that the Green Party does oppose this bill."