Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Well thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. The question that people should be asking themselves at home is: why is this Government closing charter schools? And there is no question that they are being closed by this legislation. You see I used to be the under-secretary responsible for this policy. Let me tell you just how it works. These schools have six-year contracts that are all due to be renewed sometime between 2019 and 2023. If you are enrolling your kid at one of these schools now you're enrolling them for a minimum of three years and you want to know that the school's going to be there in three years' time. You might be enrolling them for six or even eight years in some cases. So this legislation by removing the legitimacy of renewing the contracts ensures that there will be no schools at the end of this contract term and therefore no real possibility of confident enrolment by students in the schools now. That's why this legislation is a gun to the head of partnership schools kura hourua; I hope that the members opposite can at least understand that.But coming back to the question of why—why? Is there a problem to be solved? Well the regulatory impact statement is very interesting. It has a page on problem definition and objectives. Now we might hope that this Government was trying to solve problems out in the community problems real people have that perhaps legislation could improve for them. But no there's no such problem described in the regulatory impact statement. It simply says This intervention proposes to implement the Government's commitments". That's all it is. It is ideological utu and union payback because there are no problems in the schools. Most of them are oversubscribed. Most of the partnership schools are turning people away and have waiting lists because the kids going there like them the parents who send their children to the schools like them and the people who teach at them are not forced at gunpoint in the way this Government treats the schools to teach at the schools; they like them because they're there voluntarily. Nobody has been forced to be part of a partnership school and no taxpayer has been forced to fund a partnership school a dollar more or a dollar less than they would be forced to fund a State school. They do not get a dollar more or a dollar less than a State school. Nobody has been forced to do anything.There is no problem. There are no complaints from anyone who's directly affected by a partnership school. But wait: there is a problem. This Labour Party and in particular this Minister of Education are donkey deep in union culture. They are agents of the teacher unions and they are there to try to eliminate the competition for the union thugs. That's what this bill is about. It is union thuggery but it has wider implications for this country. You wonder why there are so many people out marching protesting calling talkback complaining about this Government's actions? Well this has some wider implications and the more thoughtful members on the Government benches might want to just think about them. First of all what does it say about this Government's approach to constructive policy-making when it simply says "For no other reason than the fact we can we are going to insist one size fits all and take away these children's opportunity."? Because I can tell you fellas people in middle New Zealand react to that. There's one more thing that they might like to think about and it's this: how can people seeking to do business in New Zealand be confident of the rule of law being upheld by this Government when they find themselves witnessing one Minister going and talking to that school making some backroom assurances—this is all going to be very interesting when it comes out in court fellas. This is going to be about this Government's commitment to the rule of law and that's a bigger deeper issue than perhaps anyone in this Government has thought about so far.The ACT Party opposes this bill on the partnership school clause alone. There is no problem to be solved there is no problem with partnership schools but the first serious mistake that this Government's made which will fill the political backpack that eventually weighs down all politicians is this reckless immature stupid legislation that takes away the opportunities of 1200-plus kids who are getting the best educational opportunity they've ever had and undermines the rule of law in this country."