Omer IbrahimIBRAHIM OMER (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker. Just before I proceed if anyone doubts the benefit of speaking many languages I just want to tell them that I speak six languages. English is not even my first language. The benefit of that is what got me maybe here and what kept me alive. Leaving a country at a very young age I didn't know where I was going and I didn't know what to expect but the languages that I spoke along the way got me through. I could communicate with smugglers—they were kind to me. Crossing the border I could speak to the Sudanese security—they were kind to me. And then I handed myself into a refugee camp. I could speak some English and I could speak other languages including Arabic and everyone was kind to me because I could communicate. So that's one of the benefits of speaking many languages.I rise to speak on this bill. In doing so I do have mixed feelings in the sense that this bill intends well. No one can argue against the intentions of this bill. It intends to strengthen access to second language learning in primary and intermediate schools covering all school students in year 1 to 8 including junior and middle school. So this is a noble idea. No one can argue against it. That's why the Government doesn't really disagree with the principles and objectives of this bill. However this bill has its own issues its flaws limitations and shortcomings. It does not for instance take due regard of the place of te reo Māori Act 2016 for example—the Māori Language Act—to work in partnership with iwi and Māori to actively protect te reo Māori as taonga for future generations. That's a big issue now. It also does not provide a language learning pathway throughout students' schooling life. Imagine being a student all your life—throughout intermediate school—and learning a language and then to get to secondary school and for that language not to exist. Imagine the frustration after you spent all this time and all this energy and effort and that language no longer exists. I wouldn't want to be that student. This bill also doesn't recognise the huge resource that could be required to upskill the teaching workforce in 10 or more languages and the impact that would have on the delivery of the rest of the curriculum. The bill as introduced presents some implementation challenges and issues that have been noted in the departmental report to the select committee. We know and we acknowledge that for some schools it's already difficult to find a teacher to cover even core subjects and finding even more additional language teachers would be even more difficult. This is not to mention the cost of implementation that I just mentioned above.Throughout the select committee myself and my colleagues engaged with open minds and with open spirit thinking that things might work and something might change but it didn't. Unfortunately we have to oppose. After hearing from education experts and many others—a lot of them stakeholders that will be impacted by the decision on this bill—we have decided to oppose it. Instead the national languages strategy will be passed because it's more sensible it's cost effective and it's something that will work in the future.We heard from many many people and what we heard was that the legislation is not the best answer to second language learning. In saying so my message to many many ethnic people out there who are probably listening—and many of them submitted with enthusiasm—is we are not abandoning this. While we are not supporting this bill at this stage we are committed in progressing its recommendations to develop a national languages policy. That's been recommended to us because that's the best way forward to strengthen access to language learning in schools. I'm very proud of the work that this Government intends to do because we're not just walking away from this; we just want to do it in a right way. We have carefully considered all the ministry support and we have decided to adopt a national languages strategy. This would be developed in consultation with parents teachers schools and communities. Now this is something that the bill has lacked. There was nothing about consultation in the bill.In my opening remarks I said I had mixed feelings because I know how many migrants how many people—many of them who I know—submitted during the select committee process. During the submissions we heard that it's important to keep the connection to your mother tongue when you move to a new country. Migrant families often struggle with passing on their language to their children in a host country. This is supported and shown by evidence. We understand the social and cultural costs that migrant communities face due to language loss in communities because when you move to a new country one of the things that you carry with you is your language—your identity; your culture. Losing that you lose yourself. Your kids losing that they lose a big part of them. We know the importance of maintaining the original language the heritable language the language that your forefathers and your parents and your grandparents spoke. But it has to be done in the right way.At the end I want to acknowledge the Hon Nikki Kaye who introduced this. I think she did that with a pure intention. As someone who speaks many languages as a refugee and a migrant I really want to thank her because I can see her intention is quite pure and is well. I also want to acknowledge the Hon Paul Goldsmith who took over and who worked hard to make sure that this works out. But sadly because of the shortcomings we don't see how the bill can work because it's just too expensive. It clashes and it collides with so many things. Because of that we have adapted a different way. For now though we are not going to support this bill at this stage. Kia ora.