Martin TraceyHon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister for Children): I want to take these first moments and probably the only moments of my contribution to actually talk directly to—directly to—the parents and the students of the charter schools here in New Zealand. Your schools will all be open again at the beginning of next year. Do not listen to the scaremongering and the politicising of your children by the National Party in an attempt to try and convince you that your children will not be able to walk into their schools again next year. But what I can guarantee you of is that they will have registered and qualified teachers in front of every classroom. What I guarantee you of is that the Minister of Education has made sure that the Ministry of Education has looked at the property some of your children have been taking their lessons in and we will not allow them—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Don't bring me into it.Hon TRACEY MARTIN: I beg your pardon Madam Deputy Speaker. We will not allow the children that have been in of some of those partnership schools to stay in those substandard conditions.Nicola Willis: You know better than their parents.Hon TRACEY MARTIN: Ms Willis you wouldn't put your children in them. Ms Willis some of us wouldn't put our dog in them. But we will make sure that those children are inside a property that is of an adequate standard. The Opposition challenges this side to visit those schools. I have visited several of those schools—I have visited several of those schools. So it's interesting that they haven't visited the schools with substandard property—that they stand there and are quite happy for those children to be taught by unqualified unregistered teachers in property that we wouldn't put dogs in. But no no they are prepared to use those families and those children for political gain. And to suggest that this is an ideological movement! I sat on the select committee with Ms Kaye who couldn't even pass the changes to the legislation they required by majority—David Seymour: I raise a point of order Madam Deputy Speaker. We all have a duty not to bring this House into disrepute. I'd put it to you that suggesting that parents of New Zealand children have been treating those children worse than dogs in their educational choices is actually going to bring this House into disrepute and the member should apologise and withdraw for that comment.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Look I understand that feelings run quite strongly on this debate. There has been some robust debate and I think I'll ask the Hon Tracey Martin to continue.Hon TRACEY MARTIN: Can I clarify—I appreciate the member's statement. If he'd like to go back and check the Hansard he would see that I accused the National Party of deciding that they were quite happy for children to work and be educated in those circumstances. I'd be really interested to know whether they're—Hon Nikki Kaye: I raise a point of order Madam Deputy Speaker. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'm sorry to interrupt the member again—the Hon Nikki Kaye.Hon Nikki Kaye: I appreciate that the Minister was attempting to clarify but actually I believe that she made it worse when she effectively accused the National Party of believing that a situation would be OK to treat children as dogs. That is absolutely appalling and disgusting. I want the Minister to withdraw and apologise.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well it is a debatable point. Quite frankly I've heard much worse accusations in this House. I think you're being a bit sensitive. The Minister can say what she thinks and people will judge her on that. I call the Hon Tracey Martin.Hon TRACEY MARTIN: All right let's move on so that we move away from the sensitivity of the National Party about what they allowed these children to be in shall we?Let's go to the conversation that said that there was no way to measure the achievement of children before the former National Government had an epiphany about national standards. So let's talk about stanines. Let's talk about the bell curve. Let's talk about the two-year progressions inside the back of the national curriculum. The problem with the contribution from the National Party is the fact that they wouldn't know education if it jumped up and bit them. That's the problem that has been going on here.I had a conversation with Mr David Seymour way before he was a member of this Parliament way before he was an MP where he articulated at the Kōwhai Festival—in the middle of the road—how he was going to make sure that this country had charter schools. So for that party to decide that this was ideologically driven after that young man spent six months inside some sort of brains trust in the middle of Canada is unbelievable at this time. The fact that that party at the select committee when they created charter schools couldn't even get it through without a majority vote from New Zealand First who was the only party that decided that we would have the Ombudsman make sure that when you kicked a kid out of a charter school that you had to be accountable to the Ombudsman. [Interruption] DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Mark Mitchell—it's a barrage.Hon TRACEY MARTIN: I will tell you that at the alternative education providers forum the other day they told me how many children had been kicked out of charter schools that they were dealing with because there was no accountability by those charter schools. We fully support this bill.