Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you Mr Speaker for the opportunity to take a call on the Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill at its second reading. I along with other members from the National Party will be supporting this piece of legislation which makes important changes to introduce a code for administrators to inspect and for student accommodation providers in New Zealand. Currently there's already a code for international students and that's important because that means that we as a country are upholding our obligations to our international friends but we haven't had one in place for domestic students and what this will allow is for there to be a code for both international and domestic students—something which I think will make a positive difference to New Zealand. Of course we've heard the story which has caused this bill to be brought to this Parliament—the tragic circumstances—and we hope that through these actions we'll be able to ensure that the young people who do go into student accommodation will be given better pastoral care and that those institutions which are responsible for the care will also ensure they have a higher standard for that. So this bill is an important piece of legislation.But also we discussed around the committee table some of the issues in regards to the rights of young people to their privacy and we sought advice from the Privacy Commissioner around this bill and have ensured that there is wording within it to ensure that the Privacy Commissioner is consulted in relation to the code which will be brought into place and that's an important piece because it is important also to ensure that young people have their rights upheld when they do move out of home and when they do go into a student hostel or into student accommodation.The Education and Workforce Committee introduced a seven-year limitation period for students to access the scheme. That's essentially a seven-year limitation on when they can make a complaint against the care or the pastoral care that they were provided when they were in the student accommodation. That's to allow young people—and I questioned officials around this particular issue—to be able to bring that forward within seven years if they've had a bad experience which they may not wish to share at a particular time. But also it provides a limitation to that so that it's not something which is going to be hanging over the providers' heads for a long period of time because obviously we want issues to be dealt with in a timely fashion. This seven-year limitation period ensures that there is a balance between the responsibility for those complaints to be laid but also to ensure that they get dealt with in a timely fashion.Education providers could be fined up to $100000 if their breach of the code resulted in serious harm or death of a student and I think that's an appropriate fine. It's important that when you introduce codes of compliance there are also mechanisms for accountability so that there are some teeth. The committee did introduce a reasonable excuse defence to the fine in the bill and that was an important amendment to it.So overall this bill is something that the National Party does support. We think what happened at the University of Canterbury was an absolute tragedy and something which should never have happened in New Zealand. We do look forward to obviously the full reports and being able to assess that as well and we do note this bill has gone through the process very quickly which has meant the committee was unable to be able to look at all of the facts of that case and to look at all the reports but regardless of what those reports do find it's important that Parliament does take action and it was also important that this interim code was able to be brought into force by 1 January next year when students will start leaving home and going to student accommodation at their university of choice for first semester next year. So whilst we didn't have all the information the timeliness was important at the same time to ensure this was put in place.So we look forward to the development of the code and then of course the permanent code as well. We'll be taking a close interest in that over that period of time. Thank you Mr Speaker.