Leary IngridINGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): I'd just like to look at what happens to parents who can't go to parent-teacher interviews. I was lucky enough to be able to go to parent-teacher interviews for all three of my children because I've had flexible working hours and that's been fantastic. As the Green member has pointed out many many workers can't do that so instead they have to rely on school reports. The problem with school reports is that they're not nuanced. They can't be interrogated and teachers seem to have a fairly PC language I would say where they can make statements about a child and the person reading the report might want to know What does that mean about my child's learning? What does that mean about the environment?"School reports can seem more like an assessment rather than the development of a relationship and they don't really allow parents to ask why. They also don't allow for parents to look at teacher blind spots or for teachers to look at parent blind spots and by that I mean if a child is being unusually quiet in class there may be reasons that the parents can discuss with the teacher. Or if a child is playing up or if a child is doing really really well there will be lots of context around that that really needs to be discussed and in Pacific culture that's called talanoa. It's a really really important concept. It's about relationship. It's about the concept of many people being involved in a child's life and those relationships are the start of the process not simply a cold hard school report with something written on it that can't really be interrogated or discussed.The other thing that comes out of parent-teacher interviews is I believe more investment by parents into spending time with their children on really important things like reading. When a parent becomes really interested in their child's development when they can participate in it through that talanoa and that conversation that inspires parents to want to spend more time maybe reading playing sport or whatever.I'd just like to reference a fantastic initiative—it's a pilot actually—in my own electorate in Taieri called Read Share Grow which is all about parents and children spending time together reading books. I've had the privilege of being able to distribute some of those books provided by the National Library of New Zealand. We know that literacy is a game-changer. We know that good literacy can lift children out of poverty or can enhance life chances across the board. So reading is really important and reading as a way of parents and children connecting is really important and that is one of the things that can come out of this idea of simply investing time being able to spend time with children and then being able to spend more time with children in their education.On that I'd just like to acknowledge that the Prime Minister had intended to come down to Bathgate Park School to actually participate in that reading programme and read a book to the school children. Unfortunately she was stopped by fog. The children sent her letters and the Prime Minister responded with a personal note which ended up getting published in the newspaper. She has promised to come back so as the MP for that area I will be sure to hold the Prime Minister to that promise.So this bill the Holidays (Parent-Teacher Interview Leave) Amendment Bill is a simple bill. It does what it says. It allows parents to go in working hours and it's not a burden to employers. Why? Because it's only four hours per year. That's 12 months of continuous employment and employers will have three days' notice of an employee intending to take that up. That's not a huge amount of time for what is a really fantastic benefit and as has been so rightly pointed out by the Hon James Shaw many parents simply are not in the position to afford to take that time off.As my colleague Marja Lubeck mentioned workplaces are becoming more insecure more casualised. This tends to impact on women. It is women who are often really involved as primary caregivers in developing the education of their child along with their schools and so this bill also supports women being able to work and being able to parent as it does all primary caregivers. So although this is a small bill although the change is small and it doesn't place a great burden on the employer it's a really important bill for those many hundreds of thousands of workers who currently simply don't have the wherewithal the funds or the licence to attend parent-teacher interviews and have that really important talanoa with the teachers so that they can get the best education for their children. I commend it to the House."