Stanford EricaERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you Madam Speaker. Well we've all got the déjà vu situation because here we are again under urgency passing a bill. Again some noble intentions but misses the main point of the fact that our kids can't do reading writing and math.Hon Kelvin Davis: Oh don't belittle the Māori Battalion.ERICA STANFORD: And Kelvin Davis you should be—you at home won't be able to hear that but I've been heckled by Kelvin Davis I think still Associate Minister of Education with an interest in Māori education I believe if that's still the case. So I'll get to that in a minute.But look we're not going to be supporting the bill today. We've got a few questions. It may well be that after select committee and the committee of the whole House we will review our position but there are some questions we have that I want to outline.Firstly the Pacific Education Foundation. It's not clear to us from the Minister's speech or from any of the bill notes or the departmental disclosure statement or the explanatory note why it is that the discretionary amount that is able to be spent by the foundation is going from $500 to $10000. We've got some questions around why that isn't just better set out in the legislation because as it currently stands in the legislation there is a list of authorised expenditure by the foundation. There may well be some things outside of that that they wish to spend money on and that may well be fine. But the question I think we have is: why is it not the case that we just add those extra things into the listed authorised expenditure in the bill?So it would be good during the committee process to hear from submitters and of course the foundation itself to get more details on exactly what they have spent in the past and where those shortfalls are in the bill that don't allow them to spend money on those things because at the moment they are only allowed to spend $500 on those additional items. So $10000 is a significant jump and it would be really good to get more feedback on exactly what that expenditure is and then from the Minister and officials as to why those things could potentially be better added into the authorised expenditure listed in the bill. So those are just some broad points that we'd be very keen to hear some more on.Of course as the Minister mentioned the bill makes some changes to the Māori Battalion memorial scholarship fund. Again we don't have any problem with this. I guess the question we'd have is around the additional position on the board just to hear from submitters and also the scholarship fund itself to find out more around why that's necessary.I think one of the key issues that—I'm not going to go on for longer than I need to because it's not a very big bill. I guess the key question for me when I look at this especially as it is around Māori achievement is if you take a look at the last five years and the track record of this Government when it comes to Māori achievement we really should be concerned. After five years the educational outcomes for Māori students have gotten worse. Again only about 33 percent of Māori students attended school regularly in term 3 last year; only 63 percent of Māori students attained NCEA level 2 in 2021 which is a decline from 69 percent in 2017.These are very concerning. And here we have again a bill—some noble intentions but isn't addressing the root cause of Māori and Pasifika achievement. We are very concerned about that. We can see the inequities; we can see the fact that it depends on your socio-economic background as to how you do at school and that should not be the case. There should be more consistency in our schools when it comes to the curriculum and when it comes to assessment.One of the things that I am particularly concerned about that is not addressed in this bill is the fact that there were some experts who wrote to the ministry just recently who said that when we don't have a curriculum that's set out year by year the tendency is to underestimate students' ability—and especially Māori and Pasifika students' ability. That is one of the problems with a system where you don't have year-by-year curriculum and core content knowledge outcomes: that when teachers assess children they assess them below what's possible especially Māori and Pasifika students. And that's why they're calling for a year-by-year curriculum.Nothing in this bill around achievement for Māori and Pasifika—again a missed opportunity. When you look at the statistics they're not good. As I said it matters in this country which socio-economic area you come from as to your educational achievement. That should not be the case. We need far better equality in the education system so that it becomes a great equaliser; we need a much bigger focus on outcomes and on achievement.Again another bill under urgency showing quite clearly this Government's priorities which are not achievement; which are not addressing the serious concerns that we've got around your achievement if you are Māori you're Pasifika or you are from a low socioeconomic area—or we call it high Equity Index area now.Those things are core business of—you would have thought—the Labour Party because those are the people they purport to support. And yet in the last six years all of the evidence suggests that educational attainment for those vulnerable communities—and our Māori and Pasifika students—has gone backwards. And there is nothing in this bill that I can see that is going to address that. And those are the concerns of parents out there. They want to know how their kids are doing how they're tracking how they're progressing Are they at curriculum by the time they enter high school so that they can have all of the opportunities of high school and then go on to live the life they want? This bill doesn't address any of that.Angela Roberts: That's not the intent.ERICA STANFORD: That's not the intent of the bill but maybe it should be. And that was the point that I'm trying to make. But here we are under urgency another bill that doesn't make any of the points that I think the public expect which is how are we going to raise educational achievement in this country? Especially for our vulnerable communities and our Māori and Pasifika learners who have been let down in the last six months. And for that reason we will be opposing the bill.