Mallard Trevor: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMallard Trevor: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 29 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10550. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I want to I think apologise to the Minister of Education and to the Committee for not being clear in the point that I was trying to make before. I think no one is denying the fact that the information that is supplied to the Secretary for Education and the Ministry of Education is available under the Official Information Act. Of course it is available. But what is not available and what is being excluded by this Education Amendment Bill is the information that sits within the school the information that is used in order to develop the reports—in order to develop the reports—that the school then uses to pass that information on to the ministry. I am just—Dr Rajen Prasad: She’s not listening.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well it is a little bit rough after the Minister has—I do not know whether it was deliberately or accidentally—misinterpreted the point that I was making. There is information that is held by the ministry and of course that is available. There is information that is held by the school and that is being excluded by this legislation. If it was in an independent school and it was collected in order to make a report for the ministry it would be available. It is available under the Official Information Act because it is part of the information developed to fulfil a contractual arrangement with the Crown. If it was in an integrated school it would be available. If it was in an early childhood education centre it would be available. But what we appear to be doing here is specifically excluding—and this is only in clause 42—theinformation that would be available from every other part of the education system with an argument around universities. I am not absolutely certain about universities. But in the other parts in the directly contracting parts of the system that information would be available.I just want to see whether I can get a nod or a wink from the Minister as to whether she understands. And I do not mind if one of those green notes comes up. I noted earlier that when the Minister was speaking the official was holding her head in her hands.Hon Hekia Parata: Oh what a dreamer!Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well it was a fact—it was a fact.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Could I just say to the Minister that you have a live microphone and it is out of order for a Minister to interject. You can take the call when the time comes.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: But you can call me Trevor. It is probably out of order to call me Trevor like that too but that is a minor point. I am trying to get some sort of reaction from the Minister as to whether she understands the difference between the information held by the Secretary for Education and the Ministry of Education and the information held within schools. Does she understand the difference? She does. And does she understand that the effect of this is to keep ministry information available but to exclude the information held within the school being made available to the parents of that school if the school chooses not to give it? I just want to ask again: what possible right what reason can the Minister have to exclude the rights of parents to have the information about a partnership school that they can have about an independent school? What possible reason?In an integrated school or in an early childhood education centre a parent can have the information that is collected for the purpose of developing a report for the Secretary for Education even if it is not in the report. It does not have to be in the report. That is available under the Official Information Act under the rulings of the Ombudsman. No one here—and I can see all National members have now got their heads down. I cannot think of a single decent explanation as to why they want to deny the parents of the children—