Macindoe TimHon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Kia ora e Te Mana Whakawā. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I must admit I'm slightly gobsmacked to hear Jan Logie describe this bill as a paradigm shift in thinking because as will have been apparent to anybody who was listening to this debate prior to the dinner adjournment in fact it's one of the lightest bills as far as having anything of substance to discuss of anything that we've considered in a very long period of time.But let me start on a positive. First I want to congratulate Jan Tinetti on having her bill drawn. As somebody who is now in his 10th year in this House and has waited 9½ years still for that privilege I find that for it to have happened to somebody who'd been here for about 10 weeks when her bill was drawn a little bit infuriating but anyway congratulations. I also would like genuinely to congratulate her on the way that she chaired the Education and Workforce Committee this morning. She is the deputy chair and this morning she was filling in and I thought she did a very good job. So well done and thank you for that.But I have to say to the member that I cannot support this bill and it's not just because it is a stocking filler. I do want to remind members of the Government particularly while the Leader of the House is here that when Labour were in Opposition not so long ago they always used to rail against stocking fillers on the days of members' bills. Sometimes I felt they were very churlish and unkind in describing those particular measures as such. Usually the argument we heard from the Labour Party was: why not just shove this bill into a statutes amendment bill and it could be dealt with very very quickly? We wouldn't have to use up a lot of the House time.Well here we are on members' day which comes around once a fortnight usually in the timetable of the House. It is very special to members and we'd all like to be able to debate matters of substance particularly to be able to advance measures that really will make a difference to our communities and improve the laws of this land. Often the opportunity to do that is by having a bill that probably wouldn't make it on to the Government's agenda just because of the pressure on what they can get through but members' day is a really good way of getting it through.I have to assume that Jan Tinetti has the numbers—I'm realistic; I can do the maths—and therefore I want to make this point to her particularly having referred to the fact that she is a member of the committee that I assume the bill will be referred to and she was chairing it this morning: our committee is going to be very busy over the next few months because not only do we have the Education Amendment Bill which was debated last week and is substantial and very contentious and is going to draw probably quite a lot of submissions and require a lot of work but we also because of the way in which this committee is now structured have the Employment Relations Amendment Bill and that of course is going to be hugely demanding for all the members of the committee. These are substantial weighty things that all members of the committee should be applying their attention to. I really have to ask why on earth we would be trying to squeeze in something like this and requiring submitters to come before the committee to talk about something that is of so little significance.Now unfortunately the debate was broken up by the dinner adjournment so I just point out for those who may not have been listening that far from the paradigm shift that Jan Logie mentioned this is about very slight rewording of a few paragraphs. For instance the bill replaces this sentence to focus on helping each child and young person to attain educational achievement to the best of his or her potential" with this "to provide learning experiences that support children and young people to reach their potential and a system that aims to achieve equitable outcomes for all". And so it goes on. There's so little change in this that you have to ask: why on earth would a select committee be required to look at it?I'll just close by making the point that Ms Logie commented on the fact that—in a disparaging way she suggested that members on this side of the House don't value teachers. Well I can assure you that we do and as one of the former teachers who is in the National Party caucus I can assure her that we do. To suggest that we don't value teachers and that we seldom think about children is completely contradicted by the debate we had last week on the much more substantive measure the Education Amendment Bill when it was members on that side of the House who spoke solely about systems and unions and I don't think I ever heard the word "children" being mentioned. In that particular bill where children should be at the heart of any substantive changes particularly whether we're getting rid of national standards or getting rid of partnership schools that is surely when we should be looking at the interests of children. This bill will not do that."