Kaye NikkiHon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): National opposes this legislation and from my perspective nothing sums up this Government more than this piece of legislation: superficial lack of depth and putting things in the ballot that delay the larger policy discussions in education. National believes in a strong vision for our education system whether that is through the previous National Education and Learning Priorities (NELPs) which have been mandated in law and already have the ability to consult with a wide range of people or whether it is a vision to ensure that we have equity to ensure that young people are lifelong learners to ensure that they get 21st century skills and to ensure that they have basic knowledge. We support these goals and it is our strong view that it was the last National Government that should be recognised for bringing NELPs into law. But let's be absolutely clear about what this bill does: pretty much nothing.The reality is it was a ballot-stuffer by Jan Tinetti. I do want to acknowledge her as a very hardworking member of Parliament but no one expected this bill to be drawn out and we know that. The reason we know that is that in the Education and Workforce Committee the bill was completely gutted. Not only was it superficial and lacking an amount of depth but also it was completely gutted in select committee which in my view demonstrates that it was not a significant piece of work that was worthwhile enough even for members opposite to support it back to the House. So that's the first point.The second point that I want to make is that people pleaded—now this was not a bunch of people that necessarily traditionally would be seen to support the National Party—to halt this bill. I want to read from the Post Primary Teachers' Association (PPTA) submission. They said look even if you believe that there needs to be some tweaks around the NELPs which already requires consultation with a range of different groups even if you really strongly believe in this how about you wait for the more than 15 reviews that are under way of which two are directly relevant to this piece of legislation? One of them is the Education Conversations of which part of that discussion—Jan Tinetti is a member of the Government and is helping to lead discussion—is around the common view of our education system and the vision around that.Again the Minister of Education talks about cross-party agreement but instead of getting to the table and having these conversations so that the sector doesn't have the ping-pong that they had before around education policy this Government proceeds to push through a bill that would give Labour's view of the world around our vision of our education system and I do think—I want to say it in this House—that's pretty arrogant actually. And it's not just me who's argued for the deferral of this bill. It's actually the PPTA who have said and I want to quote their submission More importantly however there is currently underway a significant and comprehensive consultation about the 'purpose and direction' of education in … New Zealand over the next thirty years. … If it is the government's intent to change this legislation surely waiting until [the] thirty year plan has [been] reported would be the perfect time to introduce new 'enduring objectives' to the Act."That is from the PPTA themselves. They go on further to talk about the Tomorrow's Schools review which is a potentially wide-ranging fundamental reform. Again the issue that is raised here is: why is a Government that has all of these reviews under way—reviews that cut to the heart of that core vision around education—enabling a piece of legislation to be pushed through? Even the PPTA are arguing to wait for the Education Conversations and the 30-year plan to come back and also to wait for Tomorrow's Schools to come back at the very least. So members on this side have not only questioned the substance of the bill we've questioned the very heart of the education vision of the bill but also we are alongside other submitters like the PPTA that have seriously questioned the timing of this bill.The other point we want to make—and again it was made by a range of submitters—is around this need to be hugely prescriptive around who needs to be consulted around our education system. I want to make this point: actually there are some major stakeholders in my view that have been left out of education policy consultation for far too long and they are called the thousands of parents out there that want to have a strong say in our education system. And yes we do believe absolutely that there is a very important role for all of the stakeholder organisations and I see that this legislation of course has put in national representative bodies—that's great. They have a role. We don't need to prescribe that in legislation. But what about the parents? What about their role in policy? Why are they left out of important conversations like this?So National has a very simplistic view which is that we believe the timing is wrong we believe that this is a ballot-stuffer and that actually they have just proceeded because they need to waste time—and that is symptomatic of a wider issue around the Government's education agenda being stuck in a moment of time where principals and teachers are saying to me "We are drowning in reviews." When we have some core critical issues like teacher shortages to deal with like the collective bargaining the Minister isn't fronting up on these issues and this bill is again symptomatic of a Government that is interested in too much hui and not enough dooey from our perspective. But even if you are going to proceed and you are going to it ram through and accept that you won't have the reviews of Tomorrow's Schools and the Education Conversations back then why would you need to prescribe every possible group in legislation who has to be consulted?It's this simple reason: it is that lack of trust of the Minister of Education and the Ministry of Education—that is why you'd need to do this. I want to tell members opposite what actually happens. There's a key stakeholder list. There's a key stakeholder list and whether it's Tomorrow Schools or whether it's the NELPs a group of people get consulted as part of that. I don't see why we need to prescribe in law every single possible eventuality. There is an amount of trust that you should have in the Ministry of Education and the Minister of Education.So finally I just want to end with these comments around this legislation. We do believe that Jan Tinetti is a hard-working member but the comment by Jo Luxton—that somehow this was an amazing day in the history of New Zealand in terms of education—is totally and utterly false. I would argue that this bill is absolutely symptomatic of a superficial Government that is focused on reviews rather than depth of education policy and that it wants to do everything possible to delay the hard-core conversations around things like teacher shortages and special education support. So it's ballot-stuffing with Jan Tinetti's bill that this Parliament is spending time on. It's not just me who believes this. There are a range of other stakeholders who are saying this to National members across the country. When we go in and out of schools when we meet with boards of trustees people are saying that this is symptomatic of a Government that is stuck in a process of reviews and is not dealing with the hard-core issues. So this bill was already a ballot-stuffer but we've managed to water it down even more and ignore fundamental stakeholders—and this is the irony. Groups like the PPTA have come along to the Education and Workforce Committee and said "Please defer this for the other bits of work that you have in train" like Tomorrow's Schools and Education Conversations. The irony is that they are writing many of these organisations to be consulted with into law but they're ignoring them through the select committee process. So our party believes in a depth of education policy and a work programme right now that addresses issues like teacher shortages. Our party is on the ground talking to teachers and principals and boards of trustees. Our party opposed this bill because it is a complete waste of Parliament's time and our party opposed this bill because of the arrogance of this Government to be pushing it through at a time when a range of stakeholders are saying this is the worst possible time. We support a vision for education that means that there is equity that means that young people are life-long learners and that means that they have access to core skills and knowledge. This will do nothing to help those children to improve in the future."