Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you Mr Chair for the opportunity to take another call on this legislation. I just want to commend the challenge that Nicola Willis put to Chlöe Swarbrick to explain to the committee how she is prepared to listen to the 900 or so people who signed a petition through the Tertiary Education Union and not the over 1000 students and young people who are studying at our partnership schools and their families and the lives which they are changing and impacting. So I think that challenge also should be put to the Minister Chris Hipkins today as well.I'd like to take a moment to speak in support of my Supplementary Order Paper 122 which amends clause 9 of the bill. I know the Minister has sort of tried to explain with a broad brush that he doesn't agree with a range of these Supplementary Order Papers but he didn't actually go into any detail. He simply just said Oh look I don't agree with these and I'll just go throw them in the bin." So that's essentially what he's done.So what this Supplementary Order Paper seeks to do is essentially protect the intent of what he's tried to say that he's doing for our partnership schools. He said "We're not closing them down. We're letting them continue." But what this actually tries to do is put some action to the words that he's tried to use in explaining this to the public which I can tell the Minister the public aren't buying.But anyway let's get to this Supplementary Order Paper. So there are three things. The first thing it does is that it ensures that "The establishment board of trustees for a new State school"—which these schools will be transitioned to; closed down and then restarted as—"will be made up of the board of the corresponding and closing partnership school". Now the reason for that is to ensure that the intent and the purpose and the people who make up that partnership school—the purpose of it; who are the driving force behind what that partnership school is all about—are able to continue and will be the same people as at the closing partnership school. They will be exactly the same people.That ensures that there is that continuity which is required and which will allow those schools to actually transition rather than close down and start as something new. What the Minister's trying to do is he's trying to say "Well we're just going through this transitionary process." Well he's actually closing these schools down and restarting them under a different model with a different board of trustees with a different structure with different rules and a whole range of different things. So this essentially means this provides for a smoother transition for those schools.The second is: "In the event a designated character school is established to replace a closing partnership school … the construct of an alternative constitution would retain the option of appointing no Ministry of Education nominee to the designated character school's governance". And this is to ensure that that partnership school which will then be transitioned or closed down and opened again would remain and retain its independence and allow it to be able to continue to pursue the purpose that it has.Now I ask the Minister to explain why he feels the need to interfere with the purpose and the direction of these schools. The results that they've had speak for themselves. The lives they've changed speak for themselves. The ethos that these people bring the way that they engage with these young people and engage with students who would otherwise be disengaged and would become statistics later in life—these are the type of students that these schools are re-engaging and are getting into our education system and turning their lives around. So I challenge him: why does he need to mess with their structure if they're doing such a great job already?The third part of this Supplementary Order Paper 122 is around "State schools established in the place of partnership schools [would] retain the ability to employ staff on individual employment agreements outside of any teachers' collective agreement." That's what they can do now. Why can't the Minister allow these schools to be able to employ teachers on the conditions that they are on? We heard the big rally cries by the Government where they said there are going to be teachers in these schools who aren't registered. This is not talking about unregistered teachers; this is talking about teachers and is simply allowing them to be employed under an individual employment agreement outside of the teachers' collective agreement. There's no problem with that. Or is it simply because the unions are trying to ask for more power? We on this side say the unions don't need that power. This can be done differently."