Delahunty CatherineCATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Kia ora koutou katoa o tēnei pō. I am really pleased to support this bill. If you listen to the last speaker Todd Barclay it is a little bit like a parallel universe—the Age of Aquarius" the "summer of love"—whereby the teaching profession has actually had a great run with Hekia Parata. It has all been just beautiful! The flower children of the Government have embraced the teaching profession! It has been you know hand in hand through a field of daisies!Unfortunately I have been here the whole time I have sat through all these bills and I have listened to every submission on them. I support this bill because the conversation about the status of teachers is really important. We are now in a low-trust environment between the education profession and the Government. So when the Government put up Education Amendment Bill (No 2) I think it was it talked about changing "ethics" to "conduct". In that low-trust environment broken by the debacle of national standards the absurdity of charter schools and a number of other under-funding initiatives that have destroyed trust there was no appetite from the teaching profession to see a change that would lead from being recognised as professionals with ethics to being people who need to be controlled by a code of conduct.Despite the fact that the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand (EDUCANZ) has a greater relationship with the sector than the Government does and has created a draft code without mentioning the word "conduct"—because it knows even though the Government has not grasped this concept that that was offensive—it would be good to get this bill to the select committee to have the conversation about the status of the teaching profession.Ironically one of EDUCANZ's new functions is to lift the status of the profession while at the very same moment the Government by saying that the profession needs a controlling code of conduct and not a code of ethics has undermined what was already a fragile and shaky relationship. So it is a bit like the partner who is in denial that there is any problem: "Oh no we've got a great relationship. Everything's fantastic." Meanwhile the house is falling apart. Meanwhile the other partner is struggling to have a voice.In this bill we have a chance to have that voice discuss what it wants and far from being something that Ruth Dyson made up it is actually what the teaching profession wants to talk about because there is a difference between ethics and behaviour. Conduct relates to behaviour; ethics relates to standards and relates to professionalism. The teaching profession much like the medical profession is highly involved in very very ethical decisions every single day about working with young people and about using their professional judgment around developing the minds of the future of this country. So those ethics were what that code of ethics was about. That was a recognition of the status of the profession.One way that we lift the status of the profession which is the supposed function of EDUCANZ is to recognise that that is what it is and that this workforce—these public servants—should never be shut down because educators are the critics and conscience of society. Not only at university but in every situation we need our educators to be free to say what they think particularly about education but in fact about anything—any social issue in society—because educators are the practitioners who reflect. This code of ethics bill is about recognising the reflective nature of the practitioners who operate at that level. So I am sorry but the previous speaker from the Government is just completely wrong about this.One of the other reasons I am really passionate about the code of ethics is that it creates an obligation under Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the commitment to Māori as tangata whenua. That for the Green Party is a pretty critical thing as well and so we are pleased to see that this is highlighted in Ruth Dyson's bill as she has also highlighted the issue about not silencing people as the critics and conscience of society.So we do not need punitive measures; we need a debate about how to lift the status of the most vital profession that works with our young people every day and so the Green Party would like to see this go forward. We are pleased to support the bill and we feel sorry that the "summer of love" fantasy does not really exist between the sector and Government but when there is a change of Government at least we will get to reality and we can start improving things from there. So bring it on. Thank you very much."