Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. What a day! I never thought that I would be sitting in this House and hearing the National Party extolling such socialist virtues as equity and complete free access to education in this country. But before I get into the cut and thrust of what is actually contained in this Education (School Donations) Amendment Bill I want to acknowledge not the ruling but the action which just occurred in Parliament which was raised by the Hon Nikki Kaye and to state that pertaining to the education system and the young people that are included in it young people rangatahi in this country currently do not have a straightforward means to express their view to the House of Representatives let alone elect us. When they take to the streets to protest they're belittled and when they try to get the right to vote they are patronised for a lack of life experience. So my question is: what are they to do if not to organise actions such as what we have just seen in the House today? But turning to the bill I stand today on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa in support and I want to acknowledge the incredible mental gymnastics of the Opposition to pretzel their logic beyond the point of comprehension such that I think it's kind of worthy of an Olympic medal. This legislation is not perfect as has been raised by many speakers from the Opposition but actually also it was a point that was acknowledged by the Minister of Education himself and the Associate Minister of Education. This bill isn't perfect and I would like to say to members of the Opposition that frequently we don't actually get perfect pieces of legislation—of law—in this place but what we don't typically do is throw the baby out with the bathwater. We do our darnedest to take a step forward and improve things and continue taking those steps forward. I also want to touch on the point that's been raised by a number of National Party speakers—that being that the decile system isn't perfect. We know that the decile system isn't perfect and of course it absolutely currently excludes the fact that there are a number of children who are deprived or from lower socio-economic backgrounds who do go to higher decile schools. But what I also want to say is that the way to fix the problems of the decile system was not to move towards the minority report - type social investment approach which would have further I think moved towards stigmatising certain characteristics of certain children certain rangatahi and tamariki in our education system—the likes of those who are born and raised in single-parent households like myself those like myself who were the first in their family to go to university and those like myself who eventually signed their dropout forms from their high school. But I want to note in particular that I am continuing to advocate for—and the Minister has it on record that the Greens want to see this extended to deciles 8 through 10 as I think all of us in this House want to. But this is an important step forward. And I'd also note to the point raised by my colleague Mark Patterson of New Zealand First on the point of also reinstating the postgraduate student allowance that I continue to keep that on the radar of the Minister of Education as well. Aotearoa New Zealand prides itself on our education system. We are frequently in overseas rankings seen as having one of the best curriculums for example in the world and the performance of our students is somewhat rather incredible given the resourcing that is available for it. But my old man used to always say that there is no such thing as a free education unfortunately in this country despite that mythology that we continue to peddle because it is in fact the case that regardless of whatever school you go to in this country frequently kids need uniforms. Uniforms do not grow on trees—in the same way that the National Party frequently likes to say that money does not—nor do schoolbooks or stationery.The important thing to recognise here as has been raised by other speakers contributing to this debate but also by recent research is that the inequities that start to show themselves and manifest in the early stages of someone's education journey—right at the point of early childhood education through the compulsory system—continue to get bigger the further that somebody goes down that education journey. And if we can do something to increase access and affordability to the education system starting with 70 percent of the country who presently are identified among the characteristics that we have which are the decile system—notably to implement something like the social investment approach even if it were to be implemented and not as flawed as I've already articulated—the problem would be that that would take a number of years to roll out to uproot the current system. Meanwhile we would not be providing that quarter of a billion dollars as mentioned by Mark Patterson to provide support to those in deciles 1 to 7 schools. So I'm glad to hear that the National Party are talking about values such as universalism because interestingly it's actually a point that's quite in opposition to the notion of social investment. But finally I just want to touch on the point which has been raised by a number of speakers—most recently Denise Lee who is the representative for Maungakiekie which is the area that I grew up and went to school in—speaking about the fact that these donations are currently voluntary and that it is illegal to put it forward that they are somehow mandatory. The fact of the matter is for the experience of so many of these kids who are fronting up to the fact that their parents may or may not have paid that $150 donation when you are a kid in school and your parent has not fronted up with that $150 donation and your school is refusing to release the school yearbook to you as was the case when I was at school and my family my household was not able to put forward that donation it feels a lot like coercive behaviour. It does not feel like it is a voluntary donation. I understand that one of the many points that the Minister has tried to put forward in this legislation is to really re-emphasise the fact that these are voluntary donations and to really really make it clear. And it's an attempt to balance things out because on the one side we want to make sure that schools are not worse off but at the same time we want to make sure that these kids and their families are able to have access to the education system without unnecessary barriers that may mean the trade-off of things like healthy food on the table or school shoes or a raincoat of all things to get to school whatever the weather may be. So just in summation to address the points that have been raised by the Opposition which seem rather confused I think that it's important that we acknowledge where a step forward has been taken. I really really want to ask those members of the National Party who presently oppose this legislation at its second reading after we have heard from the Education and Workforce Committee where they themselves note that 95 out of 139 submitters want all schools to be eligible: why would you begrudge schools from deciles 1 to 7 that opportunity to be those who are recipients of the first step? If the purpose is ultimately getting to a point of universalism where all schools are able to get this why would you begrudge those students and their families—70 percent of the schooling population are at deciles 1 to 7—being able to receive that first step? Why would you not accept that this is a starting point and we move forward from this point in time? The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand is incredibly pleased to be supporting this move towards a more equitable schooling system towards more equitable and fair and just access to our education system in this country. Kia ora.