Hipkins ChrisClauses 1 to 5 and ScheduleHon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I want to echo the comments I made yesterday in thanking members of the House for their constructive work to bring the Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill back to the House with a degree of speed and I want to thank them for the amendments that they have suggested.I want to begin though by acknowledging again as I did in my first reading speech the family of Mason Pendrous. I've been reluctant to make any further comment on the case of Mason whilst the coroner was undertaking their investigation. I understand that they have reported their findings today and I want to acknowledge how difficult that is for his family. Mason died whilst living in university accommodation at the University of Canterbury. The coroner was able to confirm where he died; unfortunately because his body had been there for some time they were unable to confirm the cause of his death. I do want to acknowledge that for the family that will always leave them with a lot of unanswered questions—questions that we will never be able to answer in this House questions the coroner has not been able to answer. In fact nobody is going to be able to give them the answers that they seek. What we can do in this House though is take the steps that we can reasonably take to ensure that no family finds himself in that position in the future.I think that what we've shown in the last month or so as the House has considered this matter is that in fact we all want to do that. We all want to ensure that when students move into accommodation that is provided by a tertiary education provider they are given some certainty around the level of pastoral care that they will be provided. I believe that the issuing of a code of practice is going to ensure that we can give that surety. Of course there is still going to be a need for the institutions themselves to look closely at the policies and practices that they have in place to make sure that they are as robust as they possibly can be and I believe that the code of practice sets up the framework in which they can do that. So again I think that the interim code of practice that we'll be issuing this side of Christmas will give families certainty that as we head into the new academic year in 2020 there are rules in place where there has been a regulatory gap.And then over the course of the next year we can work constructively with all those who have an interest: students themselves their parents the tertiary education providers and others to make sure that there is a really robust code of practice in place from the beginning of 2021. So the interim code—the work is now being finalised on that so that we can issue that as soon as this bill is passed. I believe that that's something that the House has expressed a desire to facilitate happening and I want to thank all members for that—and then we can make sure that we have something further in place. I do understand that there are questions that have been raised by the New Zealand Treasury by the Opposition around the potential fiscal implications of this. We do need to work very carefully through that. It hasn't been possible to do all of that detailed analysis in the time frame required to get the interim code in place. But again I think that there is a desire a hope across the House to keep a very active overview and a very active watch on this work as it continues to happen so that we can make sure that those issues are addressed. The Government has put in place interim funding to ensure that the code can be adequately monitored through the first year of operation. And then over the course of the next year as we do that further we can look at what further financing may be required to ensure that putting the code of practice in place in the longer term is properly supported. I'm very happy to answer any specific questions or address any specific issues that members may wish to raise. I do again want to acknowledge that members have worked very constructively to bring the bill to this point and I thank them for it.