Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I am absolutely pleased to rise in support of this bill for the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand and stoked to be kicking off the year—Simeon Brown: Stoked.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —with this being my first time to speak in the House in 2018. Simeon you can watch out for my bill tomorrow.This is a good common-sense bill and we're stoked to be supporting it as the Green Party. I would like to commend my colleague the Hon Chris Hipkins obviously the Minister of Education who has shown himself to be incredibly effective and collaborative with all of us these three parties who do make up the Government.I find this bill to be incredibly timely. My little brother started his first week at intermediate school this past week. A few months ago I spoke in my maiden speech about the utter privilege I have to help improve this system that he is navigating as the Greens education spokesperson. I feel that weight very much today. But I must say this is one example of those improvements.As I've said before this is a pretty straightforward piece of legislation. I don't see it as a bad thing that it is light but indeed I believe that it is very weighty in terms of the reforms and the kinds of shifts that this will deliver for teachers and for the teaching profession. Basically the Green Party believes that teachers should have a leadership majority in their own professional body. I'd very much like to acknowledge as well the very personal speech delivered by my colleague Jan Tinetti who I would like to state I believe is the only teacher who has so far stood to address the contents of this bill.The changes heralded in under the previous National Government in 2015 were against all of the advice and protests by the sector interestingly enough. It created a bit of an anomaly as far as professional bodies go. We have nurses doctors lawyers accountants and real estate agents all of whom elect their own representatives and it only makes sense that teachers—should we value them as the people who are teaching our youth the citizens and leaders of tomorrow—should have that same right too.This actually also serves to politicise the council—those changes that were made under the previous National Government in 2015—as noted by the New Zealand Educational Institute one of those unions that the Opposition seems to fear so much. At the time they issued a press release asking how can it be independent when all of its governance is elected by a politician.We also had the previous Minister of Education the Hon Nikki Kaye stating that these appointments to this council should be based on skills and competency. In her opposition she stated exactly this. I would ask what is inconsistent here in this proposal that teachers elect their own representatives. Does the National Party not trust teachers? Well to provide at least the Green Party's stance on that question we do. We believe that showing that trust looks like restoring the democracy that was eroded in 2015 by that last National Government. It is presently possible actually as well under section 380 of the current Act as inserted by the previous National Government that four out of nine members of the council are non-teachers. That should be something that those in this House should be wary of. When we are talking about a body that deals with the teaching profession surely they should understand the nuances and the day to day of that teaching profession.The changes that we are moving towards will see that six members are appointed by the Minister but the majority—seven of them—will be elected by the teaching profession themselves. They will be from the primary secondary and early childhood education sectors which are all crucial in representation. I would however mention that the purpose of the Teaching Council as noted in the general policy statement in the explanatory note of the bill is to ensure safe and high quality leadership teaching and learning for children and young people in early childhood primary secondary and senior … schooling in English medium and Māori medium settings through raising the status of the profession."The Green Party would just like to note on that point that there is no guarantee of Māori representation on that council in the bill's current form. So we'd very much like to see something like that raised in the select committee. And I do look forward to working with my colleagues including the chair of that select committee Sarah Dowie through those issues.I've always found it quite fascinating that there is a different skill set required in getting elected versus doing the job that one is elected to do. I think it's quite pronounced here in this House. We go around campaigning and our skill set that is required there is to talk to shake hands and to convince people that we are capable of doing the theatre in here.But then we are elected and sure we do that theatre but we're also expected obviously to do all of that backroom work—that invisible work—and I'd say that many of us before we come in here are not quite aware of what that looks like.So there's a massive inconsistency there and I'd say as was mentioned previously by one of the National Party members yelling at me across the House that teachers have a thorough understanding of their profession and the skill set required to get elected and demonstrating that versus doing the job on the Teaching Council of Aotearoa—potentially Aotearoa New Zealand—is very similar.So fundamentally this is a partnership between the Government and teachers and it is about recognising the value of teachers in our society and affording them the very common-sense straightforward ability to elect their own representatives on this Teaching Council. For that reason the Green Party is very happy to support and commend the bill to the House."