Lubeck MarjaMARJA LUBECK (Labour): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare and because it is still the language week for Niue faakalofa atu. First of all I'd like to congratulate my colleague Jan Tinetti on bringing this piece of legislation to the House. She is obviously the very first one of our class of '17" to sit in the chair there and I admire her very much. I've learnt very much from her. She's a very staunch advocate for the education sector and is our subject matter expert on our committee. I'd like to talk a little bit about the points that the Minister of Education made. He outlined for us all of the different stakeholders that this bill drafts up and it is important in that process to think about the fact that when we started to first look at this bill we only had six stakeholders listed to consult with. But our select committee heard several submissions—there were roughly about 20 I believe that came in to talk to us—and the feedback from those submitters clearly indicated that we needed to expand on that list of six stakeholders. So as a result the clause amended is clause 4. For anyone who's looking at the bill at this moment it's new section 1A(4A) in clause 4 which includes "children and young people;" and another 11 named national bodies. The Minister as he has previously outlined must—and here is the importance of the "must" versus the "may"—talk with those that the statement will impact and that's children teachers and schools. So I have a question for the member in the chair in this regard: why is it so important to actually stipulate the groups who must be consulted with? So if I can have a little bit more context on that it would be helpful. I talked about the 20 submissions we received and 13 of those 20 particularly submitted on the consultation requirements. We heard the Office of the Children's Commissioner who were giving us some verbatim feedback from children and that particular submission showed very clearly how important it is to get the children's voices heard in the process of making sure that they can be the best they can be. In that regard it surprised me to hear the member Parmjeet Parmar who is the chair of our Education and Workforce Committee make some mentions in that regard because at the end of the day it is the children that will benefit from this particular legislation and it seems strange to me that when we're making decisions around education which are about children the National Party doesn't want children to have a voice in those decisions. You would think that it is rather important that they do get to have a voice. The Children's Commissioner was followed by the IHC and they spoke to us about the importance—as Peeni Henare has also talked to us about—of the inclusion of the rights of persons with disabilities. So that was another added stakeholder in that particular clause. The IHC requested that any statement that is developed is done in consultation with and actively involves people with disabilities including children with disabilities. That's to be done through their respective organisations and that is reflected in the changed wording in this particular bill. We also heard from the National Council of Women and they actually told us that their members often expressed disappointment at the lack of consultation and also a lack of authentic consultation. Actually that is in line with a lot of the concern that we saw from people in general when the National Education and Learning Priorities (NELPs) were first introduced and we know that submissions were made to the then Education and Science Committee. So that is something else that we are making changes to.I guess I want to end by saying that putting the children back at the centre of learning is absolutely in line with this Government's commitment to improving the well-being of New Zealanders and their families. It's also consistent with the words of our brilliant leader the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern to make New Zealand the best place in the world to be a child. So it's consistent with our commitments in that regard. It's hugely important that we put authentic consultation in the requirement for the NELPs and I'd like to again congratulate my colleague Jan Tinetti on bringing this wonderful piece of legislation to the House. Thank you."