Radhakrishnan Priyanca; Williams PotoPRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you Madam Chairperson Williams. It is an honour actually to stand up and take a call to summarise this bill. It is a bill that will strengthen accountability in the tertiary education system. It's a bill that will provide for consistent treatment of the tertiary education provider organisations and it will broaden student protection arrangements. I outline these for a specific reason. I came to this country as an international student myself. This is a sector that I understand intimately and it is a sector that for many hasn't really worked.I want to begin actually by addressing some of the comments made by members from the opposite side of the House which I actually take umbrage to. Firstly members opposite—specifically the member Denise Lee—have talked about the fact that private" is not a dirty word. To a large extent I agree but I will tell you why for many it actually is. Private providers she says are doing such a good job in contributing to New Zealand's economic landscape. Now I want to deal with this sensitively because there are many who do. However there are many others who don't and who have actually been caught out. I mean if you look online in about two minutes you'll find at least 10 names of private providers who have been dodgy. I will broaden it out because there are specific parts of this bill that address that and that's why it's important.Now the member the Hon Nikki Kaye sort of threw around the word "ideology". We are actually proud of the ideology that underpins a lot of what we do on this side of the House. It is a system of ideas and ideals that form the basis of policy and that explain how society works and that's exactly why we have prioritised public education over private. I had a really good quote here which I've just lost. The fact that education is a human right and a public good has underpinned global public policy since the 1940s. It's not something that's new but it's something that remains incredibly important. The specific parts of the bill that I just wanted to draw attention to—and the reason I do this is the number of years I have spent talking to international students who have come here who have been rorted by the system; who have come here because they think that they're going to get a specific deal from certain private providers and they don't. Many come here and find themselves in positions where they are barely able to feed themselves—who have come out and who rely on the goodwill of people from the New Zealand community to actually survive.Now members across from the opposite side of the Chamber have accused us of spending time on this bill because we're a dysfunctional Government. They have said that we've been forced to stand up and speak to this bill. They've said that questions and comments or points that we raise on this side of the Chamber are trivial in nature. I tell you for the hundreds of students who have been exploited in this country they are not trivial. It's about their well-being. It's about their safety. It's about their lives. And I remind you that while we are here elected to serve the people of New Zealand we have a duty of care to those we invite to this country. Members on that side of the Chamber have systematically in the best-case scenario referred to these people as cash cows and in the worst instance as faulty fridges.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. To my knowledge there is no one on this side who has ever referred to any foreign student in this country as being a cash cow. The real question is why that member is supporting a party that wants to shut the door to immigrants in this country. [Interruption]CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Thank you. [Interruption] Thank you members."