Tinetti JanJAN TINETTI (Labour): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. I'm delighted to rise here this afternoon to speak on the second reading of the Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. I too like the previous member Denise Lee would like to acknowledge the previous committees that this bill has been through but particularly the Education and Science Committee of the 51st Parliament. It was this committee that took the time to work through the over 2000 submissions that were received on this bill. It is a wide-scoping bill in the tertiary education space and as my colleague from the Green Party Gareth Hughes said it is a bill that is a good bill for tertiary education because it is a bill very consistent with this Government's policy in the quality public education space. It's good to see that being acknowledged right from the word go right through to the tertiary education area.It is a bill that has an odd name—the odd name being Tertiary Education and Other Matters". It's the other matters that we have heard of here this afternoon and that perhaps is the area that I would first like to highlight in my speech here this afternoon. It's the other matters that start with the protection of our students and our international students who come to this country—so looking at schools' management of international students. There were only two submissions on this part of the bill. One came from the New Zealand Nurses Organisation but it's the other submission that I would like to focus on because it is a wide-ranging submission and perhaps one of the better form submissions that I have seen. It really clarified for me why we had to make changes to this.That submission came from the Schools International Education Business Association of New Zealand or the acronym SIEBA. SIEBA's submission was supported by Tauranga Boys' College and the Secondary Principals' Association of New Zealand or SPANZ. The reason I highlight this is because it has actually come from an issue that arose in the international student space that no school or no host parent had ever anticipated would happen. I would like to thank SIEBA Tauranga Boys' College and SPANZ for actually putting this submission together and highlighting such a serious issue in this space so that we can get this right. That's where the Education and Workforce Committee has made a few changes to the bill—so that we are making this really strong for schools and this legislation really strong for schools. We know that international education in the school sector is really important to those schools. It's really important to the New Zealand economy and I would also like to speak on this having been a host mum for five international students over many years. I never actually anticipated over that time the issues that SIEBA Tauranga Boys' School and SPANZ brought up in their submission. So it was really good that that actually happened.I want to take the time just to read a couple of paragraphs from that submission because they are key paragraphs as to why this has been a really really critical amendment that was made from the select committee process to this reading. They say "The limitation of the [overall] Act has long been recognised by schools. In order to respond to this challenge schools have attempted to create a second line of authority in the form of enrolment contracts which are intended to allow the school to supervise students' conduct in other areas under the guise of responding to breaches of these contracts. This was attempted"—by the school in question—"as is discussed in the High Court decision and is also what was recommended by the Ministry of Education in its Guidelines on the code". Then the next paragraph that I want to read goes on to the judge's decision about why just using that code alone wasn't so good. "However the decision of [the judge] also drew this practice into question. In particular her Honour raised concerns about the ability of these contracts to be binding on people under the age of 18. While accepting that certain breaches such as the non-payment of fees could result in the termination of enrolment [the judge] appeared to reject the contention that enrolment under a contract could be terminated for misconduct". So just having that conduct alone—those guidelines in the overall code of conduct—was not a good thing for that particular school and therefore that school got taken to the High Court. That's what the intent of this part of this particular bill has aimed to cover.Now SIEBA proposed that the initial writing and drafting of this bill didn't go far enough and they proposed that a definition of "enrolment contract" be inserted into the Act. So the bill was amended to this part now after select committee for that to happen. Talking with the SIEBA representatives it was also important that the changes were made to this—and this is really critical—so that they weren't only to deal with student conduct and discipline of the student at the time but they must also allow schools to make the decision to have students return when they are at risk due to non-disclosed conditions.Now what I didn't realise—and I've never been a principal with international students—is it's actually quite common for international students to be enrolled in schools and their parents overseas don't disclose the conditions according to SIEBA. The reason for that is that they're scared that if they do the school won't take enrolment. So SIEBA recognised that this clause also gives protection for the student and the schools in those situations as well. So that clause was put in there.The member that just spoke Denise Lee talked about the Regulations Review Committee and the Regulations Review Committee also said "Why did the contracts need to be put into this particular bill?"—that maybe we could just amend sections 13 to 18AA of the Education Act. Sections 13 to 18AA allow for the stand-down suspension and exclusion of domestic students but they do not cover international students. Now SIEBA state very clearly in their submission that it is really important to keep the two completely separate that it needs to be a completely separate area and that they need to have that ability to be able to look at the international students separately. So I'm really delighted that the select committee didn't take that recommendation up and have actually put in the recommendation around the guidance around enrolment.At the same time in the submission SIEBA asked for schools to have the ability to outsource disciplinary matters involving international students. Now section 17 of schedule 6 of the Education Act already allows boards to delegate authority and it allows them to delegate the functions and powers of the board by resolution in written notice to certain individuals. So what that means is that a board can already bring in outside expertise to support the board in helping them make a decision.The reason SIEBA had asked for this was that they felt that there are schools that are wanting to set up international student areas departments in their schools. They felt that if they were able to outsource the discipline side of things to someone else that might encourage those schools to actually do that—to set those departments up. But what the select committee decided was that because the Education Act already has that there that wasn't needed. So we didn't make that decision to go down that track because they already have the ability to be able to do that.So once again I would like to take the opportunity to thank SIEBA. As I said I'm not someone that has had a great deal of experience with the international students in my schools. I found this very very very enlightening—this submission. I understood a lot more about that space after reading it and I believe that the changes that the select committee made are very strong and make this a very good part of this bill. So with that I commend it to the House.Bill read a second time."