Tuiono TeanauTEANAU TUIONO (Green): Madam Speaker it's Groundhog Day. We've got another one of these education and training amendment bills. When this one hit my desk it kind of reminded me of exactly the same one that we passed last week which was the Education and Training Amendment Bill and maybe because it's the holiday season and I've been thinking of the holiday movies that I'll be watching with my whānau perhaps we could name these education and training amendments bills like prequels or sequels to sorts of movies. So looking forward to this one going to the select committee I'm not sure if it's going to be the Education and Training Amendment Bill: A New Hope" or "Education and Training Amendment Bill: The Empire Strikes Back" but I'm certainly hopeful for the teachers of Aotearoa New Zealand that it could be the "Education and Training Amendment Bill: The Return of the Jedi".The Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) did land yesterday and we will be taking some time to go through that with our caucus because there are a lot of substantive issues that have been raised as well. But I must say that as the education spokesperson for the National Party got up to respond to the SOP it just sounded better and better to be honest. I was expecting some criticism to dissect it but the contributions just made me think "Well maybe actually this is not such a bad thing after all."I think it is really important and really mindful for all of us that we must always place children at the centre of the education system. We must place children at the centre of everything that we do in terms of the way that we organise and establish our early childhood education centres (ECE) the way that we run our schools and the way that we support our education communities as well. Also I'm very mindful as well about the discrepancy within the ECE sector as well: the massive pay-parity differences between those that work in the kindergartens compared to those that work in ECEs. I was privileged enough to go to one of the protests just recently to support those calls as well and one of the things that the teachers told me was that if you start in the kindergarten compared to someone that works in the ECE sector within 10 years that pay parity gap could be as wide as $100000 or $10000 a year and growing each year as well. So I feel that anything that will help to make early childhood centres the best possible place for our tamariki is something that we should be working together as a Parliament to do as well and that will hopefully come up in the select committee as well.I did hear some mutterings to the right of me about crony capitalism and so I did take the point from the member Simon Court about making sure that that doesn't happen. I'm certain the member to my right will highlight that—the need to make sure that doesn't happen—and hopefully that will come out in the deliberations in the select committee.But to the bill there's lots of different things in here—for example aligning the Police vetting provisions more closely with the requirements in the Children's Act 2014; strengthening the Teaching Council disciplinary processes—that would be good; requiring compulsory student service fees charged by tertiary education providers; and enabling NZQA to exercise discretion about whether to cancel the registration of a private training establishment in relation to immigration breaches. But here I think one of the issues that we should also think about as well and be mindful of is the immigration breaches that happen not just in private training establishments (PTEs) but also in universities and polytechs as well and also to remember that often students who have a particular class of immigration status don't necessarily have the support to progress any kind of concern that they might have with a PTE but also within a university or in a tertiary education setting as well.Other things in this bill as well is amending the Education Review Office's (ERO) mandate to enable it to review professional learning and development. I would be interested to see how that would look to see how ERO would go about that and whether they're actually the appropriate body to do that and the sorts of plans that they would do to make sure that that is done properly because that really impacts the quality of teaching and the quality of teaching practice within Aotearoa New Zealand as well. There are other things in here as well like introducing new types of casual vacancy on school boards when the board's members are removed for breaching the code of conduct; amending the Act's regulation-making powers so that the regulations can specify the qualifications held by persons controlling or working as educators in an early learning centre.So there's a lot of parts to this to this bill and it's going to be really good to get into that detail at the select committee process and also to tease out all of those issues around the SOP. The Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2)—let's hope that it's "Return of the Jedi" and not the "The Empire Strikes Back". Thank you Madam Speaker."