Macindoe TimHon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Kia orana Madam Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. It's always intriguing when a speaker manages to confuse herself in a debate and I trust she will therefore not be at all surprised that she certainly confused the rest of us.I hope you'll indulge me for just a moment. As others have done I would like to say what a significant—indeed momentous—day it has been for our nation and how proud I was to be able to attend the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians' celebration of the 125th anniversary of women's suffrage in New Zealand with so many MPs this morning. We had those wonderful speeches from Dame Ann Hercus and Dame Jenny Shipley. I'm so thrilled to see all of the female MPs in the House tonight wearing the beautiful camellia brooches that were produced by my very dear friend Robyn Watchorn of Whakatāne. I've known Robyn for many years. She's a very talented artist and I'm so thrilled that she was able to commemorate this very momentous occasion in our history in such a lovely way. Madam Assistant Speaker as I say a great day for the whole country and now of course I need to turn my attention to the bill which I'm sure you were about to require me to do.So I would like to start with a positive and that is that on members' days I think it's always nice to acknowledge those members who have not only been fortunate to have had a bill drawn but in this case Jan Tinetti has seen her bill passed at first reading considered by the select committee and reported back to the House. So it would seem pretty much inevitable that this bill will pass through to its conclusion and I congratulate her for that. But even though it is her big moment this is not a big bill. In fact on such an important significant day for the country it's hard to imagine anything more trivial than this bill coming before the House.This time last year I was following in the footsteps of the Hon Anne Tolley and the Hon Hekia Parata when I had the privilege of being the Associate Minister to the Hon Nikki Kaye and what a great portfolio education is. What a huge challenge it is and there are some very significant issues facing all sectors of education in this country. I would welcome a debate in this House on any of those challenges and would look to work as constructively as I could to try to ensure that we find ways of recruiting more teachers find ways of improving their pay and conditions and find ways of dealing with the very real challenges that so many tell me about in my electorate of children with special needs and behavioural difficulties who are a real demand upon the time and the energy of those wonderful teachers who give so much to those children. This bill deals with none of those things.Perhaps as I've mentioned other Ministers could I too add my congratulations to the Hon Chris Hipkins and his partner Jade on the birth of their daughter—I think I heard her name is Isabel. What a lovely thing that is. Coincidentally today I've had the great pleasure of welcoming a great-niece into the world. Dara Grace Macindoe was born just a few hours before Isabel and isn't it wonderful that two fine young ladies have been born on the day that we celebrate the 125th anniversary of our country's suffrage? How sensible of them both to choose to be females on this particular day and I do congratulate their parents. I know that at least one set of grandparents and a very proud great-grandmother are watching right at this moment and they'll be delighted to hear that Dara is being mentioned.Again we talk about an education system that our young children are going to grow up in and we would hope that this bill would add something to that education but it won't. We've heard that the Education and Workforce Committee has considered this bill and they heard from many submitters who said that it's totally unnecessary. It's not a bill that matches the excitement and significance of this special day in our history and yet I note that at the time that it passed its first reading in February the member in charge of the bill Jan Tinetti said the Education (National Education and Learning Priorities) Amendment Bill [which has] passed its first reading in Parliament on Thursday … would start to return mana to the teaching profession." Well it won't make the slightest difference to the mana of the teaching profession. I am absolutely confident that the teachers in my electorate up in Hamilton will have no idea that the House is considering this bill and certainly won't notice when it's passed. It will not make the slightest difference to the job they do or to the education they provide to their tamariki to all of our children.Theirs is a calling and I'm sure that we can all remember teachers who made a lasting impression on us for the good and I thank those who influenced me. [Interruption] I was a teacher—I doubt whether I made a lasting or at least positive impression on anyone Mr Penk but thank you. I hope that in a small way I encouraged a few people to value their education and I do thank—in all seriousness—the teachers around the country. I have to say that I thought for most of her contribution Marja Lubeck was making a valiant effort to suggest that this bill has some substance and purpose and I commend her for managing to get through her 10 minutes but I have to say to her that this is a stocking filler and I'm sure we've all been with children who get incredibly excited on Christmas morning when they see all the presents that are wrapped and maybe pull them out of the stocking. They are so excited and then we'll all have seen the odd occasion when they unwrap the wrapping and then the present is of chronic disappointment.Chris Penk: "This is a pair of socks!"Hon TIM MACINDOE: One of Mr Penk's pairs of socks as he has mentioned. Well Mr Penk I don't even think that this is a pair of socks because at least they would serve a purpose. This—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order! Let's come back to the bill.Hon TIM MACINDOE: I thought I was talking about the bill Madam Assistant Speaker. This bill was introduced when the new Government was desperately scrambling to find legislation and in fact you'll recall that last year they were desperately filibustering on bills that they'd inherited from the previous Government and now suddenly this came out and we find that they're filibustering on a measure such as this. Labour when they were in Opposition used to rail against stocking fillers of this nature on members' days so what a shame when as Dr Parmar mentioned a few minutes ago we have some really significant members' bills in the names of National members in the ballot waiting to be considered that we can't be getting on and looking at those measures which will make a real difference to New Zealand.Purportedly this bill amends the Education Act of 1989 supposedly to align the statement of National Education and Learning Priorities (NELPs) more closely with the national curriculum. But there was no need to add any additional statements to the NELPs. This bill also enshrines union consultation in those mission statements and any changes made to them. Well that's not necessary because that consultation is already required under existing legislation as well. So this really is utterly redundant. The bill is poorly timed because as we know the Government has reviews for Africa under way at the moment including several that may result in some quite significant recommendations to affect the conversation around education but this bill is not one of those. In fact as has been pointed out Jan Tinetti got the bill so wrong that she had to write to the Education and Workforce Committee to request that they remove clauses 4(2) (3) (4) and (7). That's extraordinary. I've been here for nearly 10 years and I don't remember that happening before and it was because she didn't want to get ahead of one of those many reviews and the working groups. As a result not only was the bill of very little consequence; its timing couldn't have been worse.I do want to pick up on a couple of other comments that the chair of the committee made just a few moments ago in closing. The National Education and Learning Priorities were originally designed to ensure that members of Parliament officials and others in the education sector share a common understanding of the objectives of education in New Zealand. The few changes proposed have been weakened throughout the select committee process to the point that they will no longer have any perceptible impact on education in New Zealand. For instance replacing "good" with "positive" and adding "to become lifelong learners" will have absolutely no effect while removing "educational achievement is a core objective" will only diminish the value of the NELPs.The bill replaces a number of sentences with words that are of almost exactly the same meaning or it simply reverses the order of some words in phrases and clauses. For example it replaces this point: "The inclusion within society of different groups and persons with different personal characteristics" with this: "To instil an appreciation of the importance of an inclusive society where all people are valued and are supported to participate in ways that honour and value diversity:".Chris Penk: It's the same.Hon TIM MACINDOE: Well it is the same Mr Penk. You are quite right. There is no substance to these changes.If members of this Labour-led Government think that this is a bill that is restoring mana to the teaching profession then I have to say they have very low standards and expectations. As I've said I'll be astonished if a single teacher not only in my electorate but around the country even notices that this is happening. They will not mention it to us. They're certainly not going to be grateful to us and yet they would love us to be focusing on those challenges that are really important to them. So I hope that subsequent bills if we have to deal with other bills from the other side will at least deal with—Dan Bidois: Lost opportunity.Hon TIM MACINDOE: —some important things not the wasted opportunity as Mr Bidois has said.So may I close by again wishing everybody a very happy Suffrage Day. Again my congratulations and warm welcome to the world to Isabel Hipkins—if that's her surname—and to Dara Grace Macindoe. I'm thrilled to be able to acknowledge their arrival and this very important day."