Hipkins ChrisHon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I wasn't going to speak on this bill or I was going to make my contribution reasonably short but after that particular contribution there is so much material in there that I just can't quite help myself. We had a contribution from that member Simeon Brown who said This bill is not necessary. We don't need to list down who we should be consulting." and then proceeded to complain that the list was not exhaustive enough. So I'm not entirely sure that he was being consistent even within his speech let alone within the positions that he's taken in the House more generally. That is the member who devoted a good 10 minutes in the House to arguing the difference between the word "may" and the word "must" when it came to consultation. He wanted us to be much more specific in legislation about consultation—so it couldn't be "may consult"; it had to be "must consult"—and now he's saying that actually this quite specific provision quite detailed provision and quite thoughtful provision that my colleague Jan Tinetti has suggested should be introduced into legislation is a waste of time.I would suggest to the member that one day if anybody troubles themselves to read his Hansard—and I suspect that the only person doing that will be himself but if anybody else troubles themselves to read his Hansard they will find themselves inherently troubled by the contradictions if they bother at all to read it or if they bother to be troubled by the member because there is no consistency in his argument. There is no consistency in his argument whatsoever.Hon Mark Mitchell: Move on—move on.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: But OK I'll move on—fair enough. Fair enough—I'll move on.I do want to compliment Jan Tinetti on this bill. I was involved in the select committee hearings on the original Education Update Amendment Bill that inserted these new provisions in the Act that are now being amended by this bill and I was concerned at the time that the consultation provisions in them were pretty flimsy. So I think that Jan Tinetti has done a really good job of beefing them out and making them more specific.The statement of National Education and Learning Priorities is a really significant document or will be a really significant document when it's been created. It was an idea of the previous Government and one that I supported and one that I think we should work pretty hard to try and craft a degree of consensus around. This is ultimately going to set out not just the Government's priorities but the priorities for the entire education system and so it's only right that all of those with an interest in that are consulted and have a say in it. Yes parents are important and so they should be consulted and so they are included but actually the voices of children and young people are often the voices that we don't hear about when we're making decisions about education in this country.The Children's Commissioner recently did a really really good exercise where the Children's Commissioner went out and asked young people about their views about education. You might think OK well you know what do young people know or are they mature enough? There are all these arguments that come about around whether we should consult young people whether young people are informed enough to know and to have a meaningful say on the future of the education system. But what became really apparent to me in reading the feedback from that and also in reading a lot of the research that sits around underachievement in our education system is that very clearly culture and identity matter. Culture and identity matter an enormous amount in the education system to individual children's success in education and if we're saying at a governmental level that we don't value that that we don't value the voice of young people then implicitly we're sending that message down through the whole education system.So actually by saying at the highest level that we want young people to have voice and that we want that voice to be heard in the way we set our priorities we're actually strengthening all the way through the education system the agency of the learner of the young person concerned and that's actually something that we should take incredibly seriously. So I think it is something that should be guaranteed and protected in legislation and that is what this bill does.The other thing that we heard really clearly when I sat through the first select committee process on these provisions—I didn't sit through the most recent ones and my colleagues behind me I'm sure will speak in more depth about that. But the other thing that we heard very clearly from the teaching community was that they felt the legislation previously did not ensure that their professional voice was going to be heard in the process of setting our national priorities around education. That is actually really important. Teachers repeatedly have said that they feel their profession is undervalued that their expertise their wisdom and their experience is not being drawn on when it comes to bigger decisions about education and as Minister of Education I can say that's something that I take incredibly seriously. Teachers should be empowered by the Government to be the best they can be and to do the best job they can do and as such we should hear their voice when it comes to establishing our priorities.Now teachers have got a few priorities at the moment that they've made quite clear to the Government and we will do our best to meet those priorities over time as financial resources allow but I want to be clear that when it comes to questions around what gets taught and how it gets taught why would we not guarantee that the people whose expertise we rely on to deliver it have a voice in making those decisions? So I think this is a very useful provision.The disability community in New Zealand has a phrase: "Nothing about us without us". So I think it's really important that we embrace that as a Parliament as a Government and that our legislation reflects that. So this bill ensures that the disability community will be actively involved in setting out our National Education and Learning Priorities and they should be because there is every reason and every piece of evidence that exists at the moment suggests that we are not doing well enough in our education system when it comes to supporting those people who have disabilities.School support staff and those people who work in schools and early childhood services should be consulted. That's absolutely right. Māori education organisations should be consulted and I'd like to know from the members opposite why it is that they think that Māori education organisations should not be consulted on the statement of National Education and Learning Priorities. I haven't heard anything from them about why these people shouldn't be consulted.Now if the Opposition think that actually this bill is relatively inconsequential why are they opposing it? That's the really interesting thing. If they think that it's not going to make that big a difference why are they opposing it other than the notion that one day if they were in Government again they would not want to consult these people? That would be the only rationale for opposing it because if they think "Oh it's no big deal. Of course the Government would consult those people." what's wrong with putting it in legislation? Why do they think it is such an affront to put it in the legislation if they actually don't have any objection to consulting these people about the National Education and Learning Priorities? I think that that's something that all of the groups and all of the people represented in this list would like to hear an answer on.This bill has been through a pretty rigorous select committee examination. As has been mentioned it has been changed by the Education and Workforce Committee. It did have some provisions in it previously that would've changed the principles as set out in the Act and Jan Tinetti has made the decision to defer further consideration of those until we have had further opportunity to fully consider the national Education Conversation that is happening right now and I think that that's a sensible decision. But I think the bill as it stands now even without those provisions still has significant merit. And I think that it's only right that we should support it so that we can hear from those people who are concerned. Now I'm the Minister that will have to implement this. I can tell you now that I would be consulting all of these groups anyway. It was one of the points made by the Opposition. But legislation is enduring. Legislation goes beyond the Minister of the day and actually one of the criticisms of the Minister that introduced this legislation in the first place—the Hon Hekia Parata—was that she didn't consult and she didn't listen. And actually many people in the education system would be concerned that a future change of Government—and admittedly that's looking less and less likely by the day—would return to the approach of the last Government the level of arrogance of the last Government in refusing to listen to parents. Bearing in mind that these are the people who wanted to increase class sizes and now say they want to decrease them. But they didn't listen to the parent community. They didn't listen to teachers when things like national standards were being introduced. Actually if they had they might have been able to introduce national standards in a way that they were actually enduring and that actually contributed to some good educational outcomes. They didn't. They stuffed it up and as a result I'm very proud to say we've removed them.So it is important when making education decisions that you do that in a way that's inclusive that's open and that's collaborative. So I think that the provisions being put forward by Jan Tinetti here are very valid are worthy of inclusion in the Education Act and therefore I fully support the bill."