Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Oh thank you. Ngā mihi ki a koutou. Thank you Madam Chair and thank you to my colleagues for such warm support. I must admit I think it's just rather odd that the Minister in the chair Chris Hipkins took the opportunity to rebut what I'm about to say. Normally in debates you listen and you understand what's going on before you actually reflect and actually respond. I thought that was normal. I've never yet been in a debate where you actually give the answer before you know what the question is but somehow we have a very smart and intelligent Minister of Education—very smart—because he can interpret. He knows what's coming! He knows what's right for all of us! He even knows what's right for the 50000 teachers in the industry—of course he does!The other thing I'd like to say Madam Chair is that I am particularly disappointed looking across this wonderful debating chamber—with of course you sitting in the middle. On the other side we have these wonderful speakers of Te Reo and we have people who sit on the Education and Workforce Committee and which of those people have stood up and given a substantive speech on this bill tonight? I think it's exceptionally disappointing. We've got a whole raft of people who are self-proclaimed experts on the other side and yet they are silent tonight. Why is that? Why is that eh? I think some of them know a bit of Te Reo and they should be standing up. But it is very unfortunate and I'd like to see some decent contributions from these people.Now I'd just like to turn to my amendment which of course the Minister thinks he knows all about. I just want to recap for a moment. My amendment is actually in relation to clause 5 new section 380. Of course what this is about—I think we've heard about it but it's a while since we actually have—is that the Minister's chosen that we're going to increase the council from nine to 13 members. The way that that council is going to be constituted is that we're going to have seven elected from the teaching profession and they must be registered teachers with a current practising certificate and in respect of the remaining six members they will be appointed by none other than the Minister of Education. Now all that sounds quite good in principle. Of course as part of the six that we're going to have appointed by the Minister we're going to have a representative from parent and community interest groups in the early childhood education and schooling sectors.Well my amendment inserts a new subclause (7) into new section 380 in clause 5. It states: Following each election of elected members to the Teaching Council the Teaching Council must publish the following information by way of notice in the Gazette; (a) The number of teachers who took part in that election. (b) What proportion of teachers in possession of a [practising certificate] took part in those [elections]. (c) A comparison of the figures provided in (a) and (b) with numbers in previous elections (if any)." The reason why I have chosen to pursue and put forward this amendment is first of all there should be transparency about elections. We all face it as MPs; there is no difference in this sector. I'm sure that those people—and I'm talking about the seven representatives from the teaching profession—will feel that they are legitimately elected and should be subject to public scrutiny around their election.I challenge one of the members from the other side to stand up and tell me why that should not take place. You tell me why there should not be transparency about that election process.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I'm not going to tell you.ANDREW BAYLY: Of course I'm referring to people across the other side. I think the whole thing about this is that these are good principles around any governance structure but this whole thing may be a sham of course because I understand that the Minister is looking forward to another bill that will override all these provisions."