Sio WilliamAupito WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): From a Pacific perspective when we look at education we look at it as being the key to success. That terminology is truer today if not more so than at any other time. When we say it in that way we also mean that we have got to invest in our young people and look at our young people not for their childish behaviours but for the potential that they have to be the people that they must become if they are to replace us in the years to come.Most working people want the best for their children and that is why they value education. It is also why people allow that we pay our fair taxation so that every child in our communities is able to go to school as well as the children in our neighbourhoods.I just want to say in terms of the context to this bill that working communities such as Māngere have put in so much effort to make sure that participation in early childhood education has increased to make sure that our high school kids achieve level 1 and level 2 NCEA. They have done that despite the challenges that this Government has put up in their faces despite poverty despite the housing crisis despite low incomes and despite unemployment.I want to reflect on a few things that have been presented by submitters to the Education and Science Committee. I note that The Government has ignored children parents teachers and other education experts by only making minor and technical changes to the … Bill. This is not a good way to create legislation and is a lost opportunity to take proactive steps to improve schools and education for New Zealand's young people … 'Parents don't want their children treated like products to be sold to the highest bidder. Every child is an individual with their own hopes and dreams and you need skilled teaching professionals who care about the welfare of each child to bring out their unique strengths.' "Another submitter made this comment: "That's never going to happen by plonking children in front of a computer screen or by turning our kids' education into a money-making scheme for business." Another submitter made this comment: "For the minister of education not to seek the advice of the education sector in the first place and to then ignore the evidence of hundreds of submitters is a cavalier approach to making law to say the least." Another submitter said that we should be legislating the right for every child or young person to an inclusive education: "Legislating for an enforceable right to inclusive education is the very least the Government should be doing if they are going to start taking our obligations to the well-being and rights of children and young people with disabilities seriously. The current situation is a shamble and a disgrace." Another: "The government is failing to invest in inclusive education and support the rights of disabled New Zealanders to education. The result is teachers locking vulnerable children in rooms early childhood centres and schools refusing to enrol local children with disabilities families paying to provide or top up support staff for their children and children missing out on school camps sporting …".The final submitter I want to quote is Judge Andrew Becroft the Children's Commissioner who told MPs at the Education and Science Committee that "children should be consulted about major changes proposed in the Bill that might deny them their fundamental rights. He called for the Bill to be stopped while proper consultation on the Bill occurred adding the Bill may be in breach of the Convention on the Rights of the Child."I quote these submitters because these are not only parents and the teaching fraternity but experts in the field of education whose views I would have thought would be valuable in ensuring that the change in the 1989 legislation would achieve what we all want: the best out of our children. But alas that is not what this bill is about.Finally the comment I want to end with is the proposal for children starting school at 4 years old. This is what my community has had to say: our children are not cogs in a machine in a factory. They are not factors of production. Our children are human beings with potential whom we want to be leaders. Sending them off to school smacks of the idea that it is as if that is all they are good for. Young people should not be forced into education at such an early age. They are simply children who need to be nurtured who need to be supported by their parents."