Education Amendment Bill (No 2)

I move, That the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time.

The bill improves the quality of New Zealand’s public education system. It clears away a series of bad decisions that were driven by ideology rather than evidence, and it puts the emphasis back on a quality public education system that puts children’s interests at the heart of decision making. This bill ends the previous Government’s policy of lowering the school starting age to include four-year-olds. It requires private schools to be safe places for students, in line with the requirements on State and State integrated schools. It ensures that the Teaching Council, in making decisions on matters related to the profession, makes those within the context of Government policy.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Sorry to interrupt the member. Order! Can members take their conversations out to the lobby; I’m having trouble hearing the Minister’s speech.

It removes the provisions relating to communities of online learning, it postpones the commencement of new planning and reporting requirements, and it makes clear a much fairer and more robust process around a university’s name change.

I want to turn first to the issues around cohort entry. The bill changes the settings for cohort entry so that only children who have turned five can attend school as part of a cohort. It also provides for more flexibility for parents by providing eight entry points per year instead of the current four per term. This change undoes one of the most damaging components of the last Government’s decision to remove the right of five-year-olds to start school the day after their fifth birthday. That was a decision made by the last Government and supported by the current Opposition spokesperson for education—and I congratulate her on her apparent elevation in the House this afternoon.

This Government does not consider that young children under the age of five should be attending school. It is too young and it can be damaging. This is consistent with the advice that was provided by the Advisory Group on Early Learning in 2015—a group established by the last National Government to give them advice on what was in the best interests of the child. That group was very, very clear that children should not be starting school before the age of five. The age of five is already young by international standards. Many, many other countries have a school starting age of six. That is the compulsory starting age for students in New Zealand, but most students start at the age of five, and that is young enough.

So the Government has restored the previous guarantee that young people cannot start school before the age of five. It has been supported by the Principals’ Federation, by the Institute for Early Childhood Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, and by others who want to see decisions around children starting school, around the transition from early childhood education to schooling. They want to see those decisions made based on evidence—based on evidence of what is in the best interests of the child—and that is what this Government is going to be doing.

The bill brings the requirements around private school registration into line with the requirements that exist right now for State and State integrated schools. They must be safe places physically and emotionally for students. The private schools themselves support these changes, and I welcome their support for those changes. This means that we have additional levers to intervene where a private school might not be providing a physically and emotionally safe place for students. The concern raised by the Opposition during the committee stage of this debate was that we didn’t need this provision because there was no evidence that it was required right now. One of the reasons that we’re putting it in place is we’re not going to wait until something happens before we clear up what is clearly a loophole, a gap, an anomaly in the law. We want to ensure that private schools are held to the same standard as State and State integrated schools. As I indicated, the schools themselves want that, and I welcome their support for it.

The bill makes changes to the matters that the Teaching Council will have to consider when it makes its decisions. This Government has restored the right for teachers to elect the majority of members to their own professional body—something that was taken away by the last Government. The last Government says that this somehow undermines the independence of the Teaching Council—it does not. The council still operates completely independently. They have to consider Government policy; they do not have to follow Government direction. They can ultimately decide to do something different. They are absolutely at liberty to disagree with the Government. They are absolutely at liberty to criticise the Government, and they will do so with the credibility of the profession, because the profession are the ones who are electing them.

Under the last Government, the entire Education Council—well, they didn’t even call it the Teaching Council—was hand-picked by the Minister of Education. That was not going to be a credible and independent voice for the teaching profession. We have fixed that by allowing teachers to elect the majority of members on that council. Members opposite asked, “Well, what’s a practical example of where this power might be used?”, and the example that I gave them is a very pertinent one at the moment. One of the things that teachers and principals are talking about is the level of compliance that they are currently subject to, and the Teaching Council has a role to play there. So if the Government, as part of negotiations, says, “Look, we want to work with the teaching profession to reduce compliance, to reduce the amount of paperwork that’s required”, and we issue a policy statement to that effect, then we do want the Teaching Council to take that into consideration. We do want them to consider how they could reduce compliance and paperwork for the teaching profession. I don’t think that that’s in any way infringing on their independence or autonomy, because they’ll ultimately be the ones who make decisions about that, but they should have to consider it.

The bill repeals provisions relating to communities of online learning, to talk through—those provisions had not yet come into law, and, thus, we are stopping them from doing so. Communities of online learning were basically an option for a student to enrol directly in an online learning provider that did not have to teach to the New Zealand Curriculum, did not have to employ registered or qualified teachers, and allowed kids of any school age to be sitting at home behind a computer rather than attending school. That is not something that this Government is willing to sign up for. Where children are engaged in online learning—and online learning is a brilliant resource—they should be doing so within the context of our existing education system. This does not stop small schools from accessing online learning in any way; they can do that now. It does not stop students who are home-schooled from accessing online learning in any way; they can do that now. This bill means that schools will not be able to offload those students who are a bit more difficult and who have additional and complex needs and say, “Not our problem anymore. They can enrol in an online provider and sit at home rather than be in a school”. That’s not good enough, and our Government is not willing to tolerate a system that would have allowed that to happen, and that is why we are removing those provisions.

Two final changes that this bill introduces: it defers the new planning and reporting framework for school boards until 1 January 2023. At this present point in time, when we are considering wide-ranging changes to the way schools operate, it would be unfair to place on those boards and principals who are engaged in that process the additional burdens of compliance and dealing with new strategic plans, implementation plans, and annual reports in the middle of that potential big shift in the way the education system operates. We want them constructively engaged in that discussion, and then, ultimately, whatever changes are made around schools planning and reporting can be consistent with that. I want to be clear: the Government’s not made any decisions about what those changes might be, but we don’t want to require schools to go through one big change, only to then potentially change it again within a year or two down the track.

So we’ve listened to the feedback that principals and boards have given us, which is that they want more time, and the amendment being put forward in this bill gives them more time. The status quo prevails for a bit longer. Finally, this bill introduces a much more robust process around a university’s name change. It means that the House will ultimately be the decider of any name change, rather than the Minister acting alone. We recognise that many of our current universities were established by an Act of Parliament, and, therefore, it should be the Parliament that determines whether or not those provisions can be changed, and the names of those institutions can be changed. This is a good bill. It reinforces our quality public education system. I commend it to the House.

I am not pleased to have to speak and oppose a piece of education legislation to the House. I’m on the back of, as I’ve said before, 70-odd meetings across New Zealand, and a big message from the education sector is, where possible, they would like to have greater cross-party agreement in education. I acknowledge the thousands of teachers that have been at paid union meetings, some of them this week, and the hard work that they do.

But the reality is we do have to oppose this legislation. While we may have supported one Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) within this legislation, we are opposing it on the grounds, actually, for what the Minister mentioned at the beginning of his speech. This is an incredibly ideological piece of legislation, and I’m going to walk members exactly through those areas of ideology that have been driven by this Government.

The first issue is the issue of cohort entry. Again, let’s look back at the history. The Hon Hekia Parata, under the former National Government, recognised the real issues being raised by new-entrant teachers who saw the disruption in their classrooms for not having a decent cohort entry policy for New Zealand. What we recognised was very pragmatic, and it was very much about recognising that not a one-size-fits-all approach works for children and for families and that, actually, when you get across New Zealand, there are some children who, for their emotional well-being, it makes sense and whose parents’ circumstances mean that, potentially, at the most—at the most—a group of children may start up to eight weeks before their fifth birthday.

Now, for many children, the reality is it would have been a couple of days, maybe a week, but that isn’t the case for this Government. They don’t back parents. They don’t support working parents. They don’t realise that, actually, for some children, that may make sense. I get all of the media and all of the spin that the Government’s put out that this is about a whole lot of four-year-olds starting before their fifth birthday. The reality is, under our law now, parents have a choice and they don’t have to put their child into school until much later. This was about recognising that for a small group of parents and children, that made sense. So at a principled level, it doesn’t matter whether it’s partnership schools and they scrapped them because they don’t like the diversity that exists, it doesn’t matter whether they’re putting up Tomorrow Schools reform; it’s all about a one-size-fits-all approach in education, and it’s all about not backing parents. That’s why, at a principled level, National was concerned with where they were going for cohort entry.

I do want to acknowledge, though, that at least they haven’t scrapped cohort entry—that, actually, cohort entry will remain as a result of this legislation. They’re not completely getting rid of it, despite some big statements that the Minister has previously made. I do want to acknowledge that there will be more options in terms of cohort entry mid-term, as well. However, it still doesn’t change the fact that a group of parents across New Zealand, in my view, are being denied the right, because their school may take up cohort entry, to have their child start at the age of five.

Anyway, the second core issue in this bill relates to, in my view—as I said before in the committee stages—a core difference between National and Labour. National believes that there are huge changes and disruption coming in education. We believe, as a result of the future of work, it is critical for young people to be able to understand computational thinking. Here’s our record. Our record is $200 million invested in ensuring that schools have access to uncapped data and fast connections across New Zealand. Now here’s the deal: we also understood we needed to mandate the digital technologies curriculum with that, so that children weren’t just spending a whole lot of time on screens; they also had access to quality curriculum. But the key part of that is there are a whole lot of children in parts of New Zealand that don’t have access to specialist subjects, whether it’s mathematics—and I am looking at Minister Salesa there—or whether it’s the issue of other languages like Pasifika languages and Te Reo.

The reality is digital technologies, via quality supplementary learning or potentially virtual learning networks, offer huge opportunities for young people. But the reality is that this Government doesn’t care. The reason we know that they don’t care is they have put up a piece of legislation without any other alternative regime. The reality is that this would have kicked in and provided other contestability to organisations like Te Kura. It would have provided additional opportunities to organisations like the Virtual Learning Network.

But the reality is that this Government doesn’t care, because they have not provided anything else as an alternative. My sadness is that not only does it deny a group of young people additional opportunities in rural areas; it also denies opportunities to some of our most disadvantaged families. The reality is if the Government was so ideological about virtual schools, when the reality is that this would have provided additional subject learning in certain schools, then it should have provided an alternative regime. National is very focused on ensuring that that happens, not just in the next couple of months but over the next 20 to 30 years.

The next area in this bill was around private schools. The reality is, again, we have an intensely ideological Government. National recognises that, actually, we need a very strong State system. It’s about 85 percent of our education provision. Private schools, integrated schools, and partnership schools make up a very small proportion: about 15 percent. The reality is there is no parliamentarian in this House that wouldn’t support a change that would do something to improve a situation where you have children’s safety at risk, so of course we would support any regime that would strengthen that. All we asked during the select committee process was, “Where is the evidence that there is a whole range of reasons to change the law?” Now, the Minister’s answer is, “Well, we’re not going to wait for the evidence; actually, we’re going to pass the law to make sure that if a situation occurs in the future, we can, effectively, close down that school.” There are also strong arguments that we can actually do that now. So, again, there was a lot of fear in the sector that this may be something a little bit more sinister, a bit of a closed will of private schools. I think we got more clarity in the select committee process.

The next issue that I do want to raise is around the name change issue. Can I take a moment to acknowledge my parliamentary colleague Nicola Willis. She did a fantastic job. She’s a great example of a local member of Parliament who fought an issue that was providing a huge amount of angst for thousands of young people out there—and older people—who have degrees, that were worried about this name change. I do want to acknowledge that the Minister listened, and he made the right decision. But also, through the select committee, we heard from the likes of Sir Geoffrey Palmer the need to tidy up this area of the law. So while we can’t support this bill, because of the deep ideological issues in many other areas and the fact that it snuffs out future opportunities for many children in disadvantaged areas and rural areas, I do want to put on the record in this House that we have supported that amendment—and I acknowledge Dr Shane Reti and the work that he’s done on it as well—because, from my perspective, National is very pragmatic when it comes to education. What I hope that people see in the future is that we are part of a party that believes in doing the right thing, that believes in making pragmatic changes.

I want to leave you with this: we oppose this legislation, and what we are hearing on the ground—whether it’s the issue of collective bargaining not being resolved and the Government wasting money in a range of other areas, whether it’s the issue of scrapping partnership schools and the many emails that have come into our inbox and the people that we have met from the families that have been affected, whether it’s scrapping communities of online learning, or whether it’s ideological changes to cohort entry—is a growing number of New Zealanders and families that are saying to me they thought they were going to get a Labour Government that was going to invest heavily in education. They thought they were going to get a Labour Government that was going to do the right thing for a number of communities, particularly Māori and Pasifika children, particularly children growing up in rural communities. They were sorely wrong. What they have is an ideological Government that is absolutely focused on their ideology, not in doing what is right for children in New Zealand, and more and more people are waking up to that. That is why we oppose this bill.

Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker, for this opportunity to speak on the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) at its third reading. I thank the member who has just spoken, the Hon Nikki Kaye. One of the things that the honourable member said when she started her speech was that we do not get it and that we do not care and that we’re not listening to teachers or the students—and that, apparently, we’re not into cross-party agreements. But I do want to remind the Hon Nikki Kaye that one of the first things that the Hon Chris Hipkins did last year, before we actually even launched the Kōrero Mātauranga, the national conversations, and the first of the national conversations was held in Christchurch, was reach out across to our Opposition members, including the Hon Nikki Kaye, and I do recall seeing her in Christchurch, as well as several other members of the National Party. That is, of course, the ideal: if we can get cross-party agreement on something as important as our education system, we know that that would be then an education system that is long-lasting and is enduring. The education system that we have right now, Tomorrow’s Schools, was introduced under Labour 30 years ago, and we know that 30 years later it is not fit for purpose.

The Hon Nikki Kaye also spoke about the students who are disadvantaged, those from lower socio-economic areas, and I can speak from South Auckland, being an MP from South Auckland, where the majority of our students are Māori and Pacific. One of the reasons why it is really important that we get it right, one of the reasons why the Ministry of Education, together with the Minister of Education and three Associate Ministers of Education, have gone out to consult with and to get over 55,000 people’s comments and advice, is to make sure that we get it right.

Now, back to this Education Amendment Bill (No 2). I wholeheartedly support it. We acknowledge the Minister the Hon Chris Hipkins for his work. I’d also like to acknowledge the Education and Workforce Committee for their work in getting us to this point. I’d also like to thank the Parliamentary Counsel Office for their work in drafting the legislation. I’d also like to mention two Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs), Supplementary Order Paper 220 as well as SOP 224, because they will address two things. They will ensure that for the reporting requirements, in order to give schools more time to account for the review of Tomorrow’s Schools, we actually give them a little bit more time before all of those changes come through, and, second, that we clarify the rules around a university changing its name.

Now, during the second reading of this bill just yesterday, the Hon Nikki Kaye, the former Minister of Education, also spoke about the many, many meetings that she has held. We have also held many meetings across Aotearoa as well, because, as I said earlier on, we are there to listen. We are there to listen to everyone, from young kids, from young people, to their parents, and to caregivers. I held many meetings with Pacific people as well as our ethnic communities, because it is important to me to ensure that we get it right for the next 20 to 30 years. Why? Because when you look at the demographics of students right now, when you look at those who are currently in preschool right through to the end of year 13, we see that about 50 percent of the total population in schools are made up of Māori students, ethnic community students, and Pacific students. So the reality right now is that that is the majority of our students in year 13 down to preschool.

This particular bill is about ensuring that we require private schools to be safe places for our tamariki, for all of our students. The Education Act 1989 does not allow the Secretary for Education to consider students’ safety when considering private school registration applications. I’ll give you an example that we are well aware of that happened a year or so ago, where—and this is actually covered in the departmental briefing to the select committee—and I quote, “significant concerns [were raised] about the safety of students at a [certain] private school … ERO raised concerns about [the] health and safety … [in this particular] private school over a number of years. [That] school … continued [, however,] to meet the registration criteria over this [period of] time. Following [a particular] incident where a student was seriously injured, a multi-agency investigation (involving the Ministry of Education, … Oranga Tamariki)”—as well as the police—“also found further … concern about the physical and emotional safety of students at the school.” The Ministry of Education suspended the school’s registration under section 35K over a period of a year. The school was asked to provide more information, but the Secretary for Education was still not able to address it in any major way. So this particular proposal in this legislation would ensure that if anything like that is to happen in the future, the Secretary for Education can put a lot of things into place to ensure that our students remain safe: that they are safe both physically and emotionally. Private schools are really supportive of this, because it is important that we ensure all of our students are safe.

With regard to cohort entry: this bill changes the requirement for cohort entry so that our tamariki can start school in cohorts, but only after they turn five years of age. When you look overseas, when you look at other countries, the average age for entry into school is six years old. There are some countries whose average age is seven years old. So actually allowing our students to enter schools at five years of age is already really, really early. But what we believe the previous Government wanted to do is that one of the things that they talk a lot about is that they put students, our children, at the centre of their decision making. But at the same time, they also want our students—our young, young kids—to enter school so that parents can get back to work sooner, because they are worried about lost productivity.

As the Hon Tracey Martin covered yesterday—as well as the Hon Chris Hipkins earlier on in his contribution today—we are also focused on ensuring that our young students are at the centre of learning, but we are absolutely into making sure that our young children can enter school after they turn five but that there is the opening and that cohort entry for our students actually allows our parents to still make a choice after they turn five to enter school.

So the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) will ensure that early childhood education subsidies—including the 20 hours free, including Ministry of Social Development childcare assistance subsidies—are still in place.

We also expect that the proposed changes under this bill will improve the school experiences for all of our new entrants. The changes will give parents more flexibility. It’ll give schools more manageable cohort sizes, and it will reduce the cost of keeping children in early childhood education centres.

In terms of the Advisory Group on Early Learning in 2010, one of their recommendations—they were pretty adamant about this—is that we should ensure that there should not be any downward push on school starting age much earlier. This is actually an advisory group to the previous Government. In fact, their recommendation was “that a play-based curriculum offers the best learning experiences for our tamariki.” I absolutely commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. I’d like to acknowledge New Zealand Sign Language Week and the fantastic effort by my colleague Dr Shane Reti in his signing earlier this afternoon. There are a number of us MPs in Te Reo classes, so perhaps we can expand that to signing classes as well. It would be a fantastic idea.

💬 Hon Member: Kia ora.

Kia ora to you too.

This particular bill—I’ve had the disappointment to speak on it a couple of times this week. And here we go on the third reading. The disappointment is because it’s quite simply a crude dismantling of previous National Party reforms—that’s straight out what it’s about. What we see here from the Government is not even a veiled attempt to try to mask the raw ideological grabs at important educational institutions and to go ahead with a messy, what I’d call, hodgepodge of random ideas that are ideologically driven and based—almost obsessively so. So what we’ve got here is a straight out reduction—and this is the biggest irony of the bill—of the independence of the Teaching Council. I’ll say a little bit more about that later as to why that’s so ironic. They are deliberately burdening private schools. Many have asked why; what is the reason behind that? It’s a little unclear but, none the less, a deliberate burdening of private schools.

Annoying and confusing parents as to when their kids can start school—that’s a deliberate move. To try to explain that away in other ways—it’s not happening. It hasn’t been convincing. This will confuse parents and, quite frankly, annoy them.

Finally, scrapping communities of online learning. Now, during the committee process, for which I was involved, this probably didn’t make up so much of the debate as other members in regards to the independence of the Teaching Council did. But the passage of the bill’s debate this week has really kicked up some interesting stuff for communities of online learning. What we’ve seen is that the communities of online learning providers such as the Virtual Learning Network (VLN) didn’t have the conversation before this has happened to them. That’s of real concern. Furthermore, when you look into what they’re asking for and look at their submissions, what they’re asking for is incredibly reasonable. They just want clarity. They had a direction for where they were going under our Government. Now there’s no direction at all. The direction that they have been given—which is a non-direction—is because we’re told that we need to wait for the context of all the current reforms that are happening in education. Well, if you look at those current reforms, it’s a massive list.

We’ve got Tomorrow’s Schools review. We’ve had the scrapping of national standards. We’ve got cancelling of charter schools and rushing into the questioning of NCEA. We’ve even had—maybe not on the massive, big top of the list, but we had it none the less—a very botched, failed attempt at banning music and dance teachers from calling themselves teachers. There’s been a raft of educational reforms and attempts at reform.

So, in that context, the Government is asking the communities of online learning providers to chill out, wait, wait, and wait and see what happens. The Minister of Education himself, in the chair during the committee stage, admitted that work needs to be done on this. Well, that’s not good enough. That’s not good enough for providers, and it’s definitely not good enough that, in the context of debate again this week, we had a very flippant attitude from Ministers sitting across the Chamber right now and other MPs in regards to both communities of online learning and the work that they do—phrases such as “throwing kids before computers” and “putting them on screen times” and “five-year-olds on screens”. We even had VLN say, in their submission, “It’s very disturbing to hear Ministers debating this bill in parliament talking about Mathletics, Reading Eggs or Khan Academy. These are web based software platforms and applications …”. They are not online learning which providers like VLN provide.

So you’ve got a flippant attitude which denotes that this Government has driven obsessively on to a hodgepodge of ideologically driven reforms. We don’t agree with it, we stand against it, we stand for providers who want certainty, and we also stand for parents who want choice as to when their kids start school. We oppose this bill.

Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. Let’s just start with cohort entry. So, yes, that’s quite right—the members opposite are quite right—this Government is undoing what the previous Government did.

Last night, I referred to the regulatory impact statement that was around the implementation of cohort entry. It was provided to the select committee at that time on 5 May 2016. I believe that last night the Opposition said there had been 18 submissions on the amendment bill No. 2—the bill we’re discussing now—16 unique submissions, two that had been done twice. There were 1,852 submissions received on the amendment bill No. 1—1,852 New Zealanders submitted on the things that the previous Government was going to put in. Seventy-nine percent of those submitters disagreed with the lowering of the starting age. Did the Government of the day—the National Government—listen at all to those submitters? No, they did not. Did the Government of the day—the National Government—listen to the expert advisory panel they had put together? No, they did not—no, they did not.

Here is the regulatory impact statement on the implementation of cohort entry, from 5 May 2016. Here is part of what is in that statement: “there is an emerging risk … to an increase in government expenditure due to children spending longer in early childhood education (ECE) … In terms of ECE costs, we estimate that the value of the saving”—of option D, the option chosen by the previous Government and the option we are undoing today—show a saving of ECE money of $11 million. This was not about children. This was never about children. I would urge the members of the Opposition to go and talk to the Brainwave Trust, to go and talk to them about the research that they have done about the importance of children being children for as long as they can.

I want to now pick up on the concept that we have; it’s just been articulated by the member who just resumed her seat. Last night, Simeon Brown raved against the requirement that private schools have to be safe both physically and mentally, and around the emotional well-being of our students. He raved against it. We’ve just had Denise Lee take her seat saying that it was the deliberate burdening of private schools. Mr Brown last night said, “Where is your evidence? Where is your evidence?” Ms Lee has just articulated that she has literally no idea why that’s there. Can I please read from the departmental briefing to the select committee that Ms Lee sits on?

The departmental briefing to the select committee that Ms Lee sits on—which, apparently, she may not have read, because she doesn’t realise this is in it—says that in the past three years there have been at least eight complaints to the Ministry of Education relating to student safety in private schools. There has been one serious incident where significant concern about the safety of students at a private school was identified. The briefing note reads: “significant concerns about the safety of students at a private school were identified, ERO has raised concerns about health and safety matters at the private school over a number of years. The school had continued to meet the registration criteria over this time. Following an incident where a student was seriously injured, a multi-agency investigation (involving the Ministry of Education, New Zealand Police and Oranga Tamariki) also found further cause for concern about the physical and emotional safety of students at the school.”

Now, I’m not sure—does Mr Brown sit on the select committee?

💬 Hon Members: Yes.

But Mr Brown asked for evidence. Mr Brown last night asked for evidence of why we would be wanting to bring private schools to be safe places for our children. Ms Lee said that she understood there was no reason to do this but that it was a deliberate burdening of private schools. I am highly concerned for what is happening on the Opposition benches of that particular select committee.

Let’s talk about the communities of online learning. Let’s just go back to what is the reality of this situation and why, literally, there needs to be nothing created. Let’s remember that the communities of online learning have not started. Nothing has started. The Virtual Learning Network has not had any contract under the community of online learning, because they literally haven’t started. How long has the Virtual Learning Network been doing what the Virtual Learning Network does?

I’m going to say this, too. I find it fascinating that Ms Lee mentioned the Khan Academy—the Khan Academy—and Ms Lee sort of pooh-poohed that the Government would think about the Khan Academy. The Khan Academy was the argument the previous Government used for charter schools! The Khan Academy was brought over—I’m fairly confident they were brought over here. Simon Bridges, I believe, was sitting on the select committee—or he subbed in or something—at the time that they came to explain Flip learning and how children don’t literally need to go to school; they can just go and be on the computer, and should they need to find an answer, somewhere there’d be a “teacherery” sort of an adult around. They justified charter schools with the Khan Academy. Boy how times change. That’s all I can say.

Communities of online learning were never needed in the way that they were implemented. That is the reality. There are communities of online learning now. The Virtual Learning Network is one of them. They are currently working. What was needed, and here is the thing, was a funding model to support them. What was needed was the fact that schools had to take either from their operations grant or they needed to provide a teacher for a point 2 or whatever to trade off against those classes. So did the last Government decide to fund communities of online learning? No, they did not. No, they did not. They didn’t provide any funding model for it. They decided to privatise it. So rather than support the current schools that are actually in NorthNet and HarbourNet and using the Virtual Learning Network, they decided to privatise it.

One of the other reasons they wanted to move to a community of online learning was around Te Kura, which is the correspondence school. It now has this enormous role. Why does Te Kura have this enormous role? Because too many of our children are being put out of our schools and placed on Te Kura. Too many of our children are not being supported well enough for their learning needs inside our school and are being excluded, and yet the previous Government, even seeing those numbers starting to rise, made no attempt to actually better resource alternative learning—for example, alternative education. Not a dickie bird—haven’t had a substantial rise in any of their income for a large number of years.

So people need to calm down. Our children will continue to learn online. There will be numbers of students who will be Skyping out, and at Mahurangi College, for example, we Skyped out around about 15 students. One particular student, level 3 Te Reo Māori but wanted to make sure that that was the dialect of her particular iwi, so we Skyped her into the East Coast.

There is a great capacity inside of this part of the education system, and this Government will literally work with the education system to create what that is, because the previous Government did not. They did not consult, and I find it interesting that Ms Lee again talks about one submitter who was not asked their opinion and therefore this Government didn’t take what they wanted to be the case into account, when 1,852 people submitted when these things were put into place and no school, no State school—because Ms Whalley will tell you that they are a school and their schools were consulted and so on. So I’ll give the Government this. They went out to those that they wanted to, who would give them the answer that they wanted, and then that was who they consulted with. But the rest of the education sector did not want communities of online learning. What they wanted was the financial resourcing to support them to expand what they already had, perhaps create a staffing component called a mentor teacher, because it’s very difficult for those students to stay focused and self-moderated and self-motivated when they are doing Skype learning. It is one of the challenges and one of the reasons why what that previous Government did put in place would have been a disaster.

Thank you, and it’s always a pleasure to take a call after the Hon Tracey Martin, as she takes a seat. I appreciate the opportunity to take a call on the third reading of the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). The previous speaker, the Hon Tracey Martin, had a lot to say about the contributions from Denise Lee and myself on this particular bill, but I’d just like to touch on two of the issues this bill covers. Firstly, to rebut some of the points that she’s made in regards to private schools, she’s pulled up an example to argue for the case here, but the regulatory impact statement says, “There is no evidence that the level of bullying and other forms of physical and emotional harm is better or worse in private schools than in State or State integrated schools.” The fact of the matter is we’re making a decision here based upon no actual information to compare between private schools, State schools, or State integrated schools. The Government has decided to simply put in place something in the registration criteria without actually having any evidence and without actually looking at all of the issues which need to be addressed here on a wider scale.

Secondly, I’d like to touch on the clauses in here which have regard to the Teaching Council. We were only a few months ago debating in this Chamber the Government’s desire to reform the Teaching Council to ensure that teachers were in control of the Teaching Council, and they passed legislation saying this was going to ensure that teachers’ voices were in control of the Teaching Council. And here we have another bill coming through this Parliament, absolutely taking away that power by giving power to the Minister of Education at any time to issue a statement of Government policy relating to one or more of the Teaching Council’s functions. That is not something about which Chris Hipkins said, “Well, it’s just ‘having regard to’ ”. If you look at the actual legislation, it is “must have regard to” when it is performing its functions as the Teaching Council.

So this Government may be wanting to stand up and try to brush over the fact that what they have done is they are taking away the powers they once said they stood up for, and what the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) even submitted to the Education and Workforce Committee saying that they do not accept this as being something which should be done and saying this completely undermines the Teaching Council’s independent status, which they said they wanted.

💬 Denise Lee: The union!

Yes, Denise Lee. The PPTA—not exactly the greatest friends of the National Party. The people who supported the union mates on the other side of the Chamber, they’re saying this undermines the Teaching Council’s independent status. So on one hand the Government say they’re giving the Teaching Council back its independence, which the National Party tore away, and on the other hand they are taking and undermining that independence which they once sought and they once championed. So the National Party opposes this piece of legislation.

E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou katoa e Te Whare.

On this, the third reading of the Education Amendment Bill (No 2), I would, firstly, like to acknowledge my predecessor in the education portfolio for the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand, Catherine Delahunty, who, with both our current Associate Minister of Education and Minister of Education, the Hon Tracey Martin and the Hon Chris Hipkins, worked on the former Education and Science Committee to build consensus on a number of issues which now actually form a lot of the platform for the education policy that this Government is now progressing in. This obviously included the inquiry spearheaded by Catherine Delahunty into dyslexia, dyspraxia, and autism spectrum disorders in the compulsory school sector, which the Government is now mightily committed—as per the confidence and supply agreement with the Green Party—to implement.

Turning to this piece of legislation, I can’t help but obviously acknowledge some of the points that have been raised, obviously, primarily, by members of the Opposition. The Hon Nikki Kaye, the former Minister of Education, called this Government “ideological” when it comes to the education sector. This is a sentiment that was echoed by every other National Party MP who has stood so far to speak in this debate, and it is a sentiment that has been stated multiple times throughout every single reading of this piece of legislation. So I turned to the dictionary to offer this House a definition of ideology, and, if I may quote, it is “as based on or relating to a system of ideas or ideals.” Fundamentally, it’s essentially about values.

So I’m really wondering if it’s the former Minister of Education genuinely trying to tell me that the National Party is absent of ideology, and thus the values that inform their policy around education. I don’t think that that’s the case. I think that the National Party also has ideology when it comes to the education sector. There is a difference between our ideologies, obviously, as represented by the Opposition’s opposition to this piece of legislation, being most fundamentally that we on this side of the House believe that education is a public good and that it should be protected, resourced, and encouraged to flourish.

But I also really want to drill down into that catchcry of ideology that the Opposition turns to so frequently as a rhetorical flourish, because there is a difference between ideology and dogma. Ideology is about values, but dogma is about being blinded by those values, and a great example of dogma actually comes from the former National Government’s ignoring of all of the submissions that came before the select committee that actually implemented the changes which this piece of legislation is now undoing. So I’m really quite confused as to how the National Party can attack this Government for being in favour of values and for wearing them on our sleeves and saying how they’re informing the policy decisions, somehow presupposing that the National Party is completely devoid of those values and that ideology and, meanwhile, maintaining dogma and not listening to submitters and members of the public, who overwhelmingly opposed the policy that those members pushed through, which this piece of legislation undoes.

So too, the opposite of dogma is consultation, whereby you listen to critique and to constructive input, and you improve, in turn. This is exactly what the Government is trying to do through the Education Conversation, which the National Party has been invited to engage in. It’s been mentioned by previous speakers that 30 years ago, this side of the House implemented the future of education at that point in time, and we now have an opportunity to evaluate that because it’s no longer fit for purpose.

So, turning to the core things that this bill actually does—which I think have been well canvassed, but it’s important to put on the record for the sake of Hansard the Green Party’s supreme support for all of these brilliant policy points—the first thing that it does, as was mentioned by the previous speaker, Simeon Brown, is it ensures that the Teaching Council acts in accordance with or makes its decisions relating to the context of Government policy, with that being the decisions that are made relating to the teaching profession. It was mentioned by Simeon Brown that this side of the House has spoken about the revocation of democracy on that Teaching Council by the former Government, and for those who may be listening at home, I really just want to clarify what we meant when we said that. What we meant when we said that was that the former Government literally removed elected members from the Teaching Council and, instead, replaced all of those members with nominees of their own. If that’s not ideological, I’m not quite sure what is.

What we’re saying here is that we’re going to add another layer of public accountability and transparency by making sure that the general public is aware of what the Teaching Council is doing, because it must be in line with Government policy. It will be up to the Government of the day—whether it is National-led, Labour-led, or, heck, even Green-led—to justify that to the general public and, therefore, actually be open to far more critique and change their policy in turn.

The second thing that this piece of legislation does is ensure that private schools are held to the same standards as our public schools in this country when it comes to providing a safe space for students, whether it’s physical or emotional, and I genuinely can’t get to the heart of the opposition that the National Party has to this. I’ve listened to their points of debate throughout this third reading, and, so far, all I’ve heard is that they are concerned that there is somehow no evidence—which was completely dispelled by the Associate Minister of Education the Hon Tracey Martin—but then, it’s somehow that it excessively burdens private schools to need to provide a safe space, physically and emotionally, for their students. I’m concerned about that—I’m deeply concerned about that.

We’ve also heard from Simeon Brown—and we heard the evidence in our select committee, the Education and Workforce Committee—that there’s no evidence that bullying is better or worse in public or private schools. Well, surely that’s a reason to hold them both to the same standards. Also, surely that’s a reason to ensure that we’re actually being proactive here to make sure that we don’t end up with an unsafe situation whereby the Government would have to intervene. That, surely, strikes to the heart of the principles that the National Party should be in favour of.

Thirdly, this piece of legislation removes the empowering provisions for communities of online learning. This has been confuddled somewhat by the statements made in public, particularly by the former Minister of Education the Hon Nikki Kaye, about how we’re somehow removing any chance for young people to engage in online learning or education. Again, totally untrue. Online learning existed prior to the empowering provisions for communities of online learning. When the former National Government actually implemented them, it was critiqued by a number of stakeholders for being a hasty and rushed piece of legislation. So by removing them, we are simply ensuring that, moving forward, we end up with a really robust framework for the future of education, which is being facilitated through the Education Conversation, which the National Party is involved in.

Fourthly, cohort entry. Now, this is perhaps the most controversial—or, at least, what the National Party has tried to make controversial—part of this piece of legislation. We are somewhat removing the opportunity for cohort entry but are allowing for two entry points throughout the school year. Given that there are thousands of schools in this country and only 50—that’s the evidence that the Education and Workforce Committee heard; only 50—have decided to take it up, I can understand the National Party’s position around choice. You know, that kind of makes sense, but it’s not choice for parents. It’s choice for the board of trustees, and we have heard enormous amounts of evidence to the fact that kids are actually better off and learn better when they enter education later.

I’m conscious of the very limited time that I have left. I just want to speak, finally, to Supplementary Order Paper 224, which implemented into this piece of legislation the requirement that any name change of any university is no longer a decision that is to be made just by a Minister of Education but it is to be made by the entirety of this House, this Parliament. I think that that’s a democratic provision, and I think that it’s fantastic. I for one never went to Victoria University of Wellington, except to do a summer school, but I can absolutely understand the feeling that alumni of that university had when that conversation was occurring.

So let’s get on with it. Let’s ensure that we are actually engaging in a cross-partisan manner on the future of the education system and that we stop with this fearmongering. The Green Party commends this bill.

Kia ora, Madam Assistant Speaker. The National Party will oppose this bill because, fundamentally, in our minds, this is another example of Government knowing best. For example, if this bill is passed, some children who would have been able to enter school before the age of five will, clearly, be unable to, and this is the Government saying, “We know your child better than you do.”

This bill reduces your options as a parent, and, surely, we all know children who hadn’t turned five but who were well ready to go to school. In fact, we could posit that another way. I mean, are there Government members here today who are saying they have never known any children who had not turned five who were ready for school? Or we could reposition that question again: are there no Government members, over the past few years, who have sent their children to school before they turned the age of five? That would be an interesting hypothesis to test.

I think, generally, the closer decisions are made to the affected person, the better those decisions are, be they patients, be they industry, or be they polytechnics, farmers, or students. This does the reverse. This places the decision making further away from parents and further away from students, and we strongly oppose this.

Now, we have said no to this part of the bill, and we have said no to having less parent choice, but we said yes to the university name change legislation, and I want to acknowledge Nicola Willis, who has championed the fair process on this matter. Yes, it did come to the House in the committee of the whole House stage and it didn’t go through the initial select committee process, but a petition to the House did have 35 submissions that were quite thoughtful. If we look at those submissions and look at the views that we formed, it wasn’t clear, and it isn’t clear, that a university council could actually make a name change. It wasn’t clear, and it isn’t clear, that the Minister actually had discretion to make a name change. So we agreed that this area needed to be tidied up and that it should be the purview of Parliament—we agree with this.

So I say to the Government: take this as a signal, a signal that the Hon Nikki Kaye and myself are pragmatic and can collaborate and will collaborate on legislation that is reasonable. But also take this as a signal that what is unreasonable, we will fight, and we disagree with increased central control of schools and teachers.

And so on that note, we are opposing this bill. Thank you.

I understand this is a split call. I call the Hon Clare Curran—five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I’m pleased to take a short call on the third reading of the Education Amendment Bill (No 2), in this, thankfully, third reading speech, trying to inject some sensible evidence-based discussion into the debate on a couple of points.

I have listened with increasing dismay. I’ve actually listened very carefully to the language being used by the Opposition on this bill: we’re ideological; they’re pragmatic. And yet what it seems to be, when you boil it all down, what the guts of their opposition is to this bill, is that they’re miffed. They’re miffed that the bad law and bad policy decisions are being unwound. I remember, in her second reading speech, the Hon Tracey Martin said that we’re not unwinding everything that the previous Government did, only the bad bits. So what this bill does is unwind the bad bits. Nikki Kaye, particularly, is quite miffed about that, in her—as I wrote down when she was giving her speech earlier on—frenzied Orwellian opposition, which runs counter to the actual evidence-based approach that this Government is taking to it. So what this bill does is it improves the quality of the New Zealand education system, it marks the end—and this is where the miffed bit comes in—of a previous era, and it’s a new approach to maintain the integrity of the public and of our education system.

So, quickly, with regards to the cohort entry, I won’t go over all of the details of what that does, but what I do want to emphasise is the evidence-based approach, that it’s consistent. So the Government, frankly—and I think the public agrees—does not consider that children under the age of five years should be attending school. It’s too young and it can be damaging, which is consistent with the position taken by that Advisory Group on Early Learning in 2015, and both the New Zealand Principals’ Federation and the Institute for Early Childhood Studies at Victoria University of Wellington—that auspicious organisation—among others, expressed support for putting the school starting age back to five years of age. An evidence-based approach is very important.

On the requirement on the new registration criterion for private schools, requiring them to be physically and emotionally safe places for children, again—and I won’t labour the point—this was an issue where the Opposition opposed for the sake of opposing it, couldn’t really come up with a reason why, but said that, somehow, it wasn’t necessary. What officials told us is that there is a gap in the law that needs to be fixed, which is what this piece of legislation does. It’s important that we’ve got a safe environment, and examples were given—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I apologise to the member. I’ve set the clock up for a 10-minute speech, so you’ve got one-minute left.

Thanks, Madam Assistant Speaker. The current provisions in the Education Act 1989 do not enable the Secretary for Education to consider student safety when considering private school registration applications or to effectively respond to concerns about student safety through means other than suspension after they’ve been registered. Inserting the new registration criteria would give the Secretary for Education the power to take remedial actions proportionate to the issue if there’s a concern that a private school is not a safe place for students. Well, if that’s not a gap in the law that needs to be fixed, I don’t know what is.

This Government is preserving the integrity of our education system, based on sensible and pragmatic evidence with a belief system and a set of values.

Kia orana, Madam Assistant Speaker. The Hon Clare Curran seems to be obsessed with the idea that the Opposition is miffed. Well, I acknowledge that member has more reason than most in this House to feel miffed, but I can assure her that we’re not miffed about what is happening; we are, nevertheless, exasperated on behalf of the public of New Zealand and particularly parents of children of school age that—[Interruption] There’s an incessant banter going on—well, banter, no; that’s possibly a bit flattering—going on from the other side of the House. I haven’t actually heard a word of it, but I’d be grateful, perhaps, if the member may have the courtesy just to stop for a moment. Madam Assistant Speaker, I believe that that member has not stopped speaking the whole time I’ve been on my feet. Is that acceptable?

💬 Marja Lubeck: I’ve got so much to say.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order! I know it’s Thursday afternoon, but yeah, please. Thank you. Carry on.

I have completely lost the thread of the sentence that I was on, because of that incessant interruption.

The point I wanted to make was the exasperation we feel on this side of the House is because no New Zealanders voted for these measures at the last election. One of the really frustrating aspects of being in Opposition is to hear a coalition of three disparate parties who didn’t have a coherent sense of policy framework or even the idea that they would form a Government come out of an election which they didn’t present these ideas to the public with and now say they have a mandate to deliver them. Well, what we have, therefore, is a bill that, as I say, the public of New Zealand haven’t voted for and which, frankly, demonstrates hypocrisy, because you have got a Government that is trying to deliver measures that they say are in the best interests of the public and particularly of children, and yet really what it’s all about is greater ministerial control and taking away the choice that should be in the hands of individual schools and their boards of trustees and, in particular, parents.

Now, I want to make a comment on cohort entry. I might be slightly out of step here, because I do acknowledge the point that some people have made that for many children, starting school at or just below this age of five is not the right thing. But surely it’s about recognising to the needs of families, in particular. I started school when I was four, I was a couple of weeks away from my fifth birthday, and it was the right thing for—

💬 Michael Wood: Look how it turned out

Thank you. It was the right thing for my parents. I understand why they wanted to get rid of me at the earliest opportunity. My wife and I made the decision for our own children that they wouldn’t start school until they were nearly six, because we believed that that was best for them, and, in fact, they’ve turned out remarkably well and both have gone on to achieve extraordinary well. So my point is let’s not take away from parents the right to choose, and, in particular, let’s acknowledge the fact that for many parents it’s an economic necessity apart from anything else. There are so many families now, where the parents need to be able to go to work, that if the child is just a little bit short of his or her fifth birthday and it works for them, let that happen.

I don’t want to take a long call. The reasons that the National Party oppose this bill have been well articulated by my colleagues on this side of the House. We can’t stop it, because the numbers are against us, but let’s just remind ourselves that nobody voted for this bill at the last election.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Just to continue from the comments made by the member who just sat down, Tim Macindoe, perhaps we didn’t put it forward to the public at the time that private schools should have the same safety standards as we see in State schools and State integrated schools, but I wonder how many parents of those children in private schools actually know that different standards and requirements apply when it comes to the safety of their students in those schools. So sometimes we need to be proactive about these things, and that also goes to the comments that the member Simeon Brown made several times with regards to the evidence he would like to see before we can make changes when it comes to keeping students and staff safe.

It has been said already, and there is evidence with regards to the need for this, but, even if there were no evidence, would we have to wait until there is an accident or an incident and then start to legislate? It would seem that it’s very much like the National Party’s way of operating: wait till it all turns to custard and then start fixing it up—hence the housing crisis and many other issues we’re dealing with.

But, look, I really just want to say a thank you to all the individuals and organisations that have taken the time out to come in and put their case forward at our select committee. In total, 18 provided submissions. The officials also have done a wonderful job in helping us draft the bill, providing context, and answering questions that may have arisen from those submissions.

During the stages of this debate, we have discussed most of the main topics at length, so I don’t want to drag this out any longer than I need to. But I didn’t make a mention yet in any of my speeches of the Waitakere Area Principals’ Association submission, and I think it is worthy to just finish off with something that they had to say about the communities of online learning: “We concur with the words of Jan Tinetti, who, in a speech during the first reading of this Bill, said ‘it’s [the repeal of the legislation] not taking away from our really big provider, our Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu, or the Correspondence School—business as usual for them—and our virtual learning networks—business as usual for them’.”

So nothing actually changes in that regard, despite a lot of the misinformation that we may have heard during some of the stages in this debate. It’s my delight to commend this bill to the House.

I rise to give my final speech on the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). I want to start on a positive note, because this bill does contain one good thing. The good thing that it contains is a reform to the process by which universities may change their name. This reflects recent events in New Zealand where one of our—if not our most—premium universities, Victoria University of Wellington, decided that it would go about changing its name. Unfortunately, the university council attempted to make that change without the support of its community, with a significant proportion of students and alumni opposed to that change and with staff divided on it.

We at the Education and Workforce Committee heard submissions about, in fact, the ambiguity in the law as to whether or not the Minister of Education could approve or disapprove that change. Minister Hipkins did a good thing: he rejected that name change proposal. The Victoria University council should be acknowledged: they too did a good thing and dropped the proposal. But what this change in the law does is make it very clear for the future that if any institution is to change its name, it will require a resolution in Parliament.

I think it’s appropriate that universities, which are creatures of statute, should be accountable to the members of this House, on whom it will be incumbent in future to ensure that no name change can occur unless it is genuinely in the interests of a university and its community.

However, I move to the more negative aspects of this bill, which are unfortunately the reasons why we must oppose it. In doing so, I just first want to ask the question of members opposite: is this the best you’ve got in education? Is this the best that we are going to see? Because I do not think that parents—that mums and dads—when they’re thinking about what they want from schools, what they want to see improve for their children, are thinking about amendments like this.

First, we have the cohort entry policy. We’ve had all sorts of claims on the other side, but let’s be very clear: National absolutely preserved the rights of parents to choose the age at which their children started school. It has been the case in New Zealand that children don’t need to start school till their six, historically. National preserved that position. However, what we did do was we extended the choice by saying that we wanted to preserve the idea that anyone by their fifth birthday can start school. So we will allow for cohort entry so that a few children might start a few weeks before their fifth birthday.

So it is incredibly disingenuous of the members in this debate to have claimed that we were forcing children to start school before their fifth birthday. We did no such thing. What we did was provide an additional choice to some parents, who may, for example, have had an older sibling at the same school and wanted to do one drop off not two, or who may, for example, have observed that one school was doing a great job of embracing principles in Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum, was embracing play-based learning, or would be a good place for their child to be.

Parents and children have different circumstances, and they should be recognised by allowing parents to make the decisions that are best for their own children—a principle that the opposite side of the House simply refuse to uphold.

Then we move to the issue of the Teaching Council. This is petty, because what we have here is a backflip from a Minister who campaigned on giving autonomy to teachers in the running of their professional institution but then received advice from his own officials that in doing that he was putting at risk the public interest in terms of aligning the work of that council with the needs of the education system. He gave with one hand; he took with the other, and this is where he takes it, by saying that he will direct that council through Government policy statements. We oppose that.

Finally, before I sit down, I just want to talk about communities of online learning and what the removal of the provisions for these communities of online learning represents. What it represents is this Government’s failure to in any way create a framework or a foundation for the huge advancements that are happening in digital learning, that are happening with online platforms. Instead, they have removed a provision which would have allowed for new things to evolve. What we say on the side of the House is, actually, the Government has a role in ensuring that new innovations can take place so that we can embrace the best of online learning for our children into the future.

This bill is pure politics. It’s not about delivering for kids; it’s about unwinding sensible provisions by the former National Government. It does nothing on the issues that really matter. It does nothing, for example, for the hundreds of children waiting for early intervention support. It does nothing for the children who are not getting what they need out of their schools. We should judge this Government not by what it says but by what it does, and this bill is something we thoroughly oppose.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I am absolutely delighted to be the last speaker in this third reading of the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). I’m delighted in this bill because, as we have heard here this afternoon, particularly from this side of the House, it doesn’t undo everything that was passed in the original education amendment bill—just the stupid things, as my colleague Tracey Martin said.

Today, this bill is coming through and will pass, and it makes seven changes to the Education Act—seven critical changes. While we’ve heard—and we’ve just heard—that they may not be the biggest changes, I think they actually are. I think, if you ask the parents and the children—those young people that are starting school—you will find that they think that those changes are actually big. I think, if you talked to the principals and the teachers, you would find that they think those changes are big.

Now, out of those seven elements, I actually only want to talk about two, and I want to only take a short call here this afternoon because, actually, a lot of my colleagues on this side of the House have said most of it for me. But the two areas that I want to talk about are the communities of online learning and the cohort entry. So I’ll start with the communities of online learning.

It came in in the education amendment bill that was passed in 2017. But, actually, it hasn’t come in, because it wasn’t supposed to enact until the end of this year. So it’s interesting that we’ve heard a lot of argument on the other side here about how this is going to impact on Virtual Learning Network—who are absolutely fantastic and wonderful and amazing providers—and Te Kura. But it doesn’t come in until the end of this year, and they’re operating now, so how does it impact? It doesn’t. This means that they will be able to be part of the discussions that we have in the future.

In fact, what the original amendment bill did do is that it had the potential to set up an environment that was actually quite damaging and dangerous for young people. In fact, at the time there were a wide number of concerns that were raised. In fact, we heard from the Hon Tracey Martin that there were 1,852 submitters to the original amendment bill back in 2017. I think it was 79 percent—I know it was in the high 70s—were anti - these changes. Now, the fact that we only had 18 submitters, I think, in this last bill tells me that those people that were anti in the first place are very happy that we’re actually repealing that piece of legislation now.

So I just want to read this bit here about the original communities of online learning (COOLs)—there was no requirement for a COOL to use the New Zealand curriculum, teachers did not need to be registered, and children of any school age were allowed to attend a COOL instead of a school. Any age—that means any child from five years old could go to a COOL, an online learning environment. Now, while that might not sound that bad for the children that are coming from isolated areas—those children can attend kura now that are in isolated areas—where it becomes particularly disturbing is the number of children that are unable to be sustained in the physical schooling system from the age of five because supports had not been put in place year, after year, after year. So this Government has had to pick up a system without the appropriate learning supports to be able to sustain children with severe behavioural or learning needs. We’ve had to pick up a system that has been completely underfunded.

The answer from the previous Government was to put those children in front of a virtual network—to put those children in front of a COOL. That is why we are actually getting rid of this piece of legislation now and looking at the future—bringing in all of the educators and the parents of children who need that provision and listening to them in a proper way, and consulting in a proper way rather than just using it as a political distraction to say that we are dealing with those children who can’t sustain schooling. I know children as young as five who have been excluded from school and who still haven’t been back to school four years later because the supports have not been available.

I now want to talk about the cohort legislation. This is the bit that I am really excited about. I am excited that we are finally listening to the advice from the Advisory Group on Early Learning from 2015—the advice of the then National Government’s Advisory Group on Early Learning. I’ve spoken about that in my previous speeches here. I was a member of that particular group, but I take my hat off to those other people who were on that group: amazing academics in early childhood education and wonderful practitioners in early childhood education, who understand child development better than anybody else I’ve ever had the privilege to have a conversation with in this space. Those people said very clearly that we cannot let young people start school before the age of five. Even five can be considered very early on a global standard. Now, when we’ve heard it can be just as long as eight weeks, actually, eight weeks in the life of a five-year-old is quite a length of time and actually can make a big, huge difference in the development of a child.

Now, as a former school principal I know that when children start school, there is a triangular relationship between the school, the parent, and the early childhood provider. It is really important that we listen to all of those providers, but it is also really important that we bring our professional expertise to that conversation as well, because I’d say that out of any parent that I’ve had with children starting school at the age of five, probably about 95 percent of them would have told me that their children were ready at four, because we all know that all of our children are brilliant. I’m not being facetious; we all know that all of our children are brilliant, because every child is.

But my professional side, to me—the knowledge, the skills, the expertise that I bring, along with the knowledge, the skills, and the expertise that the early childhood teacher brings—I must put that first and foremost. The evidence-based research that I am privy to, I must put that first and foremost because that is in the best interests of the child.

That is what this bill is about here, today. As I’ve said before, we are putting some great wrongs absolutely right here, today, and that is why I am absolutely delighted to commend this bill to the House.