Education (Strengthening Second Language Learning in Primary and Intermediate Schools) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Education (Strengthening Second Language Learning in Primary and Intermediate Schools) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

It is a huge privilege to stand in this House tonight to be speaking on a piece of legislation that, in my view, has a number of people that have contributed to get it to this point. I want to acknowledge people across the House on this piece of legislation, because what I know is that, while we have managed to get this legislation to the House, there are members of Parliament, from different political parties, that have fought hard over the years to support greater second language learning in schools. I want to put on the record tonight my thanks to people like Steve Maharey, who has contributed in terms of my thinking around this legislation; and Sir Don McKinnon, who has done a huge amount in terms of Asian languages in New Zealand. I want to acknowledge people like Jeff Johnstone, who were involved in the development of this bill.

The main reason that I believe in this piece of legislation, but also in this policy, is fourfold. The first is that we are a country that is multicultural. We have huge diversity in New Zealand and, particularly in a city like Auckland, we have a huge number of people that have come to New Zealand to make it their home, and a lot of them want to have the ability to be able to speak to their grandparents, to their parents, and they need access to the particular language that will enable them to do that—whether that is Hindi, whether that is Mandarin, whether that is Korean languages. And the reality is that it’s not just about that; it is about the cultural connection. It is also about the future of our nation. It’s about recognising that we’re a small nation that has traded with the rest of the world, and the reality is, the more young people in New Zealand who have access to those second languages, it will mean that there will be businesses and trade opportunities in the future that we’ve never had.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Sorry to interrupt the member. You’re required to—

I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider this bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Excellent, thank you.

Thank you. The reality is, as well, that there is a very important other aspect of this bill. It is around recognising that there are many young people in New Zealand that don’t have access to Te Reo, and we want to ensure that we have that universal access in New Zealand. So what the bill does is mean that the Crown must fund this access in schools in New Zealand. That’s very, very significant for our nation, and it’s very important for the future of the language. There is a fiscal commitment that comes with that, but I’ve talked to a number of iwi and Māori leaders about the importance of ensuring that every young person in New Zealand can get access to learn Te Reo.

The other part of this is that we have also, in the bill, provided universal access to New Zealand Sign Language, and I do acknowledge that this Government has provided some funding in this area. But what we also know, which is the other benefit of this bill, is that languages are very important, not just for cultural competency, not just to enable Te Reo to survive in New Zealand, but also there is huge cognitive benefit from young people learning a second language. There’s a lot of research in this area about the fact that we will be a smarter nation if we have more young people learning second languages. So what the bill does is it enables a system to exist whereby schools will choose priority languages to be taught. What we know is that the difference between the priority languages that might be requested in schools in South Auckland might be very different to other parts of Hamilton, where potentially there will be another mix of languages. But what we’re very clear on is that there will be universal access to Te Reo under this bill.

The other thing that we need to understand and respect—and this is what is very unusual for a country like ours—is that New Zealand is one of the most diverse countries in the world, in parts of our country. There are 160 different languages spoken, and what we know is that, in many other education systems in many other countries in the world, there is huge access to languages, and so we are out of step, and that’s why I acknowledge people like Steve Maharey and Sir Don McKinnon, who have really pushed this for a long period of time.

I also want to acknowledge at this point what I think is also the other benefit of this. It is what I would call social cohesion, and we had a very good report recently by Sir Peter Gluckman and others from the Informed Futures group, which really puts up an argument, I think, about the fact that we need to continue to work hard to have social cohesion. So we’re not only going to get cultural competency, we’re not only going to get business and trade links in the future, we’re not only going to be a smarter nation, but we’re going to potentially have greater social cohesion as a result of this bill.

I do want to acknowledge, as I said before, that there is a fiscal commitment. We’ve estimated that it’s probably $40 million per year. We don’t underestimate the challenge that it will take to implement this bill. We do understand that there will need to be different resourcing and a different plan for each of the different languages. There’s a very big difference between how we would implement the delivery of additional Hindi in schools to, potentially Mandarin, to potentially Pasifika languages, to strengthening all of the good work that’s happening in Te Reo, and we do understand that there will be a different set of resources that may be required. We also need to make the point that what is really important is that, while we may have language assistants, we do invest in our teaching workforce. It’s very important that the quality of language provision is there. We know there are some amazing language teachers in New Zealand, but we know that there’s going to be a whole training component of this.

The other important point that I would make about the bill is that we are focused on the country having a national language policy, which is incredibly important to ensure that our language infrastructure and ecosystem is not just about schools; there’s an important role that we need to have in investing in languages in the community. That means respecting and supporting leaders in this area.

And I think the other thing that I want to acknowledge in this House around the first reading of this bill is that I don’t believe this bill is perfect. I do believe—and I’ve had discussions with other members across the House, and I want to acknowledge the Green Party, the Labour Party, and New Zealand First; we may not agree on every aspect of this bill, and there is a chance at select committee to improve it—that we have this once-in-a-generation opportunity to finally, massively strengthen the opportunity for people to understand, know, their heritage, but also to have those cognitive benefits.

So this is one of the great things that I’m proud of in my career—I acknowledge Marama Davidson; I acknowledge Chlöe Swarbrick; I acknowledge Chris Hipkins for the huge generosity and time that he’s given me; and others across the House, on this legislation to get it to this point, because, as I understand it, we’re going to have multiple political parties supporting it to select committee. So I really want to make that point, which is that there will need to be a whole conversation as to how we implement this. There will need to be a whole conversation as to how we choose priority languages. There will be a whole debate in select committee about the strengthening of Te Reo via this bill, in my view. But I don’t believe that this bill is necessarily perfect, and that’s why I want to work collaboratively with all members of the House, and the conversations that I have had with other political parties have been that now is the time.

We are a diverse nation, we’re a nation that looks out to the world. We have this huge opportunity with this piece of legislation—and the right funding and support—to work with all of those people that have fought hard for this across the House to ensure that every young person has the ability to learn a second language. Many of them will learn multiple languages, and I think that debate about the fact that there may be a year where it’s multilingual, where there may be the basics of multiple languages that young people learn—that it’s not just about that second language; it could be several languages—is a really important debate to have at select committee.

So I want to finish by again acknowledging that this is a big day in New Zealand’s history, that there have been multiple people, from Steve Maharey to Sir Don McKinnon, who have had huge vision around second language learning, and that I’m very proud to have this bill. And I want to acknowledge all of the people that have been involved in this bill, to bring it to the House, and then finally again to acknowledge the huge generosity of spirit, but also collaboration, that has come from members of Parliament across this House to bring this important Education (Strengthening Second Language Learning in Primary and Intermediate Schools) Amendment Bill to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s truly a pleasure to stand here in speak on this bill. I congratulate the Hon Nikki Kaye on having this bill pulled from the ballot. Just so you don’t think that we’ve gone and done something different, Labour will be supporting this bill through to select committee, and I’m happy to say that right from the outset. It was no surprise to me to see this bill in the ballot in the first place, because I know that when the Hon Nikki Kaye was the Minister of Education, a passion of hers was second language learning and the sector would not be surprised at this bill being here as well. It is something that we’ve known for a long time and it is a discussion that is worthy to be held.

Research shows second language learning is really important to the development in a child and in a learner the whole way through. And we haven’t really had a strategy as such that has been consistent in the New Zealand education system. I think that this is an opportunity to have that conversation, and that’s why we are happy to take this through to select committee.

But as the previous speaker, the Hon Nikki Kaye, said, this bill is not perfect and that’s why it’s important to have this conversation. And while I now might stand here and say where my areas of concern are, I don’t want that to be taken that we are not looking at being serious in this discussion. We are looking at being serious in this discussion. But I want it on record now about where I see the discussion needs to go to in the select committee and some of the issues that we need to discuss going forward in this area.

First and foremost, from my point of view, as someone that has come out of the education sector, I think it is really important to have the discussion with educators. We need to hear the issues that have existed in the schooling sector in the past around why second language learning has, in many schools, not been successful in the uptake. We need to hear how important this is to educators. We need to hear from the educators’ perspective about what they need to make second language learning strategy successful across the whole of the sector. Too many times, Governments over many years have not had the sector involved in that conversation. I’d need to say right from the outset that this is, as was pointed out, a massive opportunity, but also a massive opportunity for risk if we don’t get it right and bring the sector with us. So it is really important that that discussion is had, and also that we are not putting pressure on the brilliant local curriculum that we have in this country. We have a world-leading curriculum, and the world-leading curriculum has been supported by many different Governments over the years. It has transformed over the years and now we have the New Zealand curricula in that we have the Marautanga and we have The New Zealand Curriculum and we have other Māori-medium curriculum as well. And we can’t put pressure on those, that they become too constrained. It is really, really important that that flexibility still remains to develop a strong local curriculum for each individual school, maybe inclusive of this strategy, but we can’t put pressure on an already bursting system within those schools. So it is really important that we look at that side of it as well.

On the good sides, on the sides of strength, we do need to investigate that research around why second language learning is important. But at the same time, we need to look at other research around why other areas are just as important, why the arts are just as important, because while second language learning research does show that once this becomes part of a child’s life, they become really, really a master in their own language through the second language. The same can be said of music. A child can become a great mathematician, an even better mathematician, when they become strong in music. So we need to investigate—is it just as important to be learning a musical instrument, for example? Those sorts of questions are philosophical questions that need to be posed in this investigation.

Also, I’m really pleased to hear the member talk about Te Reo Māori and, reading the bill, I was really pleased to see the funding that was in this bill to be put into Te Reo Māori because we have a beautiful second language, or first language for many in this country, and we are the only country that can give Te Reo Māori its absolute due respect by using that as a strategy and implementing that strategy incredibly well. But at the same time, we must make certain that no strategy actually takes away from Te Reo Māori. That is incredibly important. I would ask that we make certain that our Māori medium schools are consulted really well within this consultation, because reading the bill—and this might be me—I couldn’t see that for those schools who operate under Te Marautanga o Aotearoa, which is the Māori-medium curriculum, English was being given its due respect as a priority language. Because as a former principal of a Māori-medium sector school, I had to ensure that my students were learning te reo Pākehā as their second language. So I think that’s a conversation that needs to be had in that space so that we’re not undermining Te Marautanga o Aotearoa as well.

Pacific languages—again, I was really pleased to see that there was an emphasis put on the Pacific languages in there; I am such a strong supporter of first language. I have seen how important that is for children—and that was mentioned by the previous speaker—who come from other countries or whakapapa back to other countries. It is really important that we are giving those opportunities, but we can’t do it just as a “let’s learn their songs or let’s just have a light glance at it.” It is really important that we give those languages their due respect for the value of those young people to know their whakapapa and their heritage, because when they know their heritage and their identity—and language is an important part of that—they will become much stronger citizens of New Zealand and they will become much stronger in their own identity. And that’s really important. So I was really pleased to see that coming through in the bill.

I did have a question around the likes of specialist schools when I was reading this bill and where they fit into this, because I felt that this could put pressure on specialist schools in a way that was not intended. I think that specialist schools that I know of that do Te Reo Māori really, really well, that there is room in that as their second language, but that will be a question and learning support area that I will be asking a lot of in the select committee process to make sure that we get it right in that particular space.

The previous speaker talked about the stretch on resources. Again, this is where we need to take the sector with us to talk about the different methods of delivery of language. We know now that we can bring technology into play. We’ve been through a perfect time to look at how technology could be part of that. But we do have a critical shortage of teachers across all sectors. I know that in language learning that is no different to any other sector. So we need to have a strategy in place for training up those teachers, and no matter whether we’re using technology in that space or not, the workforce component of this is just as important as the bill itself. So we need to make certain that we’re not putting something in place that actually stretches the profession or the resources or the delivery any further than what it already is.

We’ve talked about the fiscal commitment, the previous speaker talked about the fiscal commitment, and know that we’re going to be talking a lot more about that in select committee. That is a really, really important consideration that has to be made. Again, education is an area that is always going to be stretched because there’s always going to be areas that are really important. But we need to make certain that this is the best use of that money. So that’s where the research really comes into play. I’m looking forward to really looking into that and working, through our officials. In fact, I’m quite excited about delving into this and doing a really, for want of a cliché, deep dive into how important this is to our education sector.

Again, I guess, going back, the other question: is legislation the best answer? Yes, maybe it is, maybe it’s not. And again, that is something that will come through the select committee process. I know that, as the previous speaker said, we have this perfect opportunity to have this discussion. I am really looking forward to having that discussion. I am very excited and I’m very pleased that this bill came out of the ballot and that I’m going to be part of those discussions. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a great pleasure to take this call to support the Hon Nikki Kaye’s bill, the Education (Strengthening Second Language Learning in Primary and Intermediate Schools) Amendment Bill. This bill actually demonstrates the Hon Nikki Kaye’s passion for the education sector. I know, as a caucus colleague, she is always passionate about the education sector, but this bill shows how she wants to take this education sector to the next level. This is to equip our future generations to understand who we are. Yes, our foundation is bicultural, but we are a very, very multicultural country. This bill is not just about languages; it’s a lot more than that.

As a person who is multilingual, I understand the importance of speaking different languages, and as a person who has children born here in New Zealand, I also understand the importance of retaining those languages within our families—not just for the sake of speaking that language, but for a lot more than that. So my boys went to day care, because I always worked, and slowly what happened—because eight to nine hours they spent in their day care centre—when I used to pick them up they would get the opportunity to spend only two to three hours with us, so, slowly, English became their first language, and our mother tongue became their second language. Then, what happens, with time, in some families I know, is that then English becomes their sole language. They completely forget their own mother tongue. So, as I said before, this is not just for the sake of learning another language, it’s a lot more than that, as the Hon Nikki Kaye said. As a scientist myself, I can say this, that this definitely helps with cognitive skills development, and we also know that when children learn a second language, or more languages, from a very young age, they learn them really well. They learn them really well.

So we want to make sure, as the bill says, it is for primary and intermediate school—that is years 1 to 8. That is the perfect age and that’s where we want to target this. So for us, it’s not just about that. As we have heard from the member in charge of this bill, we are a very, very multicultural country. We speak more than 160 languages. Yes, we talk about this quite often, but what do we want to do with this? We want to make the most of this opportunity that is available to us because of us being so multicultural and so multilingual. We want to retain these languages and we want to go out and use these languages.

So, yes, at a social level, these languages are important for us; to understand other cultures, these languages are important. But in the long run, this understanding, understanding of these different languages and ability over future generations to speak these different languages, will also bring us economic benefits. We know we are a small nation. We are a trading nation and for us, trade relationships with other countries matter. When people go out and speak in their own language, then definitely that helps a creation of special bonds between people that are communicating.

These kinds of skills are really important for us, looking at the long-term prospect for us in New Zealand. I personally know a person who is from Christchurch, very much a Kiwi person, who speaks Hindi really well and in a very, very, I would say, articulate manner. I remember my very first meeting with him and I have seen how many Indian friends he has here. This is because he worked for a number of years in India. He learnt that language and he understands the importance of retaining that language to communicate with people and business communities here in New Zealand. Now he is also using that language again—after coming back here to New Zealand—to communicate back with businesses in India. So it’s that long-term vision that we need for us, for New Zealand, because we are becoming such a global place, and we need to understand other cultures. We need to have the ability to speak other languages. I think this is a great bill, and I really look forward to working on this bill with other members of the committee in the select committee process. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’d just like to start off my contribution this evening by congratulating the Hon Nikki Kaye for having her member’s bill pulled out of the ballot box—and, I think, rightfully so. It’s going to be a fantastic bill to be looking at at the Education and Workforce Committee. It’s going to be quite an exciting bill to be having the debate and the conversations around, and we do know that it is quite timely. As my colleague Jan Tinetti said before, there hasn’t really been a strategy around second languages, as such, within our education sector.

I myself don’t have specific experience within the primary education or intermediate school sector, but what I do have knowledge of is what it’s like in the early childhood sector, and particularly the area where I work, in Ashburton, where it’s very multicultural nowadays. I can recall this little gentleman, a delightful young man; at the age of two, he could speak three languages. He had two parents from different countries, plus English in New Zealand, and I tell you that he was one bright cookie. What is quite fascinating is that when they use language a lot more as they get older, the words from the different languages come through; so it’s actually quite difficult as an adult to decipher what it is they’re actually saying, because all these different words from different languages are coming through. But what we do know, and what the research has said, and what others have mentioned this evening is that learning a second language is extremely beneficial and really good for cognitive development. When children learn a second language, that is, I think, the prime time for people to be learning a second language. I know, myself, at my age, I would find it extremely difficult to pick up a second language, but when children are young, their minds are just sponges and they soak everything up. I think that’s a fantastic time to be introducing second languages.

I’m extremely pleased to see Te Reo and sign language, obviously, front and foremost in this. And whilst I see there are at least ten priority languages, I do have some—not concerns or queries around that, but I know that that will be discussed further in select committee. One of the things that I’ve been thinking about with this piece of legislation is that, yes, I think it’s so important that children and families have, identify, and use their own language. That’s really important because it gives them an important sense of self and identity and a greater sense of belonging, but I have concerns, though, that whilst it’s going to be consulted on amongst the community—and I’m hoping also, as my colleague Jan Tinetti said, the teaching sector will be involved in this as well—as the Hon Nikki Kaye pointed out, what might be a priority language, let’s say, up in Auckland could well be a different priority language somewhere down in the South Island. And my concern is that there might be a child who is hugely passionate and excited about the language they are learning at their school in Auckland and then they shift to the South Island and that language is not an opportunity for them anymore. So that is one of the concerns that I have, and how we can work with that and mitigate those sorts of things happening. Because that is a reality; people shift around quite frequently around the country.

The other concern I have is around our teachers and the skill base that they may have to be able to teach second languages. I mean, we’ve got teacher shortages, as we know, but how are we going to ensure that we’ve got the educators that can provide these second languages? That’s just something that I think is important to consider.

The other thing I wanted to—I had some other train of thought, but now it’s just gone from my head. But I also think—oh yes, that’s what it is. Thinking about when children move from primary and intermediate schools to secondary schools, is the ability therefore in respect of that language that they may have learnt and become actually really passionate about going to be lost because it’s not available in that secondary sector? And what we do know is that, if we don’t continually practise something or speak a language or whatever it might be, we could potentially lose that skill, and what we want to see is some of these skills and these languages learnt at school be able to be continued on into the workforce. There’s huge opportunity there. So they’re just some of the things that I think are really fantastic, a couple of concerns, but I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. So I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to address the Education (Strengthening Second Language Learning in Primary and Intermediate Schools) Amendment Bill. I find it ironic that New Zealand First is the only party that will stand up for Te Reo and sign language in this country. I absolutely find it ironic.

I’m going to read from this summary, the general policy statement of the bill: “The Bill makes it clear that Te Reo Māori and … Sign Language are, as … official languages … priority languages and will be resourced.” There is nothing in this bill that secures resourcing. There are no progressions for sign language. There are progressions for Te Reo Māori, but they have not been implemented, whether it be by a National Government or whether it be by a Labour Government. They have not been resourced to be delivered—they are yet to be resourced to be delivered. With regard to sign language, there are no progressions. There is no requirement inside the New Zealand school system to actually deliver the progressions of an official language, which is New Zealand Sign Language. There is no resourcing, either by a National Government or by a Labour Government. I find that fascinating.

Then it says, in the summary, “The current law requires schools to take reasonable steps to enable children to learn Te Reo and this will not change.” “Reasonable steps” does not say that they will. “Reasonable steps” does not say that they will not be superseded by Spanish or French or whatever other of the 10 languages that the Government will decide are the priority languages of this nation. I know, sitting at Mahurangi College, the pressure that came from that community to say, “Why are we learning Te Reo Māori? We should actually be learning French.” “Why are we learning Te Reo Māori? We should be learning Mandarin.”

The other thing that this bill doesn’t do is it doesn’t say what’s going to come out of the school day. We already know—I’m fascinated; I’m sorry, my Labour Party colleagues—by the fact that the Labour Party, who knows how stressed and how full the New Zealand Curriculum is and how much our teachers have to deliver, are supporting another thing to put inside our teachers’ day—another thing that our teachers will have to deliver, without removing anything else. So I do find it fascinating that both the National Party and the Labour Party decide—and I’m going to make an assumption around the Green Party, but I’m sure the member will stand up and speak for themselves—that they have the numbers to actually get this through to select committee.

My Labour Party colleagues here have said that this is an opportunity to have a discussion. I respect Jan Tinetti as a representative and as a front-line teacher—probably more than many others I respect—when she speaks on this topic. But by putting this through to select committee, there is a stamp of approval. To then remove ones approval as this goes through the House is a much bigger deal than to stand here and say right now we do not agree.

New Zealand First does not agree. We do not agree that in this moment, at this time, when Te Reo Māori is still not throughout the country in the way that it should be—and the Hon Nikki Kaye can frown as much as she likes and say that we’re never going to take away from Te Reo Māori. She’s not on the front line at schools where parents are at the door. She’s not on the front line in what is the current argument around New Zealand history and making sure that we have the resourcing for Te Reo Māori and making sure that we actually counter those communities inside New Zealand that say, “Why are our children learning that language? It has no point.”

This is not the time for this argument. The time for this argument is when we all can converse in a conversation with English, Te Reo Māori, and sign language. That is the moment to have this argument. That is the moment to bring this sort of a bill to the House. That is not this moment yet. We have a lot of work to do on the official languages of this country. If we want to start early, then let’s start at kindergarten. Let’s start at early childhood education, like Toru Fetu over here in Wellington. Let’s start, actually, with the language that is of those small children and entrench it in them and make them know, from two years old and three years old, that this is part of who you are. Let’s not decide that we’re going to put it into the compulsory sector. Let’s actually have some sort of conviction around our beliefs and say who you are matters, the language that you use inside of your home matters, and, from the moment you are born, we will acknowledge it—not decide that we’re going to put something else into the New Zealand school system when we don’t have enough days at the moment for what the Government has already put inside the curriculum. We will oppose the bill.

E Te Mana Whakawā, kei te kōrero ahau mō te pānuitanga tuatahi o te pire.

[Madam Speaker, I am speaking about the first reading of the bill.]

💬 Kiritapu Allan: Chur!

Tau kē! That was my, I guess, positive attempt to open up with a second language. It’s not a full second language, but I, like many others in this country, would have loved the opportunity to have had a second language and to have absorbed that and had a hunger for it as a young person. I am not sure which language that previous speaker from New Zealand First, Tracey Martin, was speaking, but it was the language of negativism—of misery, quite frankly—and not seeing—

💬 Mark Patterson: Common sense.

No, there was no sense. It was nonsensical. There was no sense. Another New Zealand First member is saying she was talking sense. No, she wasn’t, because clearly she either hasn’t read the bill or, even more so, read the intent behind the bill. The fact that we have the Labour Party, and hopefully others, supporting this through to select committee is a testament that there is goodwill behind what the Hon Nikki Kaye is doing with this and the passion that she brings to this particular topic.

We would like to see second languages for children in this country push boundaries, and open doors, and see opportunities that we haven’t yet seen before them. I only need think about my own daughters, my two—they’re now upper teenaged—daughters. I’ve thought about the languages through their State school that they’ve had a taste of or a touch of, and what that has done for them. I quickly jotted down that they’ve had Spanish, French, Te Reo Māori, and sign language. I wanted them to pick up Mandarin; they weren’t so keen. Mum was a bit disappointed, but the point is, they had opportunities, but at the schools that they attended, there wasn’t the resourcing to carry on some of these opportunities. It was sort of a stop and start experience for us as a family. So what this bill is doing is looking at a framework, and a comprehensive framework that we hope will have cross-party parliamentary support—apart from New Zealand First—to have a pathway for children here in New Zealand. The Minister, should this progress, will be required to consult on and gazette a national languages policy, something that we don’t have—something that this country needs.

I’d also like to specifically highlight one section, and that’s the fact that school boards will decide which priority languages will be available for learning in each school. Now, the reason why I like this, having been a prior school board chair myself—and I might just quickly add in the reason why we really didn’t support the education hubs that were suggested in the Tomorrow’s Schools review—is because school boards truly do have—they’re made up of parents, right, primarily? And they really do have an eye—they are parents. They have their children in the schools, and I think that schools go through what I’d call life cycles. The primary school that I was the school board chair of when my children were there looks a little bit different now. In fact, being a little bit more specific, there are more Filipino kids right now in Ellerslie School, and I think Tagalog might feature as a priority language—I don’t know. Stanhope Road School, in my area, has got a hugely burgeoning Filipino population. So for school boards to have some guidance and direction in how the priority languages would play out for each school is a very good, very localised, and very customised option.

I pick up and I understand from the other side of the House—and, clearly, even in the speeches here tonight—that there will be challenges around the workforce and the implementation, investing in the workforce, and figuring out where some of those pinch points will be. But we should look forward to this, corporately, as a House, taking it to select committee. This, as we know, will not have enough time to make it through in the 52nd Parliament, but, I truly hope that whichever Government of the day will pick this up in the 53rd Parliament. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of the Green Party and add our voice of support for this piece of legislation through to select committee.

I will just go over the intent of the legislation again. The bill aims to ensure that every child in years 1 to 8 has the opportunity to learn a second language, and would require the Minister of Education to set at least 10 national priority languages for schools following public consultation on what those languages would be. A requirement would be placed on the Crown to resource teaching a second language in primary and intermediate schools. Te Reo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language will be on the final list of 10 or more languages schools can choose from. New Section 60C, inserted by clause 5, stipulates that every board for each primary school it administers would maintain a priority language programme. This programme would have to identify from the list of languages at least one school priority language. The purpose of this is to ensure all students are provided with the opportunity to learn the school priority language as a second language. A board cannot adopt a priority language without consulting with the school community and having regard to its views.

I think, and what I’ve been hearing from the speeches, is that there is an understanding of the value, in terms of child development, of having multiple languages. And I echo the last speaker’s sense of, I guess, a bit of loss about not having had that opportunity myself as a kid, and how much harder it was for me to learn a second language in my late teens compared to the kids I see running around, lucky, in families with multiple languages. The fact is that language opens up worlds, it opens up opportunities as well as pathways in our brains, and this is something, I think, probably everyone in this House wants for our kids.

The areas that we will be engaging on, in particular, in the select committee, from that foundation, is about the implementation of this, and I also echo the views of previous speakers of needing to really hear from teachers and parents and, hopefully, students themselves about their views on how we could do this.

But also for the Green Party, we’ve been, for a very long time, an advocate for Te Reo being taught compulsorily through our schools. Because when we talk about language opening up worlds to me there’s nothing sadder than the fact that the worlds that exist within the country that I find myself born into are not open to me because I do not have the reo to be able to access them. And that makes me a poorer partner in this country because of that. I am of the generation of activists who didn’t learn the reo because we thought we were taking resources away from Māori and their attempts to learn the language. That tension that I experienced in consideration of learning, or not, the language is part of what we hope to address by making it compulsory in our schools—to ensure that that teaching resource is available for everyone, that Māori don’t have to fight for that scarce resource, and that as Pākehā we’re not taking it up and taking it away from Māori, as it is their birthright to have that language.

So we are pleased to support this bill, and hope to see changes through the select committee that enable the compulsory delivery of Te Reo Māori and the resourcing of that through all of our schools.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. I thought I’d take a little bit of a different angle to this speech. My colleague Jan Logie just spoke about the fact that it was so hard for her as an adult to learn a second language, and I can completely appreciate it. Having grown up in Holland, there’s no other way that you could have grown up speaking another language, because if you grow up in a country where English is not the first language, you will automatically pick up another one to be able to cope outside of your country.

So I was born in the Netherlands and my first language is Dutch. But, funnily enough, that wasn’t the first language I spoke, because in the Netherlands they don’t dub movies and they don’t dub TV programmes, and the first programme I watched was Sesame Street, or, as they say in Germany, Sesamstrasse. So I could count to 10 in German before I could even count to 10 in Dutch, and that was the way that you grew up—it was similar. So I didn’t learn a lot of the different languages at school. I just picked it up from TV and programmes. Having said that, I did take six languages at school because that was my strength, and I’d like to think that somehow it does boost brain power when you learn a different language.

My son, Max, grew up bilingual, and I would like to tell a little story about that in Dutch. I will translate it into English afterwards.

Vanaf het moment dat Max geboren werd, sprak ik Nederlands tegen hem. In feite deed ik dat al voordat hij geboren werd. En hoewel zijn vader een Kiwi is, had hij ook Nederlands geleerd terwijl wij in Nederland woonden. Dus het was heel makkelijk voor ons gezin om samen Nederlands te praten. Maar in het begin dacht ik altijd dat het géén goed idee was. Hij haalde de woorden door elkaar en sprak altijd zijn eigen taaltje. Maar zodra hij 5 jaar oud was, viel het allemaal op zijn plek en sprak hij allebei de talen vloeiend. En dat is hartstikke leuk, want nu kan hij met zijn familie, zijn opa en oma in Nederland, praten. Ik heb ook gemerkt dat hij makkelijk andere talen oppakt—Spaans, Te Reo Māori—en we weten dat uit onderzoek een tweede taal spreken is zeker, heeft zeker, veel voordelen.

So, basically translated, I said that I spoke Dutch to my son, Max, before he was even born, and I continued to do that all through his growing up. It was easy for me to do that because his dad, when we lived in Holland, also learnt to speak Dutch, and the contrast is quite significant, because my son picked it up from being a small child and just learning it very easily—automatically, it just, basically, got into his system—whereas for my husband, it was a much more difficult process as an adult to try and learn this language.

Actually, I want to say to parents who are bringing up their child bilingual: don’t be scared to continue on with it. It may seem for a while that the child seems quite confused. As my colleague Jo Luxton said, they start mixing up the different words, with a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and you think, “Oh my goodness, what have I done? Have I brought this child up the wrong way?”, but at some stage it will fall into place. They’ll know exactly what to use when, and you’ll see that they pick up other languages much more easily.

So my son picked up some Spanish when they had that at primary school, and Te Reo Māori. It all became really easy for him, and the great advantage for him, of course, is that he has a really good link to his heritage and to his identity, and he can speak to his family in the Netherlands and he makes those connections with his grandparents, for example.

Now, the fact is that he picks up the other languages quickly because, as they say, speaking one language makes it easier to speak another, but we do know from research that speaking a language can improve brain functions like problem solving, multitasking, and decision making. It could even be said that speaking another language can help you make more rational decisions, but I think I’d leave the door wide open for other people to dispute that, so I won’t be going on to that.

I’m really looking forward to looking into the research and to investigating this matter when it comes to our select committee. It will be great to find out whether or not all this research will add to the benefits that we’re hoping it might.

On a very different note, in the 52nd Parliament, six MPs at the time chose to repeat our Oath of Allegiance in different languages, with them being Hindi, Tongan, Samoan, Dutch, Korean, and Mandarin, and that is a real testament to New Zealand being an inclusive and diverse country. I think having us looking at this particular topic is a really positive thing, and I’m looking forward to it coming to our select committee.

So I too support the bill and I commend it to the House to go to select committee. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Tēnā koe, e Te Mana Whakawā. It’s a pleasure to rise this evening to speak to the first reading of the Education (Strengthening Second Language Learning in Primary and Intermediate Schools) Amendment Bill. I think this is the most consequential bill that we’ve discussed today for the future of our people and our nation. I’d like to start off by acknowledging the Hon Nikki Kaye.

This is a fantastic bill and I’m so proud that it is a National Party MP that is bringing this to the House. But I thought I’d just take a step back today and tell you a personal story of a situation, since I’ve lived overseas, to give you a sense of the importance of languages for New Zealanders when they’re abroad and New Zealanders when they’re home. This personal story takes me back to the time when I was a young policy analyst at the OECD in Paris. I was sitting down at a meeting. In my team, my head of division was Italian, my direct boss was French, and my colleagues were Russian, Ukrainian, English, French, and German. In the course of this one-hour-long meeting, the conversation shifted between languages, from French to Italian to German to Russian and a small fraction of that was in English. That is an example of the struggles that many Anglophones, or English-only speakers, face when they’re overseas.

I learnt very, very little from that conversation over that hour-long period. Over the course of those few years I struggled because I hadn’t had a second or third language behind me. I say that because, in fact, many New Zealanders struggle with learning a second language. There were many New Zealanders at the OECD in Paris; few of them knew any other languages other than English. I think that this is quite common in Anglophone countries where we assume that everybody else in the world speaks our own language, and so we have a bit of a—possibly—arrogant attitude when we go out there in the world today.

Research indicates that, actually, learning languages gets better the more you learn; so the marginal effort to learn a language—whether it’s a second or third—actually gets easier and easier. So with respect to the conversation we’ve been having about Te Reo and the importance of Te Reo—and I absolutely acknowledge the importance of Te Reo in this country—we should be agnostic on whatever languages are taught and whatever languages our kids learn, because we know that the marginal effort to learn a third or fourth or fifth language reduces significantly.

So this is just such a fantastic bill. I just want to, again, reiterate the importance—we’ve talked about domestically, but it’s also really important in that we’ve got a million expatriate New Zealanders travelling the world, doing well in the commercial sectors overseas, and it’s extremely important that we arm these Kiwis with the tools they need to succeed in the world today. We’ve talked about languages like Mandarin, which is extremely important for where we are placed in this geographical context.

So I am really, really excited about this bill and look forward to hearing all the submissions during the Education and Workforce Committee process. Let’s not forget about the vision here. The vision is that when kids leave school, they all know a second language. This bill is a part of that, but it’s not the only measure that I think we need to take in order to get us down that long-term, strategic path. Another thing that I’d like to see in this debate is the role of things like exchange programmes, because, quite frankly, actually learning languages is best when you’re immersed in those languages. I want to do a special shout-out to two schools in my electorate: Birkdale North School in Birkdale, who does French and Māori immersion; and Birkdale Primary School, who do Māori immersion. So we commend this bill to the House—looking forward to select committee.

Ko te mihi tuatahi ki Te Atua, nōna nei ngā mea katoa. Ko te mihi tuarua ki Te Whare e tū nei. Tēnā koe. He mihi mahana ki a koutou katoa. I te taha o tōku matua ko Roy rāua ko Joan ōku tūpuna. Nō Tinimaka rāua ko Irimotu rāua. I te taha o tōku whāea ko Patrick rāua ko Naira ōku tūpuna. Nō Irimotu rāua hoki. Ko John rāua ko Trisha ōku mātua. Ko Patrick tōku tungāne. Ko Ginny Andersen ahau. Tēnā koutou katoa.

[The first acknowledgment goes to the Lord, for he is the creator of all things. The second acknowledgment goes to the House before us. Greetings. On my father’s side, Roy and Joan are my grandparents. They are from Tinimaka and Irimotu. On my mother’s side, my grandparents are Patrick and Naira. They are also from Irimotu. John and Trisha are my parents. Patrick is my brother. I am Ginny Andersen. Greetings one and all.]

I am a product of our education system, reluctantly taught Māori 30-odd years ago, when it wasn’t trendy as it is now. I’m hugely grateful for the fact that I had that opportunity. I’m reminded of when I look at the Māori word for library, matapihi ki te ao, because to me it is a glimpse through a window into another world, and it enables me to understand life from a different perspective. I think that is what this bill does: it provides an opportunity to our young people in New Zealand to have a look through someone else’s eyes to understand a culture and a way of being that’s different to the one that we know, that we grew up in.

But, saying that, this bill is only supported to select committee, for the very reasons that Tracey Martin has already raised tonight. They are very real concerns that I share as well. I see the huge strain that our education sector is under, and I see the huge strain that teachers are under to deliver Te Reo Māori alone. I will say that I believe I want my kids and I want others to prioritise Māori. I believe that. I believe that strongly.

When I was 13 years old and I got to choose, in form 3, what language I chose, I was told that if I chose Te Reo Māori, I wouldn’t be in a top stream, because it was not an academic language. I was sent home to choose from German, Latin, Japanese, and French. That’s only in 1989—that’s not that long ago. We have come an incredibly long way. I didn’t do it, by the way. I did Māori, obviously, and I was in the third stream from the top. That was because of the support of my parents, largely, and a home background that didn’t accept what was the status quo in the school curriculum at the time.

But what is important to note is that we have come an incredibly long way, and I would like to acknowledge Kelvin Davis for the massive amount of work that he has put into programmes like Te Ahu o te Reo Māori, that encourage and strengthen the ability for teachers to be able to speak in Māori in the classrooms. That is one of the main obstacles that I see as a parent going into classrooms. You have teachers who are willing and wanting to be able to deliver in Te Reo but haven’t had the support and the training to have confidence to get up and speak. That is the area that we need to continue to work on: to encourage our teachers to feel confident, to love the sound of Te Reo Māori, and to be really enjoying teaching it to a classroom of kids, who will only then see the joy of it, by seeing that same confidence and enjoyment.

So I would like to acknowledge the good work that goes on in terms of encouraging and strengthening Te Reo Māori. I believe that we need to continue to do that to be in a position to continue to grow as a country. It is what makes us different to the rest of the world: the fact that we have Te Reo Māori in New Zealand and no other country does.

So while I think it’s incredibly ambitious to have 10 languages, as this bill proposes, it still deserves the attention of submitters, of the education community, of parents, and of others who would be overseeing this, to have their comments brought forward through the course of submissions. I do think that given the state of the education system after National left it, to endeavour to roll out 10 languages for every school is incredibly ambitious.

Second language learning does make sense, and we know that it makes sense that if someone learns another language it opens up your brain in ways that enable you to be more receptive to learning more things, and that is a good thing. The intention of the bill is to strengthen access to a second language in primary and intermediate schools, and covering all from year 1 to year 8. So I commend the concept. I have questions around the ability to deliver, and I think that we should be speaking Māori much more than we already do. Nō reira, kia ora koutou, and kia ora e Te Māngai.

Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa, mālō e lelei, talofa lava, namaste, ni hao. This has been a very proud moment in my career, to be standing here and listening to the debate this evening. I want to acknowledge all of the speakers. I didn’t agree with everything that all of the speakers said this evening, but I do want to raise a number of points that I think have been very, very well made by a number of speakers.

The first is, this is more than just our education system. There are many children, as Jo Luxton has mentioned, who are in early learning, who want to have access and their parents want them to have access, to learn from a very young age. We support that. What we’re trying to do with this bill is enable us to ensure that in our compulsory sector we get additional resource. We also take the point that was being made by other speakers, around ensuring at secondary school we have good access via NCEA and other language learning support in our secondary schools.

The other point that I want to make this evening is absolutely around the fact that we do support ensuring that we get greater access to Te Reo Māori in our schools. We see this as an “and/and”. As my learned colleague Dan Bidois has said, not only do we know the benefits if a young person at a very young age learns a language, it may mean that it’s much easier for them to learn a second and a third language. So we see this as an “and/and”. The other point that I want to make, and I do want to correct the Hon Tracey Martin, is that the whole point in the bill is that Te Reo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language will finally be funded and guaranteed by the Crown. That is a very important aspect of this bill, and as I travel the country and I meet with iwi, and I meet with leaders in our community, I’ll be making that point.

The other point that I want to make—and it was made, again, well by a number of speakers in this House—is it’s more than just learning a second language in school. It’s about connecting with family. It’s about people being able to speak to their grandparents, who they may never have been able to communicate with before. This is about a wider vision for New Zealand. Many of us are travellers in this country. We travel across the world. We work across the world. The capacity and the opportunities that can be provided for more New Zealanders being able to speak a second language are massive. So many Kiwis—there’s more than a million Kiwis in other countries—find themselves in situations where they would love to be able to converse with colleagues, where they don’t get the opportunities. For such a diverse nation, it’s been well written that it is unusual for us to be more monolingual, and we need to change that.

I just want to again make the point that many people across the House—and again, it comes to the point made by Tracey Martin—have fought hard for additional investment. I know there are other members across the House, and on this side, that have approached Ministers and argued for language programmes or programmes to support different community organisations.

The reality is what this bill does is it actually says we need to have a national language policy so that we have the resourcing that is required to follow this legislation, so that, finally, we will be able to have a clear strategy around the numbers of teachers that we need, the way that we invest in different community organisations, the recognition that, for some of our Pasifika friends, the reality is if we don’t do something in this country, we may seriously lose the opportunity for generations for those languages to thrive. We heard that at select committee before, particularly around early learning and Pasifika languages. The reality is this is a burning platform. It’s a massive opportunity in history, where we’ve got cross-party support to tackle this issue.

I’m very, very proud to have brought this bill to the House. It’s been worked on by so many different people. But I acknowledge that it cannot be legislation alone. It must have this national language policy and it must have investment with it. We are not naive about the time that it may take to implement this bill to be able to ensure that we have the teachers that we need; that we have the language assistance that we need that, as Jo Luxton has pointed out, we have the online learning provision that we need; that the professional development is there; and that the kaumātua and other community leaders are on board.

I am confident that this is a massive step for New Zealand to enable second language learning for our people and that there will be many benefits, from a cognitive perspective, a cultural perspective, and a social cohesion perspective. I am very proud to support this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to. Those of that opinion will say Aye; to the contrary, No. The Ayes have it. The question is that the Education (Strengthening Second Language Learning—oh, sorry, apologies.

[Clerk announces bill’s first reading]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Apologies for racing ahead. The question is that the Education—

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I called for a party vote.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): My apologies; I didn’t hear you. A party vote’s been called for, but the bill’s been read a first time. I’ve just been advised that because the reading has been announced, I can’t just go in reverse, but you can seek leave for a party vote to be taken.

I seek leave for a party vote to be taken.

Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? I’ll ask the Clerk to conduct a party vote, please.