Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3)

I present a legislative statement on the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3).

SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon JAN TINETTI: I move, That the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3) be now read a third time.

I’d like to start by thanking once again those who took time to submit on this bill and the hard-working members of the Education and Workforce Committee who carefully evaluated the views of the public and helped strengthen this bill by providing useful suggestions and deliberation.

This bill will provide important and necessary changes to the Education and Training Act 2020 that will support great outcomes for students across the education sector. It will support the rangatiratanga of wānanga, enable school boards to better fulfil their role in keeping our schools safe, strengthen school governance, and increase accountability and transparency in education institutions.

The most important and significant change in this bill is the establishment of a new governance framework for wānanga to better recognise their mana and rangatiratanga. I am going to leave it to my colleague the Hon Kelvin Davis to speak to these changes and the other proposals that impact kaupapa Māori education in detail.

I would like to mihi to those people who are in the gallery to support this, but also, as the education Minister, I want to show my absolute delight that something, as we heard my colleagues say in the committee of the whole House, that has taken a significant amount of time has got to this point. I am absolutely excited and ecstatic that we are able to pass this here today.

Another important change in this bill that we haven’t heard too much about is the strengthening of school board eligibility requirements to ensure that they adequately reflect the role the school board members have in providing a school that is a physically and emotionally safe place for students and staff. That is really important. The changes that we are making around board eligibility, when they come on to board membership, are all about the emotional and physical safety of our students and staff.

The bill ensures that people who have been convicted of an offence listed in Schedule 2 of the Children’s Act 2014 are not eligible to serve on a State school board unless they have been granted an exemption by the Secretary for Education. This is something that has been raised with me a number of times around keeping our young people safe by looking at those board members and how we can strengthen that. Today we are putting right something that was a bit of an anomaly in the previous legislation. The bill also empowers the secretary to conduct audits on school board members to ensure that they meet eligibility criteria.

In parallel to these changes, a code of conduct for school board members was recently issued, which makes clear board members’ responsibilities and expected standards of behaviour. Both the code of conduct and these eligibility changes contribute to safeguarding our schools and increasing the confidence of school staff, students, and the school community that board members are suitable for the role and acting appropriately.

I would like to thank particularly the New Zealand School Trustees Association, who have had a lot of input into developing both the code of conduct and the changes that we are making through this bill here today.

The bill enables the ministry to publish or disclose data relating to the socio-economic status of children attending early childhood education services, and their families, for the purpose of developing an early childhood equity index. A really important part of this is that we found that, again, there was a bit of an anomaly around being able to share that data across from Statistics New Zealand, and we are able to do that quite easily after this. I’m really happy that we can do this to ensure that that equity index can be developed in its entirety. It is really important to make certain that we have equal opportunities right from our youngest learners within the system.

The bill makes three changes to the board election provisions to ensure that the governance of our schools is representative and efficient. The first of these we haven’t heard a lot about either, but this is actually really critical. The first is a one-off practical change to shift the timing of the next mid-term school board elections to November of this year. It is important that we get this legislation through right now, because that’s November of this year.

The 2022 triennial school board elections were moved to allow time for changes to be made to school board election settings. This shifted the next mid-term elections to March 2024, which means election processes would need to begin in the summer holidays. This amendment avoids this impractical timing by reverting schools to the usual election timetable, and it is something that schools have wanted.

The second change modernises and expands school board member co-option and appointment criteria to ensure that boards reflect, as far as reasonably practicable, the genders, sexualities, and sexes of the student body and the community of the school and the diversity of schools’ disabled students and disability community when deciding on members to co-opt or appoint. This update makes the criteria for school board co-option more inclusive and encourages board members to think about how they can best reflect the diversity of their school students and community. I remind people in this House that we are talking about 5 percent of boards who use the co-option as a process to make sure that their communities are appropriately represented within their board of trustees, and this is a prompt for them to think about the different diversities within their school community.

The final change to school board election provisions is to enable school boards to fill the student representative position if a student is not elected at the annual September elections. Currently, if no student representative is elected at the September election, the vacancy cannot be filled until the next election. This change will allow the vacancy to be filled and support the Government’s priorities in education to reduce barriers and increase student participation.

The bill builds on previous amendments that have strengthened police vetting requirements for non-teaching and unregistered workers and contractors at schools and early childhood services. Again, we’re talking about the safety of our young people, which is critically important.

There are other changes that this bill is making to support accountability and transparency within our education sector. It requires universities and wānanga to publish information about the remuneration and benefits of employees and former employees for amounts of $100,000 or more, improving transparency within that part of the sector. The bill restricts the appointment of the chief executive of Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu to a term of five years, with the ability to reappoint for further terms. Finally, the bill makes a number of minor and technical amendments to the Education and Training Act to ensure that it is fit for purpose and to tidy up and modernise the language within the Act.

I am convinced of the positive and meaningful impact that this bill will have on our education sector, particularly the new enabling framework for wānanga that has taken many, many years but is a significant reflection of the progression in the relationship between the Crown and wānanga. I am absolutely delighted to commend the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3) to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Mr Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak on this. Well, my comments in a previous debate on this bill have been borne out by the Minister’s speech. It took eight minutes before she mentioned the wānanga. My point is that the wānanga is not first and foremost in this legislation. The Minister has got a piece of legislation here that tidies up data sharing, timing of school boards, elections, secondments to school boards, police vetting of early childhood education (ECE)—but in the gallery, we have people who came here to hear about the groundbreaking change for the wānanga. The importance of this for the wānanga has been completely undermined by sandwiching it in with other bits and pieces of legislation. It has been disrespectful and it has not enabled a full process to ensure that the implementation of this legislation for the wānanga can go ahead.

I am delighted for the wānanga that they have had success in achieving Crown or non-Crown entities. But I am sure they are not delighted to be called “category A wānanga”, “category B wānanga”, “category C wānanga”—they should have had the full concentration of this Government and of the ministry officials in getting this legislation right. The wānanga have been asked to compromise and they have done that graciously, but they should not have been asked to make that compromise, and I apologise to them that they have been sandwiched in with data sharing, timing of school boards, secondments to school boards, ECE, and police vetting. You should not have been put in that position. You should not have been pushed to the eighth minute of discussion in this.

It is important that we recognise why this legislation needed to come into play. And, again, it’s about the proud history of the three wānanga, dating back to 1981. Each of the three wānanga have quite different historical evolution, some by iwi: Te Wānanga o Raukawa, in 1981, arose from their very strong iwi base. Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, which I had the privilege of working alongside for over two decades: pan-iwi, and it had a different history, driven out of the passion and the innovation of Rongo Wetere and his family, who, again, I make the point, put not only finance into this but also put his time and his reputation and his family’s efforts into this as well, because of his concern about the number of young Māori that were being excluded from their schools. And so he started in Te Awamutu and it was a real privilege to see that wānanga go from about 1,400 fulltime-equivalent students up to, at one point, over 3,000 fulltime-equivalent students—bar none, the biggest tertiary entity in this country. I know now they have settled down to around 19,000 or 20,000, but that is still a very large, important entity in our tertiary education space, and I recognise the solid leadership of my friend and colleague Nepia Winiata and his team with Te Wānanga o Aotearoa.

Awanuiārangi had another slightly different proud history to it, that was started by the very respected Tā Hirini Moko Mead, who decided, in the late 1980s, that he should establish a wānanga, and for six or seven years, he and his passionate group of people pushed this concept and opened in Whakatāne with their very modest wānanga at that time, their very modest campus—just a couple of transportable classrooms. But that campus today is a very beautiful campus with a very beautiful set of buildings and a very strong set of particularly post-graduate qualifications that enable people to flow through from a lower level of qualifications right through to post-graduate.

To me, the wānanga are the hub of developing and educating young Māori leaders of the future. And so I thank them for the work that they do in that space, but I also thank them for their generosity of spirit in extending that out well beyond Māori. In our space in Southland, we have worked in partnership with the wānanga to ensure that we have one of the highest uptakes per head of population of people learning te reo Māori, and that is only because it was enabled by partnership. So I thank them for their generosity of spirit, of taking it beyond young Māori but extending it to people of all ethnicities and all ages. So not only do the wānanga have a proud history but they also have a very important part to play in our society going forward, and I thank them for their willingness to do that.

I want to talk a little bit about the protected terms, because, again, people may not understand how important it is not only to recognise the past and the history and the development and the evolution of the wānanga but also the need to protect the term “wānanga”. So the polytechnics, the universities, have absolute protection of their term; nobody else, no entities in this country, can use those terms “university” or “polytechnic”, but any entity that wants to can tack wānanga on to their title. So you will see a number of other organisations that put a translation into their title of wānanga; there is no protection whatsoever, and so the three wānanga that are sitting here represented today have no protection of that term, and it puts them out of kilter with the other players in the tertiary sector, the polytechnics, and the universities. And that is not acceptable, and that is why we keep saying this legislation should have been solely focused on the wānanga and getting the legislation right to ensure the implementation is right.

So we are opposing the legislation not because we oppose the ability for the wānanga to be Crown or non-Crown entities but because we oppose the secondment part for the boards of the schools, and we oppose the fact that this legislation has required the wānanga to compromise and accept that they are not getting the full package that they should have in this legislation. So with that, Mr Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity.

E te Whare, hei tīmatanga kōrero māku e mihi kau ana ki a koutou o ngā wānanga e toru, o Raukawa, o Awanuiārangi, o Aotearoa. E mihi kau ana ki a koutou, ō koutou moemoeā, ō koutou tūpuna me ngā iwi kei muri i ēnei o ngā wānanga. Nā reira tēnā rā tātou katoa. Nau mai, haere mai, whakatau mai ki tēnei Whare.

[To the House, for my opening comments let me greet you of the three wānanga, Raukawa, Awanuiārangi, Aotearoa. I acknowledge you all, your aspirations, your ancestors and the iwi that are behind these wānanga. So I greet all of you. Welcome, welcome, welcome to this House.]

This is personal for me. People may think that the first reading of the bill was the start of the journey for me. I alluded to, in the committee stages, that myself and the Minister of Education at the time about five years ago, the Hon Chris Hipkins, went up to Ōtaki to meet with Raukawa about their aspirations. They’d sent a letter to us that—I guess the real guts of it was this disparity or the belief that kāwanatanga should override rangatiratanga. I looked at the letter that they’d sent to me and I said, look, the issues that they raised I thought, naively, being a new Minister, that they could all be sort of addressed in a couple of months. Well, how wrong was I, because five, six years later, we’re getting to the conclusion of that part of this journey.

But even then, that wasn’t the start of this journey for me. I remember in the 1970s I was still at primary school, and I’d barely travelled south of Auckland at that time, but for some strange reason my father, his older brother, my uncle Rome, his daughter—my first cousin, Alice-Rose—and my older brother Greg were off on this adventure driving down to the bottom of the North Island to this place that sounded so exciting—it had traffic lights; it sounded like a real adventure.

They were going to be away for a week and I wanted to go, and my father said, “No, you stay at home.” and I remember having little tangi, as I did, that I couldn’t go off on this adventure, because I’d never been to Ōtaki before. That was at the time when Raukawa were talking about their future aspirations for education.

But even then, this story doesn’t start there. Again, I alluded to it: in a perfect world, 183 years ago we would’ve had stuff happening, because 183 years ago, in February of 1840, my tupuna Whētoi Pōmare signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi. I mentioned him in my maiden speech and said I believe that at the time, he was signing Te Tiriti for a better world for his uri—his descendants—but barely had the ink dried on his signature there and we know that Te Tiriti was not being honoured. There were three parts to Te Tiriti: kāwanatanga, which we have; rangatiratanga was guaranteed—and this goes back to the very essence of that first hui myself and Chris Hipkins had at the time in Ōtaki. I’ve always said that when kāwanatanga and rangatiratanga work together, that’s where we’ll see magic happen and we’ll see the article 3 promises of equity being realised.

But we know that rangatiratanga has been suppressed by kāwanatanga for 183 years, and this bill is starting to turn that around, where rangatiratanga have their say, where they can make the wānanga through rangatiratanga, can assert their rangatiratanga, and make their decisions for their people and anyone else who wants to enrol and go to a wānanga. If we just would’ve allowed that 183 years ago, we would’ve seen more equitable outcomes throughout Aotearoa in education.

But it probably doesn’t even start there, this journey, for me, because I want to go full circle: my tupuna Whētoi Pōmare, who signed Te Tiriti in February of 1840, his wife was Te Rangingangana. Te Rangingangana was a daughter of Te Whatanui from Ōtaki, the chief of Raukawa. So I’ve never forgotten that. That’s the reason that my father, his brother, my brother, and my cousin went down to Ōtaki in the mid-1970s, to engage in those discussions around education for the descendants of Ngāti Raukawa.

So it is personal. It is very personal, but it’s also more personal for us as Māori because we, and our cousins, our nephews, our nieces—they’re the ones that haven’t achieved those equitable outcomes in education that were promised under Te Tiriti o Waitangi. So what we are doing today, 183 years late, is just sort of trying to right the balance and close off that part of this journey, because this isn’t the end; this is just part of the ongoing journey, and the wānanga have a huge role to play in the ongoing success of our people.

Education is the pathway forward. I was an educator, and so was the Minister of Education. I was a teacher and principal for 20 years, and I grew up on a street with 14 families; 95 children in those 14 families, not counting the whāngai and all the mokopunas—that was just the children of the people who owned the homes. Close to 100 of us, but only three went on to university—only three. If we’d had the wānanga established back then—or, you know, back 183 years ago—we may have seen more of those 95 kids on that street end up with higher qualifications.

And I have to acknowledge—so only three people on that street went on to university and got a degree: my older brother, the one that happened to go to Ōtaki on that adventure in the 1970s; my younger sister; and a girl across the road who also became a teacher. That was until about three years ago, when I was invited to speak at the graduation of Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi, and, would you believe, just totally coincidentally, two people—my next-door neighbours in that street in Kawakawa—the same age as me, so in their 50s, graduated with a degree that day, and I was able to present it to them. So, of those 95 kids, five now have degrees. In one day, at that graduation, we almost doubled the educational achievement of the 95 Māoris who lived on Leonard Street in Kawakawa.

So that’s what this is about. And, yeah, it’s not a perfect world. I’d really love to see the Opposition support a Māori education Act.

Hon Member: Never gonna happen.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: That’ll never happen, will it? You know, in a perfect world it all would’ve happened, you know, as Penny Simmonds says, but it’s not a perfect world. But we worked alongside the wānanga to get to this stage, and it’s the kiko of the bill that’s the most important, and we’re going to achieve that.

I just want to acknowledge all of those people in the wānanga who set about on this path, in all of the wānanga—all those intense meetings. You know, we were basically working to a time frame where if one thing went wrong, we wouldn’t have met the stay; it could’ve been booted out until after the election, then who knows what might happen. So we had to—we had to—make it happen. And, yes, thank you for the concessions to all of the wānanga, but I also want to acknowledge all the ministry officials who slogged away, and for them—we were talking last night—they’re so excited because we are achieving this against the odds, and we did it together: the officials and the wānanga working together. Kāwanatanga, rangatiratanga working together, and the magic has happened. And it’s going to be, at the end of these—there’s nine more speeches. At the end of those nine speeches, it’s done, and it is just a great moment for all of us to celebrate, everybody in this room.

So I’d just like to take those final minutes to acknowledge everybody: the officials, the people of the wānanga, those who just have had the patience to wait for this moment, and we’re just continuing to see those aspirations that were started in the 1970s, that my tupuna Whētoi Pōmare had when he signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi back in 1840. Those aspirations are finally being realised, and I just want to acknowledge everyone for the parts that they have played in making that so. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m pleased to take a call on this bill. As we know, this bill will be passed today and I know that the three wānanga who are represented here today will celebrate the new Government’s framework that will be created from this bill. I think Penny Simmonds made this point, and I’d like to reiterate this point, that we support this part of the bill.

We have made some comments around the fact that we’re disappointed around the fact that we weren’t quite able to get everything that I know the wānanga wanted in terms of the terms that were placeholders in the bill—A, B, and C—which we didn’t think were perfect and we would have liked to have seen worked on a little bit longer and made sure that in the bill we had the proper terms rather than those placeholder terms. I thank the wānanga, though, for their patience and for agreeing to A, B, and C even though I know that they would have wanted proper terms, but I know that the wānanga just wanted to get this bill through. So thank you for your patience.

We did make the point, in our differing view—the National Party and ACT Party differing view—that we were not happy with the placeholder terms of A, B, and C. We also made it clear that we are very supportive of protecting the term “wānanga”—and we all understand the problems with that which were raised on both sides of the House today. But I think we’ve put on record that we support very much the protection of that term, that the wānanga deserve that. I do hope that in the future we can get to a point where we are able to do that. It was a shame that there wasn’t the ability to get there in this bill, but I think we’ve put on record today our support for that and that we would like to see that happen in the future.

I’d also like to put on record the National Party’s support for choice in education, especially in Māori education. I’d like to put on record that the first kōhanga reo in this country was set up with the support of a National Government. The first kura kaupapa was set up under a National Government. And in fact, the charter schools that were set up under a National Government and supported at the time by Minister Willie Jackson and Minister Kelvin Davis, who very quickly changed their tunes, were set up under a National Government. And many of those—many of those—were run by incredible Māori educators that we support and in fact we would like to see more of. We want to see more choice in education; we would like to see more choice in education. We would like to see more incredible Māori academics and Māori educators setting up charter schools that provide choice for Māori students in this country. And I know that Kelvin Davis and I know Willie Jackson supported them—until they didn’t.

But I’d like to move on, because I think I have quite well put on record our support for that part of the bill. It has been incredibly frustrating that this bill was not just about the wānanga. From our perspective, we would have liked to have seen a piece of legislation that respected wānanga that was just for you, but instead we got a bill with lots and lots of other pieces jammed into it, some of which we oppose. But I want to make it very clear today, we are opposing this bill not because of the changes to the wānanga, but because of other changes in the bill that I think I made clear earlier in our committee process. And I’d like to move on to that part of the bill, having made our intentions very clear around the wānanga.

I do want to move on to the part of the bill that we are opposing. Unfortunately, my SOP, my Supplementary Order Paper, was not accepted but I think it made the very clear point that we don’t need and we don’t require a very, not a long list, but a list of different groups of people that boards need to take into account when they are making co-options to their board.

The Minister made it very clear in her contributions that she trusts schools. She trusts principals because they know their communities best. Well, what better way to trust communities, to trust boards, to trust schools than to let them make their own decisions? They don’t need prompting. And the reason—and I found some of the submitters at the Education and Workforce Committee made very, very good arguments around why those “prompts”, as the Minister now calls them, were not required. I think it was very strong, the submissions that were made—especially from those rainbow communities who said that they do not need to be singled out, that they are perfectly capable of being elected on to a board because of their skill and their ability; that they didn’t need to be singled out, that they felt like this was marginalising them even further. Those were their comments, and they meant a lot to us on this side of the House when we were listening to the submissions, I thought they were important contributions.

I think that what it led on to was a whole lot of problems that this throws up around definitions, of the difference between sex and gender that we’re leaving up to schools—the fact that it is very, very difficult to determine, without asking awkward questions or collecting data, people’s gender or sexuality. The ministry seemed to say that it wouldn’t require any collection of data or any asking of awkward questions, but the people who submitted to our committee overwhelmingly said that actually this would lead to awkward questions. And many of the people who served on those boards said to us that they didn’t even know what the sexuality was of the people who were sitting on the boards, they just knew the capabilities and the skills of those people in getting the jobs done that they needed to get done properly. So we are very worried about the definitions, we’re very worried about the collection of data and asking of awkward questions.

It’s the same when it comes to those low - socio-economic groups of people who are—the Minister said in her contribution, she called them, well, she said that they didn’t have confidence, but she never actually talked about the fact that they were potentially from low-income communities. Again, we have problems with the assumption that people are from those communities. Again, the Minister came back to, “Well, we just have to trust the boards and they know best.” Well, if that is the case, then there is no need for this part of the bill. It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t get to a position where we just accepted that every board should reflect the diversity of their students and their communities. Because I think that by having a list of people that need to be considered leaves many people out, causes more problems than it solves, and is throwing up a lot of issues for boards, now that they’re going to have to think about it—that, I imagine, will cause more confusion for them when actually they were already taking into account the make-up of their school communities and their student bodies.

I think one of the telling things from the Minister when she was asked about the data was that she didn’t have any data. She makes claims that these people are underrepresented on boards, and the claim from the rainbow communities that submitted to our committee was that they don’t feel that they are underrepresented on these boards and that they are able to get there on their own. And so when I asked the Minister if she had any data, she was not able to point to a single piece of data that showed that the LGBT community is underrepresented on our boards.

Angela Roberts: This is shameful.

ERICA STANFORD: The members opposite like to say that “this is shameful”, but I am reading directly from submissions that were given to us by submitters. Now, if the members opposite would like to maybe email those submitters and say that their submissions were shameful, well then I welcome them to do that. But I am reading out what their views are that they said to us, that they didn’t feel like they needed to be separated out and they wanted to know whether or not there was any data that actually showed that they were underrepresented. When I asked the Minister, she was not able to give one single bit of data that backed up her claim that we needed to have this in there. Those communities said to us that they doubted whether or not it needed to be in there, they didn’t support it, and the Minister wasn’t able to back her claims up with any data—as per usual.

So while I welcome very much today the inclusion of the changes to the governance structures for wānanga, and while I have put on record our support for choice in education and the setting up of more choice in the form of charter schools, or designated character schools led by amazing Māori educators—

Penny Simmonds: Like Willie Jackson.

ERICA STANFORD: Like Willie Jackson—ha, ha! We do oppose this bill, not for that reason, but for the reasons I’ve mentioned around the options to the boards, which will throw up more problems than they will be solving. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Before I call the next speaker, can I just remind members around the House that it is actually hard to hear the speeches in the debate, not just for me as Speaker but for those who are actually watching either online or right here. Can we please keep the heckling to a minimum.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Tuatahi e mihi ana ki a koutou, ngā wānanga i tae mai nei, i whakarangatira i te kaupapa i tēnei wā, tēnei te tino mihi ki a koutou. Kei te pīrangi au ki te mihi ki a koutou katoa mō ā koutou mahi nui mō ō tātou iwi. E mihi ana, e mihi ana ki a koutou, nō reira tēnā koutou, haramai, haramai, nau mai.

[Thank you, Madam Speaker. Firstly I’d like to acknowledge you, the wānanga that have arrived here to honour the topic at this time, this is a real greeting to you. I want to thank you all for your great work for our people. My thanks, I thank you, so greetings, welcome, welcome, welcome.]

It’s lovely to see all the wānanga people here today. I’m very happy to tautoko my mates here today. As you heard, they’re all academics. My background is from the freezing works, but I’ve been a major—unlike Kelvin Davis and Minister Jan Tinetti, that’s been my background. But I’ve been listening to some of the kōrero today, particularly the member over there Penny Simmonds, who seems to know the wānanga so well. So I was listening to Penny Simmonds and I thought, well, I know the wānangas pretty well too, so I might talk about my relationship with the wānanga, in fact, all three wānanga, just because, Penny, you seem to know so much and I reckon I’ve got a closer relationship. So I’m going to go down that track, first of all.

But, first of all, I want to salute the leadership of these wānanga—three magnificent leaders who started these wānanga, starting, of course, with Whata Winiata, who’s just one of the most brilliant academics, I think, who we’ve ever seen, and one of our foremost Māori leaders. I notice his son here in the audience today. I just want to read this quote for you, for everyone, from Ani Mikaere: “By 1975, an alliance of three iwi (also known as the ART confederation)”—and we know there is Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Te Ātiawa, and Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga—“realised that they were fast approaching the point of irreversible cultural collapse. They launched Whakatupuranga Rua Mano: Generation 2000, a counter-assimilatory strategy which focused on revitalisation of Māori language, reconnection with cultural institutions and restoration of traditional values to the heart of Māori thinking and practice. Central to this activity has been the establishment of Te Wānanga o Raukawa, a tertiary education institution that seeks to transform Māori futures and, in so doing, to transform the colonial state of New Zealand.”

Isn’t that magnificent—isn’t that magnificent? And I think that sums up Te Wānanga o Raukawa so well, and their leader, Whata Winiata—the first wānanga that was established. So I mihi to that whānau, and I will say that my wife is related to that Winiata whānau. Rongo Wetere, too, is my mother’s second cousin, believe it or not. No, it’s true. Their parents are brother and sister. So I think I might have a closer relationship than you, Penny Simmonds. My Uncle Rongo came to Ngā Whare Waatea Marae in the 1980s and talked to my mother about setting up something for all the people. She said, “Yes, cuz—yes, cuz. Well, put a prefab over there.” And, of course, we all know what happened with the wānanga. He had so many dreams and so many aspirations, and he was just one of the foremost leaders. So I want to mihi to him for his mahi. Also the CEO of Te Wānanga o Raukawa, Mereana Selby, who is here today, and also Nepia Winiata, who is here today from Te Wānanga o Aotearoa.

And, of course, te Awanuiārangi, where we have our Professor Sid Mead, one of the foremost leaders, in terms of Māori, over the years. What a magnificent leader. And even today, I think the koroua is 95, or he might be a bit older, might be 97, but leading the way in terms of his people in Ngāti Awa—magnificent. That’s the type of leadership that we’ve had in Te Ao Māori. And I want to mihi to the CEO, Wiremu Doherty, and acknowledge my wife who is on the board of Awanuiārangi, Tania Rangiheuea, who I think hopefully is in the audience today. I think she got a bit hōhā with me because I got the times wrong. But I want to acknowledge her and the mahi they do—just fantastic.

I remind the Opposition, Penny Simmonds in particular, that this place is all about compromise. The whole Treaty settlement process that you put in place is about compromise. Our people walk away with crumbs, but they settle, because crumbs is better than nothing. You can build goldmines from crumbs. That’s what Tainui have done. That’s what Ngai Tahu have done. So you are doing the wrong thing today by not supporting a kaupapa that realises so many of our dreams as Māori. Yes, as the Minister has said, in an absolute ideal world you would have had your ideal bill that’s totally concentrating on the wānanga—we get that. But that’s not what Parliament is about. The National Party know that better than anyone. And our people have learnt the art of compromise. It irritates us. It bugs us. We don’t like incremental change. We want it all straight away. But people like Professor Sid Mead and Whata Winiata and my Uncle Rongo Wetere knew to get something in place and they’d build something for the people. And they did that—and they did that—and we are all beneficiaries of it. The whole nation are beneficiaries in terms of the mahi of the wānanga.

At Wānanga o Aotearoa, more Pākehā learn Māori than Māori. That’s an absolute fact. That’s how giving we are to the nation. What do we get? We get nonsense. We get nonsense from the ACT Party. We get nonsense from the National Party. And we get nonsense from Penny Simmonds. I acknowledge your mahi—I do acknowledge your mahi in the past, although I’m not a person to get personal, as members know. No, I’m not a person who gets personal. I want to acknowledge your mahi in the past—no doubt about it—but, today, you’re disappointing Te Ao Māori and, in fact, yourself. So I just want to say that, because this bill should be supported wholly by the House.

I want to acknowledge my mate, the Minister over here, who goes through so much. He’s done so much work in pulling the whole kaupapa together.

Mihi nui ki a koe, taku hoa. Koutou katoa i tae mai nei ki te tautoko i te kaupapa ataahua i tēnei wā, tēnei te hōnore ki te mihi ki a tātou katoa, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.  

[Many thanks to you, my friend. All of you who have arrived here to support this beautiful initiative at this time, it is my honour to acknowledge all of us. Greetings and thanks to all of us.] 

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s hard to follow a comedy act that hasn’t understood the part of his whole speech—of his whole speech, forgets about all of the other parts that is what we have an issue with.

I rise on behalf of ACT to speak to the Education and Training Amendment Bill and I speak as a teacher of 22 years’ experience, and earlier on it was so important—experience was so important. I have taught in all areas of socio-economic communities and I may be beginning to realise that experience only counts if you agree with the Labour Party. This bill and its many amendments have been well traversed over the last few months, even with the shortened consultations stage, and they’ve been explained really well again today. The many submitters have made it clear how they feel about the particular changes that affect them, and as has become quite typical with the Government, the feedback will be ignored and the bill will be pushed through with all in its entirety.

The bill has some good bits, no doubt about that, which if they were taken by themselves ACT would support. We live in a democracy and the people really did speak with their disapproval of some of the other bits, and they just can’t be ignored. They just can’t be ignored. The feedback from teachers and principals that I’ve received is that they don’t want many of these changes; some they do, many they don’t, especially the changes to school board appointments. We must trust our boards, our principals, and our teachers. They actually know more than politicians about a lot of things, and funnily enough, quite a bit more about education. It’s a harsh reality for quite a few to take and it was great to hear our Minister this morning talk about how she trusts principals and teachers. It seems she trusts them except when it comes to dealing with schools and education.

There are so many issues in education in New Zealand at the moment, with tumbling literacy and numeracy rates, we’ve got appalling truancy, we’ve got unprecedented violence in our schools, and here we are introducing a bill that changes the make up for school board appointments, not because there’s a problem, but because of this Government’s ideological agenda—it’s just nuts.

The Minister’s inability this morning to answer basic questions relating to this provision shows just what a nonsense this is. The changes to the wānanga in the rushed and unsatisfactory way it’s been dealt with have been explained well by my National colleagues, so I won’t go into that. To include this important area with the rest of the tinkering that’s going on in this bill is really quite devious, and I’m sure our guests in the gallery can actually see through it.

The issues that ACT had have largely been satisfied and we are happy to support those parts of the bill. We don’t entirely agree with everything, but we’re happy to support. Of all the political parties here, ACT have taken the education of young Māori the most seriously. Partnership schools have worked for the diversity of learning and the most vulnerable. Their success was undeniably proven, and the kids that this Government purports to care for, they attended school and they succeeded, but in an act of political spite, Labour got rid of them.

I’ll never understand the constant desire for division, but I wish the wānanga well in their continued development and education of young people. There are things we like in this bill; there are things that we think are OK, but because of what I mentioned earlier, ACT cannot support this bill. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thought the comedy had stopped when Willie Jackson had left the room, but then it kept going.

I rise on behalf of the Greens for this third reading, and I reflect on some of the comments from around the House. You know, often in these education debates, we talk about lifting literacy standards and the importance of literacy, particularly from that corner of the House. But here’s the thing: they have failed to read the room today. Unlike the Hon Willie Jackson, I don’t know if I’ve got any relatives up in the public gallery; if you are there, let me know! But what I would also say is that earlier comments focusing on sandwiches—I could see that the Hon Willie Jackson was quite hungry and had to dip out, probably down to Copperfield’s to get his lunch.

I tua atu i tērā, e ngā wānanga e toru, tēnei ka mihi atu ki a koutou katoa. E mihi ana ki ō koutou nei māia, e mihi ana ki ō koutou nei ngao i whakapau werawera kia tae atu ki tēnei o ngā wāhi. Me mihi atu ki te tauira nā koutou anō i taki, nā koutou anō i whakarite mā tātou, te ao Māori.

Ehara i te mea ko tēnei mea te wānanga he wāhi noa; he haerenga. I kite mātou, te ao Māori, otirā te tūmanako tēnei Whare i ngā hua i puta i ā koutou nei mahi. Kei te whakaaro ake ki tērā o ngā rautaki, ko te Whakatupuranga Rua Mano. Anei anō tētahi nō te Manawatū i kite i ngā hua i tae atu ki tō mātou nei pito o te takiwā. Nā ko te tūmanako nui, ka whai wāhi anō kia whakarite he ara anō mō te Whakatupuranga Toru Mano, he oranga tērā mō tātou katoa.

Ko tāku nei ki roto i tēnei ture, me pēnei anō ngā waeture, me pēnei anō ngā ture katoa. Tē taea e te ture te mea atu, “anei anō tō rangatiratanga, anei anō tō mana”. Ka taea kētia e ēnā ture te aro, te kite, te rongo, te tiro, anā anō tō rangatiratanga. Me pērā, anā, ngā ture.

Ko tērā te, ki tōku nei whakaaro, te ia o tēnei o ngā ture. Nō reira tēnei o ngā Kākāriki e mihi atu ki a koutou katoa.

[Apart from that, to the three wānanga, I acknowledge all of you. I acknowledge your bravery, I acknowledge your energy and the sweat that was expended to get to this point. It is appropriate to acknowledge the example that you have set, that you have prepared for us, for Māori society.  

This thing, the wānanga, is not merely a place; it is a journey. We saw, Māori society, indeed I’d hope that this House saw the fruits that were produced by your labour. I think about that one of the strategies, Generation 2000. Here is another from Manawatū who saw the benefits that came to our part of the area. So the great hope is that there is an opportunity to prepare another pathway for Generation 3000 that would be of benefit to all of us.

For me in this legislation, regulations should be like this, all legislation should be like this. Legislation cannot say to you, “here is your autonomy, here is your authority”. Instead that legislation can pay attention, see, hear, look, there is your autonomy. Legislation, there, should be like that.

That is the, in my opinion, the trend of this piece of legislation. So this one of the Greens greets all of you.]

This bill addresses governance of the wānanga, and that’s been traversed quite a bit as well over the last two hours or so as well, and the Green Party support that. It is about the collaboration between the Crown, the Ministry of Education, and the wānanga. And here, I want to acknowledge in English, Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, Te Wānanga o Awanuiārangi, and Te Wānanga o Raukawa—that emphasises Māori decision-making. The bill allows these institutions to choose between becoming Crown entities or non-Crown entities accountable to iwi, hapū, and Māori organisations, aiming to ensure fairness and cultural autonomy. And I want to acknowledge that in the House about how important that is and also the strategy that is being put into place to ensure that that moves forward—not just for their own communities, but for all of Te Ao Māori.

The term wānanga itself: it’s not just a destination or a location—but in this case it can be—but it’s also a journey, because knowledge always evolves. Mātauranga Māori evolves; knowledge evolves as well, and so it’s so important that actually that stuff is built in to help to enable the aspirations of Māori to enable the aspirations of wānanga as well. And I do want to reflect on some of the kōrero around the protection of the word “wānanga”. It’s so important that that word is protected. But as we have said before—as went back and forth in this debate as well—we could continue to have that kōrero, because as I was saying, it’s not just the location; it’s the journey.

Knowledge evolves and changes, and that that requires time, it requires space, and to actually have those conversations; those very important conversations, because we don’t know how long those conversations could be. Could be just over a cup of tea—probably not, but it could also be over a number of weekends or years, and so on and so forth. But it is so important that we give space to enable those conversations to be had. Tēnei te mihi atu ki a koutou, kia whai wāhi anō ki tērā o ngā āhuatanga. [I acknowledge you for the engagement with that one of these things.]

The important thing here, I think we need to recognise as the House, is that this is what the wānanga wanted; this is what the wānanga want—they get it. You know, this place is all about compromises and we get what we can to a particular point. We set, we rest, we wānanga again and then we move again, and that’s what the point of this bill is. We had those conversations with the wānanga. And, yes, I do agree with the sentiment of the member Penny Simmonds around the frustrations of being called “category A” or “category B” or whatever. But here’s the thing, right: the journey is up, it’s down, and then we rest and we reset; we achieve something, we get somewhere—and we’re doing that with this bill today, and then we continue to have that conversation as we move forward, because that’s what folks want. It’s about moving forward: that’s why Te Ao Māori has always been about movement. We’re moving from one place to the other in terms of our thinking, in terms of our knowledge, and it’s just so, so important that we respect that and we honour that.

There was lots of conversation about a lot of the other parts of this bill as well, and I do want to acknowledge our irawhiti whānau, our trans whānau, and to say that the Green Party see you. The Green Party is supporting this legislation to enable that visibility to happen, to enable that that space—or that potential space—to be created. But I also acknowledge the words of the Minister, who said, “You know what, this stuff isn’t compulsory. It’s about empowering, it’s about enabling—it’s about giving people the nudge and saying ‘Hey, you know what, being inclusive and being diverse is a good thing. Have you thought about it; what this could mean for rainbow youth in particular, for rainbow communities? Make sure that you have that engagement.’ ”

I also want to reflect on some of the connections that I have with school communities. When schools operate well, they’re connected with their communities. They know their communities, there are embedded parts of their communities, and if we give them this prompt, if we give them these ideas, then they can go, “Well, you know what? This could be great for our schools. This could be great for our tamariki, particularly for those tamariki who are less visible than others”, and so that’s so important. Nō reira e mihi atu ki tērā o ngā āhuatanga. [So I acknowledge that phenomenon.]

There are a whole lot of other important amendments as well, but I would also like to underline and point out that this is Education Amendment Bill (No 3)—it’s like the trilogy that just doesn’t end, and there will be other amendments coming forward as well. I’ve only been here for about three years, but I think I’ve spoken on a couple of the other amendments as well. So it’s not like “You know what, this is it and it’s over”, there is time for us to actually reset, to acknowledge the accomplishments of our wānanga in particular, and the wide support for our Māori communities as well, and I note Te Rūnanga nui o ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori came along to tautoko and to share their whakaaro. Te Kaunihera Māori came along to show their support for the kaupapa as well, and that’s an important part of that as well.

Nō reira e te Whare, e te Pīka, anei mātou ngā Kākāriki e tautoko ana i a koutou, ngā wānanga e toru. Te tūmanako noa kia huaki anō te wānanga, kia wānanga me pēhea te tika o tēnei kupu, te wānanga, kia wānanga ai te kupu, kia wānanga anō ai te whakaaro, kia wānanga tō tātou nei ao Māori. Lindsay, tēnā koe, otirā tēnā koutou katoa.

[The Māori Council came along as well to show their support for the initiative as well, and that’s an important part of that as well. So to the House, Mr Speaker, we the Greens support you, the three wānanga. The only hope is that the discussion is opened again, to discuss what is the truth of this word, wānanga, to discuss the word, to discuss the concept, that our Māori society discusses it. Lindsay, greetings, indeed greetings to all of you.]

It’s a real privilege to make a short contribution today on the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3). I am a member of the Education and Workforce Committee, and we had the pleasure of hearing submissions from wānanga. I also want to thank my colleagues and the officials for their work.

I asked to speak on this bill because I want to acknowledge the work of the wānanga for Pasefika. I wanted to acknowledge and mention, in particular, and thank Te Wānanga o Aotearoa in Māngere in South Auckland, who has a huge registration of Pasefika students. Their work in this kaupapa has been really integral for our local community, and I want to thank kaumātua; I want to thank iwi, Māori, and hapū for their kaupapa and for enabling, in Māngere—in South Auckland—the huge contribution to the Pasefika learners in our community to be able to progress forward in their lives because they have attended the local wānanga.

In my short contribution, I really just wanted to highlight two specific points. The first one is establish and support the governance framework for wānanga. This is a huge recognition and a significant milestone to enable wānanga to have that kōrero, to be able to dictate their terms, to be able to maintain and acknowledge mana and rangatiratanga of the wānanga and the uniqueness of the wānanga.

I want to acknowledge the contribution from our Ministers, Tinetti, Davis, and Jackson—who always has a colourful contribution to remind us where we have come from to where we are going. It is important that the bill is an enabler to allow iwi and wānanga to be able to have that kōrero, to be comfortable and specifically in their time. Because rather than be dictated to, they need to tell us what is comfortable. I thank wānanga for the enormous contribution for Pasefika whānau and aiga that they have been able to make in Aotearoa.

The second point is the changes to school board of trustees and eligibility. I’ve served two decades on boards of trustees and school committees. It is really important for our students—our rangatahi—and their whānau to feel safe and to understand that the governance of that school community has the safety, has the education aspirations for the young people of that school community. On that note, I commend this bill to the House. Fa‘afetai.

This is a five-minute split call. The Hon David Bennett.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The National Party opposes this bill, not for the clauses around the wānanga but for other clauses in the bill. Just as someone from Hamilton that grew up in Te Awamutu, I just want to acknowledge the wānanga and the great work that you do in our community and the many lives that you have changed for the better, so thank you for your work.

But our problem in New Zealand is our education system. At a very younger age, it is just failing our people, and it’s failing in a number of ways. We need to see real change at that primary school, that early childhood education, and at that secondary school level so that people actually have the skills to engage in the wānanga or other forms of education. That’s why we oppose school board of trustees elections processes which are mandated by Government rather than being left to communities and schools to dictate who has got the interest and the desire to be on those trustees. That is the primary concern we have in this bill.

As someone that went through a Catholic boy’s education, you know, I think, when you look at our education system and you compare it with Australia, for example, there is a big difference in that we do not have a very strong independent schooling network. We do not have a very strong integrated schooling network. They are very small percentages of our total schooling network. I think that competition, but also the values and the approach taken, in those schools has shown to be very effective. If you look in Hamilton, for example, Church College was one of the pre-eminent schools in the city and no longer is there. And you can go through a number of other Maōri education facilities that, you know, had a religious basis but actually had quite a strong effect on education.

And no, I’m not an overly religious person—don’t get me wrong—but what I’m saying is that we need more balance in the education system. If you look at Australia, for example, a third of their education system is integrated or—

Angela Roberts: Yeah, and gets truckloads of money.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: No, one-third of their system is actually integrated or private schools or schools that actually have a religious bent to them, you could say, but it’s actually the values they teach. And I think that that’s really important. If we really wanted to do something about getting our primary school education better, we should be focusing on those kind of changes, which reflect what is working in other countries, rather than these changes in this bill.

That prompt then gave me a hua of a fright! Kia ora tātou i tēnei rā. [Hello to all of us here this day.] First of all, I apologise for what you’ve had to hear in this House over the last hour. You’re never going to get that back in your life ever again.

Kei te aroha atu ki ngā kōrero o te Whare nei; āhua pōtatutatu wētahi. Āhua pōtatutatu. Ka kōrero mai, “it’s insulting to call you Wānanga A, Wānanga B, Wānanga C,” and in the second breath call you a sandwich.

Tēnā tātou i tēnei rā, i tēnei pire kei mua i a tātou, kei mua i a tātou. Me te mea hoki kia kauaka awahau e āta kārawarawa i ngā kōrero kei roto i te pire. Kua tutuki. Kua tutuki. Kia kauaka tātou e hoki whakamuri. Ko te whakamua tātou e haere ake nei. Inā ngā kōrero a Awanuiārangi, “mau tonu ki tāu ake ōhākī”. Ki tā te kōrero a Raukawa, “e kore au e ngaro”. Ki tā te kōrero a Aotearoa, “ka mua, ka muri”.

Me pērā pea tā tātou whakaaro i tēnei rā. Hāunga ngā huihuinga kua oti, hika! Kua mutu noa atu ngā carpark meetings. Kei te ahu whakamua tātou. Ahakoa wētahi mea kua mahue kē ake i waho i te pire nei, kei te pai. Kua pai ake ināia tonu nei ki tā te pire ki mua noa atu. Āe, āhua iti noa, incremental steps. Oh, well, koinā te āhuatanga o tēnei Whare. Engari kei te ahu whakamua tātou. Nō reira e ngā wānanga, haramai ki tō koutou Whare, haramai ki te whakarongo ki tēnei pire e āhua whakatikatika i ngā mahi hē ka roa e hē nei i tēnei Whare, i a tātou.

[My condolences for the comments of this House; some are a bit distracted. A bit distracted. They say, “it’s insulting to call you Wānanga A, Wānanga B, Wānanga C,” and in the second breath call you a sandwich.

Greetings to us today, and this bill that is before us, that is before us. And also let me not cut the statements in the bill into shreds. It is complete. It is complete. Let us not go backwards. We are about progress now. There are the statements of Awanuiārangi, “hold onto your own legacy”. According to the statement of Raukawa, “I will never be lost”. According to the statement of Aotearoa, “walking backwards into the future”.

Perhaps that is how we should think today. Aside from the meetings that have already been completed, geez! The carpark meetings finished a while ago. We are moving forward. Even though some things have been left out of this bill, it’s OK. It is better in this moment than the bill from earlier. Yes, only a little, incremental steps. Oh well, that is the nature of this House. But we are moving forward. So to the wānanga, welcome to your House, welcome to listen to this bill that kind of corrects the misguided work that has long been misguided in this House, by us.]

I just want to acknowledge the wānanga here today, and I think I’m more closely related to the wānanga than Willie Jackson. The big difference is that I have a degree out of those wānanga; he doesn’t. Oh, it’s not nice—it’s not nice, but, you know, he told us how he was related to all the clever ones. I was wondering what happened to him. He just about had his 21st at secondary school, so maybe his wife should be taking him to Te Whare Wānanga to go and get a degree. But, look, I’ve been a teacher, I’ve been a student, I’ve been a graduate, and I’ve been in a lecturer of all three wānanga. Te Ara Poutama, Te Ara Reo Māori—I’ve been a teacher in that particular space. I was a graduate of Raukawa with a Master’s in mātaurangi Māori. I’m currently a graduate of Awanuiarangi, but I’ve still got to finish my PhD. I see the CEO up there; I won’t make eye contact with him right now. And I was also elected for Raukawa for the mātaurangi Māori paper.

So, look, we are here to celebrate—although tinkering—a huge milestone here today, kura kaupapa Māori. Kia kaua tātou e wareware ki te kura kaupapa Māori, [Māori immersion schools. Let us not forget the Māori immersion schools,] who have been pushed aside and made special character, and I won’t accept this House taking the mana away from the people who set up kura kaupapa Māori, who set up kōhanga reo. That was business as usual and so you should be doing that. But I am sick and tired of them saying, “It was under us that kōhanga reo was able to fly. It was under us that kura kaupapa was able to fly.” Whakamutua atu! Nā tātou anō tātou ērā kaupapa. Ka whakaaro au mō ngā pakeke kua riro atu ki te pō. Ngā kaiako i roto i te kōhanga reo, ngā kaiako i roto i te kura kaupapa, Te Heikōkō mā.

[Cut it out! Those initiatives were our own. I think about the elders who have passed on into the night. The teachers in the Māori immersion early childhood centres, the teachers in the Māori immersion schools, Te Heikōkō and them.]

That’s what’s insulting—that we continue to allow this House to claim the merit of the hard work our people have continuously done in our communities. And that’s not isolated to Te Whare Wānanga. So kei te mihi atu rā ki a koutou, kei te mihi atu rā ki a tātou i tēnei rā, ka roa nei e whawhai mō te oranga o tō tātou iwi Māori. You know what would be even better? Te Matakahuki, kei te whakarongo mai koutou.

[So I acknowledge you, I acknowledge all of us today, who have long been fighting for the benefit of our Māori people. You know what would be even better? Te Matakahuki, you are listening.]

Do you know what would be even better? That we set up a known independent Māori education authority that takes 25 percent of the total funding of education, puts it in there so we can be in charge of our own oranga. So you fellas know who to vote for come October—kia ora tātou. But just to say, look, this is our opportunity to celebrate the small gains. This is our opportunity to celebrate us. This is our opportunity to continue the mahi—the awesome mahi—we do in our communities.

Nō reira kei te mihi atu rā ki a koutou. [So I acknowledge you.] I’m waiting for Whakatōhea to arrive this afternoon. We’ve got some more firecrackers. Kia ora tātou.

Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Tuatahi me mihi ki koutou ngā wānanga e toru, e mihi ana haere mai nau mai ki a koutou katoa.

[Greetings, Mr Speaker. Firstly acknowledgments to you the three schools of learning, welcome, welcome, thank you all.]

It is an honour and a privilege to speak today. I’m the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee and I want to acknowledge those members of this House who are also members of the Māori Affairs Committee, Rawiri Waititi and Teanau Tuiono, for their impassioned speeches on this important bill. That is a committee which is deeply concerned with finding a way forward for Māori, and that is also what this bill does. This bill is about a step forward that we should all be able to agree to in this House. It is something that the Labour Government with Minister Tinetti and Minister Kelvin Davis have advanced and I’m proud to stand with them and speak to it today.

This bill is about those aspirations that Mr Waititi has spoken about, those community aspirations which all of you are the representation of. And it’s not just people who are alive today. It’s our tūpuna, who we all stand on the shoulders of, who have dreamed about this day and about advancing Māori education in this way. It makes me think of the whakataukī of Te Wānanga o Aotearoa—he takapou mātauranga he whānau huarewa: whānau transformation through education.

But it’s that big vision for me that speaks to my personal history in education. My father grew up in the shores of the Ōhiwa Harbour. He didn’t speak a lick of English until he was nine years old and he learnt from the Bible. He was nine when he went to school down the road, and he was unable to speak Māori at that school, but he went to Ardmore Teachers’ College because a few local farmers believed in him. He went as well because the Norman Kirk Government put buses on the roads that allowed him to go to high school and then to achieve tertiary education.

He became one of the first Māori lecturers in education, and he lectured in early childhood education. His philosophy has always been the transformative power of education for our people and for me personally. I’ve always had someone who was an advocate for education in my life, and I have no doubt that that’s why I’m here today, to be able to be the best that I can be. So thank you to all of you who are Māori educators, who stand on the shoulders of those giants who’ve done so much for Māori kids like me to be here and to be in any position in public life, in business, in science that they can be. Thank you for that work.

I also want to acknowledge the kōrero today about the term “wānanga”. Te Whare Wānanga is something which is sacred. It is not just a word. It is an acknowledgment of the history of education that has been handed down by our tūpuna. My tupuna Waioeka, she was one of the last graduates of Te Whare Wānanga in Te Tairāwhiti. Judith Binney captured her kōrero in it—stories of her as a young woman and as a teenager attending Te Whare Wānanga and learning the sacred rituals of Te Whare Wānanga. That is a term that is right for the Government to give special consideration to, to lift up in our legislation, and to achieve what is guaranteed to Māori in the third article of the Treaty, which Minister Davis talked about; that guarantee of our taonga and that guarantee of equality in the eyes of the law for those things which are special to us as Māori.

I acknowledge that this is a step forward, it is progressive, it is incremental, and everyone in this House has spoken about our collective support for doing more for Te Whare Wānanga. I want to say to you that this bill progresses that. It is not just the beginning, it stands on so much work which has gone on by you, by people in this House, and by those who have come before it, and I’m proud to support it.

Tēnei te mihi ki a koutou i tēnei wā e huihuia mai nei ki te kōrero i te pire Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3).

[I acknowledge you at this time who have assembled here to speak about this bill, the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3).]

I stand as the last member of the National Party, and as has been heard in the House, the contributions, I reflect that this Chamber is one of reflection and one of memory and memorial. It’s also a Chamber where there is an exchange of debate, and that debate I always approach in a respectful manner. The issue may be one that members in this House and members of the public agree or disagree about, but the importance of a democracy, particularly in this Chamber of reflection, it ought to be one of respect, and that the conduct is always respectful and not disagreeable.

As is known, the National Party is opposing elements of this bill. For the benefit of New Zealanders listening in, and as I say, for a respectful debate to occur, it’s well known that the numbers in this House today will ensure that this bill does pass into law. It is important that with the exchange of views in debate in a democracy that that is aired and that is heard. This bill has had significant proportion of it in this debate and appropriately so because of those members of the public who are gathered in the gallery, and I acknowledge every single one of you who are here today, but also many others who are from afar and may be listening in to this debate.

My acknowledgment is to those from Te Wānanga o Raukawa, from Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi, and from Te Wānanga o Aotearoa. I’ve listened to the stories and the contributions from members from the various political parties, and this is a place where politics does come in to the debate, but I share and express my support to the kaupapa—and the support of the National Party to the kaupapa of what our wānanga and whare wānanga are about. I’ve listened to Minister Jackson share his stories, I’ve listened to Minister Davis, also, share the stories of the relationships and the whakapapa that we have to those persons associated with each of the wānanga, whare wānanga.

I’ve also listened to the fact that this Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3) is not solely focused on the issue of the wānanga, and my colleague Penny Simmons has appropriately, and I acknowledge and support, that in terms of respectful exchange and engagement, it is the National Party’s view that the wānanga and the whare wānanga are appropriately, and ought to have been given the due recognition of the elements of this bill within a separate piece of legislation. But that does not say that the National Party does not support these aspects of the wānanga within the bill, other than the fact that due process has been compromised. We’ve heard from members in the debate today that, yes, there is always compromise, but how much longer do we bend to the will and actually continue to be compromised? That is the point of the debate from the National Party today.

The compromise is one that’s such due process—this is a debate that is under urgency, and the point is that if this was given due process and respect it would not be under urgency. It would have been allocated priority in terms of the scheduling at an earlier time. It’s been heard that there has been korero and engagement for a long period of time. My question to the Minister: why was that compromised? In this legislative process and my responsibility as a lawmaker, after having served as a law facilitator and lawyer for three decades, is that I have a responsibility in this House as a lawmaker to ensure that due process is invoked and followed.

The concern that’s been identified is that only 24 working days has been given to this bill and the elements associated not only with whare wānanga, which is an important component of this legislation, but also the issue that’s been heard in the committee of the whole process, and exchange of questions and answers around the school board election process, around child protection—which is the background that I come from in my service back home in Whanganui, in my community around child welfare protection and families.

Tertiary: the element under this Bill is about establishing the new framework for wānanga, and a significant component, appropriately so for this debate, and recognising those who have gathered here in this gallery, is around the wānaga and the due regard, respect, and process that has been compromised, and then other miscellaneous elements within the Bill. At the second reading, when I spoke for the first time on this bill, I signalled that I was not a member of the select committee, my colleagues Penny Simmons and Erica Stanford were the representatives for the National Party, but when I came into this House to speak at the second reading with limited knowledge other than reading the select committee report and then perusing the bill, as is my responsibility, and every member in this House who speaks to the bill as a lawmaker, to scrutinise that. So in the scrutiny of that bill, drawing on the background of service that I’ve given, I talked about child protection, child welfare, and safety, and that this bill, importantly, changes the criteria for school boards so anyone convicted of an offence, as is outlined in Schedule 2, and Schedule 2 details the seriousness of convictions associated with ensuring that the element of child welfare and protection is addressed by the school board with the appointment of members to that board. Schedule 2 in terms of child protection to ensure that any person who has a conviction as is outlined in Schedule 2 is automatically ineligible unless exempted by the Secretary for Education.

So the backgrounds that I have come from in advocating and representing the most disparate and vulnerable amongst our community of children and families is that Schedule 2 identifies specified offences—anybody who has a conviction of a sexual violation nature, of sexual exploitation, of indecency, not only towards a child but also men or women, that it is important that matters where a person has convictions associated with injuring others or assaults or ill treatment or neglect of a child, that there is a responsibility of the school boards in ensuring that that element of child welfare and protection is incumbent, and that our children can, and our families expect that our children can go to school and be safe.

So, in closing, just touching on when I spoke in this House at the second reading, referring to Minister Davis and Minister Jackson about relationships, I shared that the association that I have as the granddaughter of Hori Hipango, that association was with matua—Professor Whatarangi Winiata in the days when he was a student at Victoria University. It was shared with me not long after I came into this public service role as a member of this place, that when he met me and heard my name, made the association and correlation with my koro. It was humbling to hear that Professor Whatarangi Winiata, matua, had said as a student here at Victoria University in his younger days, he would travel through to Putiki, Whanganui to wānanga with my koro to learn the reo. So the association that we have—that I have personally with Te Wānanga o Raukawa is through that whakapapa—is through the generations.

So, in closing, I stand to say that the intent is to support the kaupapa and always will be. I acknowledge Rawiri Waititi, who has said in this House today that parties lay claim—actually, the National Party is acknowledging the support that has been lent to the kaupapa of Kōhanga Reo, kura kaupapa and the whare wānanga. And, on that note, I close my speech to say that the intent is good to support, but due process and due regard and respect has been compromised, and I cannot support that.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. It is a very humbling experience to be standing here as the last speaker on the third reading of this bill. We have a really complex education system. It’s big and it’s complicated, and I just want to pick up three examples of how, despite that complexity, we can pay attention and we can find ways to make changes that are important. Some of them are really small, but they are significant, and those changes will impact not just on individual lives but the entire system and our entire nation.

So a small but significant change that hasn’t been mentioned at all today is the restoration of the status of kura kaupapa Māori. It seems small but it is significant and, I think, a really fine example of the next steps that need to happen to make progress.

The second change that I want to reflect on is the enabling of school boards—the support and guidance to encourage them to think a bit differently about how diversity and bringing that voice to a governance level can really help them, as school boards are trying really, really hard to meet the challenges in their schools, to hear the students that are unheard, to see them, to look after our most vulnerable and to ensure that they flourish. There’s nothing to be afraid of when you have a piece of legislation that enables you to be courageous and helps you along on that journey.

The third change is something that we have heard mostly about today, and the reason so many wonderful people are up in the gallery, and that is around our wānanga, and I acknowledge you for being here today and for all that you represent. We have heard about the 183 years, we’ve heard about the recent five, and we’ve heard very, very clearly that today is the next step, the conclusion, but the next step in your journey.

I just want to reflect: I’m not a lawyer. I come at this as an educator, as a person who’s been on a board of trustees, as a mama, and I reflect on the precedent that’s actually been set today. Maybe I’ve been in the classroom too long and I’m too much of an optimist and a Pollyanna, but I see this piece of legislation as being incredibly precedent-setting. This legislation has created space in this really sort of tightly constrained Westminster model that we operate under. The collaboration has given those involved over the last few years the courage to say, “You know what? Let’s just put some placeholders in there and allow the mahi to continue.” I think that’s really exciting, to be able to see that space so you don’t have to kind of ram in mātauranga Māori or Te Ao Māori, but, actually, let’s just create a bit of space for that understanding to go and to flourish. It’s given confidence.

My understanding is that another precedent is that it’s the first time that we will have an Order in Council that is both in te reo and in English. I applaud you and thank you for the confidence that brought us to that point.

I was running to precinct and it was absolutely hosing down, and I had to come around a bus or two as I crossed the road—slightly disorganised, didn’t have a brolly—but I did reflect on the people who were getting off the bus: they were organised; they had brollies. They also were making sure that everybody who got off the bus got off safely and didn’t slip over—they looked after each other—and they also had big smiles on their faces. There was one woman I stopped and she said, “Yeah, it’s raining, but it’s not windy.” And I just want to acknowledge and reflect that it’s that resilience, the ability to collaborate and bring everybody with you, and that optimism, that makes me so excited.

This legislation is enabling; it is powerful and uplifting. And as a Pākehā educator, I know the influence that you will have not just on your learners but my learners—I teach the kids of the freezing workers, and I know that for them to have choice and to be valued is something that I’m really, really grateful for. I wish you all the best for the next steps—I’m excited. And it is with those thoughts that I commend this bill to the House.