Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2)

on behalf of the Minister of Education: I present a legislative statement on the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2).

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

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS: I move, That the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time.

This bill represents another meaningful step towards strengthening New Zealand’s education system. It introduces a range of legislative changes designed to advance the Government’s key priorities and improve outcomes for learners. Among its proposals, the bill requires schools to place students’ education educational achievement at the centre of their decision making, provides schools and families with more time to respond to planned union strike action, and ensures that initial teacher education, teacher discipline, and competence processes are fit for purpose. It introduces new requirements for schools to have attendance management plans, and mandates that universities uphold freedom of expression for students and staff. Changes include further measures to support a high-performing, equitable education system. My colleagues Ministers Seymour and Reti will speak to those proposals shortly. The changes in this bill are vital to advancing our goals to raise student achievement and attendance, prepare our future-ready workforce, and build a knowledge-rich curriculum grounded in the science of learning.

One of the key proposals in this bill relates to changes to section 127 of the Education and Training Act. As the Minister of Education has previously raised, this Government is relentlessly focused on lifting student achievement and closing the equity gap so that every learner gains the skills they need to thrive. Section 127 sets out the range of objectives that school boards must deliver. This bill amends the section to make educational achievement the paramount objective for all school boards. This means that boards must treat educational achievement as their highest priority when making decisions. To achieve this, boards must also meet a range of essential supporting objectives, including a new focus on student attendance and good quality assessment, as well as other existing obligations around safe and inclusive school environments.

During the committee of the whole House, the Minister of Education introduced Amendment Paper 428 that made further changes to section 127. This proposal responded to the Government’s Treaty reference review, which was part of the National - New Zealand First coalition agreement to undertake a review of all legislative references relating to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. Currently, section 127 requires schools to carry out a legal duty to give effect to the Treaty. However, questions were raised during this review, about whether it was appropriate—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Can I ask members to not talk across the Chamber, because we’re trying to listen to the Minister. Continue, please.

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS: —thank you—for boards, who are made-up of parents and volunteers, to be held accountable for meeting the Crown’s Treaty obligations. This Government considers that it is unreasonable to expect elected parents, who volunteer their time, to discharge the Crown’s legal responsibilities in respect of the Treaty. Instead, the Government believes that it is the Crown’s responsibility to support Māori educational success. And we currently do this in education—

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: How?

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS: —through a range of different initiatives—wait and I’ll tell you—plans, and programmes, including the Māori Education Action Plan, which sets clear goals for delivering better outcomes in the classroom for Māori students and focuses on delivering a knowledge-rich curriculum using evidence-based teaching methods in te reo matatini and pāngarau.

The curriculum refresh, which makes changes to the national curriculum, includes te Marautanga o Aotearoa and includes a more knowledge-rich approach to teaching and learning and includes more concepts drawn from te ao Māori than previous curricula covering history, language, and culture. Further Budget 2025 investments include the allocation of over $100 million—$100 million—to lift Māori education achievement through things like new curriculum resources in te reo Māori and investing in safe, warm, and dry classrooms for kaupapa Māori and Māori-medium kura. We are already seeing indications of progress from this work. When phonics was first introduced, only 25 percent of Māori five-year-olds were meeting expectations. That figure has now risen to 43 percent, and the number needing reading support has dropped from 62 percent to 47 percent.

The bill replaces the provisions on how schools are required to give effect to the Treaty, with new, supporting objectives—that all boards must give effect to—to meet their paramount objective of educational achievement. These new objectives require boards to seek to achieve equitable outcomes for Māori students, take all reasonable steps to provide for students to be taught and to learn in te reo Māori on request of their parents or immediate caregivers, and takes reasonable steps to ensure that the policies and practices for the school reflect New Zealand’s cultural diversity. This change continues to maintain the need for boards to seek to achieve equitable outcomes for Māori students. However, it also reflects the reality that while some families may consider teaching in te reo Māori important to their children’s education, this change provides choice so that they can enable their children to be educated in line with their child or family’s aspirations. Overall, we consider that these new changes will help focus boards on delivering equitable and excellent educational outcomes for all New Zealand students through clarifying expectations.

Alongside the changes to school board objectives, the bill also removes the ability for a Minister of Education to issue a statement of national education and learning priorities—NELPS. This tool was originally introduced to give schools greater strategic direction. However, the updated school board objectives, together with curriculum statements and frameworks, provide stronger, clearer directions setting clear requirements to help guide schools more effectively. Again, the Minister of Education does not want schools to be overburdened or distracted from educational achievement. By streamlining boards’ obligations and removing the NELP, schools will have a clear, simple framework with achievement at the forefront.

We know that schools will need some time to give effect to these changes, and that is why the Education and Workforce Committee have agreed to amend the date at which the school boards’ next strategic plan takes effect, from 1 January 2026 to 1 January 2027. This will provide for boards to prepare for and make changes to their strategic plan in 2026 and consult with their community.

Another key change proposed in this bill is increasing the amount of days’ notice that unions must provide before they strike, from three days to no less than seven days. We recognise and respect the rights of unions to strike—it is a fundamental part of a democratic framework. However, schools and parents need adequate time to prepare for the disruption that strike action can cause. This includes determining whether they remain open, and, if so, arranging provision for supervision. Parent, caregivers, and whānau deserve sufficient time to make alternative arrangements should their school decide to close. Every learning day matters, and this change continues to preserve the rights of union to strike, but we believe that it is a practical and fair adjustment that supports our students, respects our educators, and strengthens our system overall.

As mentioned in the Minister’s second reading speech, teachers have a significant influence on the educational success of all learners. In particular, the quality of teaching is a critical factor that influences educational outcomes. This bill makes amendments to strengthen initial teacher education through greater Government involvement in standards for teacher registration and practising certificates and approvals of initial education programmes. The Minister wishes to pass on her thanks to colleagues who have given consideration to this bill, and we commend the bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Tēnā koe—

Hon David Seymour: Oh, God!

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: —e te Māngai o te Whare. Did that member across there just say “Oh, God!” as I—

Hon David Seymour: No, I’ve heard your speech before.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: Oh right, what a start—the Deputy Prime Minister.

This bill is an absolute travesty—travesty—because what we have here is this Government ramming through these changes and this legislation. They’re ramming it through because they didn’t—

Carl Bates: Hey, we went through a full select committee process.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: Is that right, Mr Chair? Full select committee process for the two Amendment Papers?

Carl Bates: You were there. Did you concentrate?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): I do not want you having conversations across the Chamber. Please restrain yourself.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’ll point out for the chair of the Education and Workforce Committee that this did not go through a full select committee process. The two Amendment Papers tabled by the Minister last week in the committee of the whole House stage of this bill did not go through a select committee process, so the public did not have an opportunity to make submissions on the proposed changes to remove the section regarding Te Tiriti o Waitangi for boards or the changes to the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand. Now, this is a travesty, because what we have here are two really significant changes which, as I just said, have had no consultation, no select committee process, and, actually, very little debate.

In terms of Te Tiriti o Waitangi: first, the Government’s plan was to deprioritise that in the legislation, but then, after significant lobbying by Hobson’s Pledge, the Minister caved to Hobson’s Pledge, caved to the Deputy Prime Minister’s political and ideological agenda, and actually removed that provision for boards. There were patronising comments that volunteers and parents cannot understand what Te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations are from both Ministers—that Minister that has spoken today, and the Minister that spoke last week. They are elected members of a Crown entity, and, in fact, we had the president of Te Whakarōputanga Kaitiaki Kura o Aotearoa, or the New Zealand School Boards Association, Meredith Kennett, say that the change would undermine the legal and practical standing of schools as Crown entities and risk damaging wider social cohesion, to no clear benefit. Kennett said that the clause did not cause harm, but removing it would. “To understand attendance and achievement statistics for rangatahi Māori, you have to understand our history—and that includes Te Tiriti,” she said. “That understanding leads to more practical, effective, and inclusive school policies.”

This particular amendment that the Government introduced during the committee stage, without consultation, without a select committee process, is absolutely undermining our founding document and undermining our boards of trustees. It’s no wonder we have seen them, in the last week, rejecting this Government’s moves to undermine them—doing the best for their schools and their communities—by patronising, saying that they can’t understand what the obligations must be.

The Minister did not answer my questions in the House last week, when I asked what are the Crown’s obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi when it comes to education, and how will the Government ensure that the authority that they give to school boards is going to be overseen and that we are going to have assurance that the Minister is going to be able to ensure all schools uphold her Treaty of Waitangi obligations, when there is no mechanism for us to be able to see that. They are delegating significant authority to school boards with no responsibility to do it in a way that upholds Te Tiriti o Waitangi. We have had organisation after organisation, school board after school board, in just a week, come out condemning this Government’s changes to removing Te Tiriti o Waitangi from school boards.

The other issue that I want to talk to—which we didn’t have an opportunity in the committee of the whole House stage last week—was the significant changes that this Government is making to the Teaching Council through their Amendment Paper. To the chair of the committee on the other side of the House, I say that this was another one that did not come to select committee and did not have consultation. What we have is, basically, the Minister had already tried to do this before: remove these powers from the Teaching Council. She wants to set the standards for the teaching profession. This is a political overreach. This is going to allow for the political influence and interference into the teaching profession. We don’t have that for doctors; we don’t have that for lawyers—but here, this Minister wants to take on that responsibility and have the ability to have that level of political overreach into our teaching profession.

Now, this did actually come up in one submission in the select committee, and I point that out for everybody, because basically, the Minister is adopting the playbook of The New Zealand Initiative. This particular change was in their submission, and I don’t think anybody in this House should be surprised that the Minister has chosen to pick up the suggestions and recommendations from The New Zealand Initiative and take that and put that into an Amendment Paper, introduce it at the last minute with no consultation, no select committee process, and pass it through the House, because so many of the things that this Minister of Education is doing comes from suggestions—the manifesto, submissions—from The New Zealand Initiative. We should all be concerned, because if the Minister is successful in taking these powers of the Teaching Council and putting them in the Ministry of Education—and tonight is the first stage of that—they will be responsible for setting the standards for the teaching profession.

I also think that they are starting to lay the groundwork, the foundations, soften everything, ready for performance-based pay. That is something that has been rejected time and time again, and here we have the Minister taking the steps to allow that to happen. Mark my words, that’s what her agenda is. Also, the Minister has already developed the set of standards she would like for the Teaching Council, so she’ll just be able to bring those: “Here’s what I prepared earlier but wasn’t able to get through because I was advised by the ministry not to. Now, I have this opportunity to do that in law. Here is the first stage.” Again, this is going to be rammed through.

So we have teaching organisations who have hit back on the Minister’s proposals. Here, we have the headline “Education groups oppose minister’s Teaching Council shake-up”. We have signatories from NZEI Te Riu Roa, the New Zealand Post Primary Teachers’ Association, the New Zealand Principals Federation, Te Akatea, New Zealand Catholic Primary Principals Association, New Zealand Pasifika Principals’ Association, Aotearoa Educators Collective, Montessori Aotearoa, Kindergartens Aotearoa, and the Tertiary Education Union—representing approximately 100,000 educators in New Zealand, all expressing significant serious concerns about the Minister’s proposals to take the Teaching Council into the ministry so she can have the ability to influence and interfere in the profession. Ultimately, this, they say, will put the quality of teaching and learning for our students at risk.

We should all be seriously concerned when that many organisations, representing close to 100,000 educators, are writing an open letter and expressing serious concerns about a piece of legislation that the Minister simply introduced as an Amendment Paper in a committee of the whole House stage, without a select committee process, without consultation, and it’s just going to pass into law tonight. As I said at the beginning of my speech, this is an absolute travesty that we have the Minister here first trying to deprioritise Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and now entirely removing it from the responsibilities of school boards. They did not consult on this. They did not get support for this through the proper process. They introduced it in the House in the committee of the whole House stage. That is not democratic, and we are seeing backlash from the sector, from the schools, from our communities.

I hope the Minister will listen, but I don’t believe I have seen her demonstrate that to date. She is going to continue to push ahead, regardless of the fact that there is no evidence to support these proposals that she has here—no evidence. What she has is a coalition agreement that said she was going to do these things, so that is political, not educational. We do not commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is a despicable bill by a despicable, despicable Government.

The Green Party will not be supporting this, and let’s discuss why. First of all, the bill is going to remove giving effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi in the school board under section 127 of the Education and Training Act 2020. Now, this, as the previous speaker, the Hon Willow-Jean Prime, has mentioned, is an amendment that was introduced in the House during the committee of the whole House stage. This was not consulted on, this was not part of the select committee stage, and this has received backlash from the New Zealand School Boards Association themselves, who are most affected by this. It removes local tikanga Māori, it removes mātauranga Māori.

Why is the Minister of Education doing all of this? Let’s face it, the mask has really come off from the Minister on her agenda to attack Te Tiriti o Waitangi. She doesn’t need the Minister of Justice’s support any more—she can do that for herself. We’re seeing the removal of the National Education and Learning Priorities (NELPs), despite the fact that in the truancy inquiry report done in 2027, it says that NELPs are helpful when it comes to attendance.

What is this bill aiming to do? Actually, more broadly, what is the Government’s agenda? A lot of this bill is the Government and the Ministers saying that they want educational outcomes for students. Are educational outcomes important? Yes, but what is education? Education is about curiosity. Education is about children understanding and having a love of learning and asking questions. Education is not a means to an end. It is not that you go to school, you go to uni, you work, you retire, you die. But that is what this Government wants out of education, because it has a Minister who has never set foot in front of a classroom, who does not understand what it means to be an educator, and who has the arrogance to not consult with the sector on any of the changes that are being made.

This is a bill that is going to create good little productive units, because that is what this Government wants. They want labour units. They don’t want people to ask questions. They don’t want people to learn. This is what’s going to happen with this bill. When we have an announcement made by the Minister with a backdrop of Business New Zealand that’s done in a law firm with no teacher or student in sight, that is a problem and that should be a concern for parents, for students, and for teachers in Aotearoa.

We are seeing Te Tiriti under attack. What we’re seeing from this Minister is that while, yes, they are tooting about the fact that they are doing all of these little things—first of all, if you look for success, you can find success anywhere, and that’s what we are finding with some of the reports that are coming out regarding education. We are seeing a cherry-picking of evidence.

Ninety-seven percent of ākonga Māori are in English-medium streams. They will be under this system. This Government is like, “Well, what is wrong with removing Te Tiriti o Waitangi from school boards? They can still do it.” But do you know what? School boards had 150 years to teach Te Tiriti o Waitangi and to teach New Zealand history to students, and it wasn’t done. So the fact that they’re like “Oh, school boards can still do it.”—that’s not going to happen.

When they are talking about “We want to make sure that everyone’s going to succeed.”—no. They want to make sure that people only succeed within a white framework. They are saying that they want educational outcomes for Māori, but God forbid as Māori; God forbid that there should be educational outcomes as Chinese. They mean that with this legislation, you have the option, if you ask for it, and so if you want access to your heritage and your culture, you’d better beg for it.

That is what this Government is trying to do when it comes to education: “Know your place; otherwise, we will put you in your place.” That’s what’s happening with this bill right here. It is sheer arrogance.

When we’re looking at this bill, when we’re looking at the fact of changing the New Zealand history curriculum—I want to know, how is that history curriculum going to be taught? Are they going to teach about the colonial history of the oppression that Chinese people had to go through in the Opium War, when our imperial palaces were sacked by the colonial power and our heritage looted? Are they going to talk about the Congo massacre that Leopold II of Belgium committed on the people of Congo, which was one of the worst tragedies in the world? Are they going to teach about blackbirding, where Pasifika people were traded as slaves in Aotearoa and Australia? Are they going to teach the colonial history of the world and the fact that it was the colonial powers that caused what we’re seeing here today? Are they going to teach any of that in this history curriculum? Because if they are not, if they are not—

Celia Wade-Brown: I don’t think they know about it.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: No, of course they don’t know about it, because that would actually require people to know global history, for a change. It would require them to know the history of Aotearoa, for a change.

When we are looking at this bill and when we are looking at the fact that Te Tiriti is going to be removed from board obligations, we are looking at the fact that the Minister has, without consultation, decided to stack the Teaching Council and rob it of its independence, where now there are going to be more ministerial appointees on the Teaching Council than genuinely independent elected officials. When we’re looking at the fact that amendments that have been dropped during the committee stage have not had proper consultation, that is undermining not only Te Tiriti o Waitangi; that is undermining the democracy of Aotearoa and that is undermining the unity and kotahitanga of Aotearoa.

That should never be accepted by the House—that should never be accepted by anyone in the House—but am I surprised? No, because we’re seeing decisions made by this Government over and over again in sheer arrogance, because they think they know what’s best for every single sector. They think they know more than teachers. They think they know more than educators, more than people who have spent decades of their life—and from a Minister who has been a Minister for half a second—and they think that they then know better than the people who are the professionals. That is hubris.

As I mentioned during the committee stage, this is something that the Green Party will not support. Also, when we did ask the Minister a question during the committee stage on why she chose to cherry-pick certain things and certain data, there was no response for that. There’s no response. The Minister keeps on talking about the recent changes being made for the Teaching Council because of the OECD’s Teaching and Learning International Survey report of 2024, but there were lots of things in that report, such as the fact that our teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand feel that they do not have the authority to make decisions about their curriculum—about the changes they’re making—and the fact that, on average, they work 6½ hours more than the OECD average. That data was not addressed by the Minister.

To close, the Green Party is making a commitment to educators and to teachers and to students, now. We are going to revert to and commit to the vision and direction of Te Mātaiaho as implemented in 2023, and we are going to commit to the intention of the original history curriculum, because ka whawhai tonu mātou, āke, āke, āke.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m very pleased to take this call to support this bill on behalf of the ACT Party. This is a great bill from a great Government, and I really want to commend the Hon David Seymour for his work that is part of this bill.

As the previous member Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan, who has just sat down, has said, their commitment is towards unions, our commitment is to parents and students. Their commitment is confined to only unions, not to students and not to parents, but on this side, we are committed to seeing what is best for students and what is best for parents. We have been hearing from parents, and we have been taking their interests on board in making sure that this legislation goes through this House in the best possible version.

We are really pleased to see the changes that have been made to this legislation in the committee of the whole House, and I heard members on that side saying that the committee of the whole House stage was not the appropriate process. They had so many Amendment Papers, and even if, like, one Amendment Paper of theirs had gone through, I would ask them: would you have said the same thing—that that process was not the right process? No, they would not have, because this is the process that we adopted, and it was in the committee of the whole House that we made the changes on the basis of the feedback that we were getting when the bill was reported back from the Education and Workforce Committee. So I don’t understand what those members were saying about the committee of the whole House, because that is a process, and I can’t remember how many Amendment Papers there were. I think that it was close to 130 Amendment Papers, or something like that. They were fighting to make changes in the committee of the whole House, and now they are saying, “Why did you make changes to this bill in the committee of the whole House?”

I’m really pleased to see the changes that have been made to this bill in the committee of the whole House because the objectives of school boards are not to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. That is just a distraction. It’s just shifting their attention to something that is not measurable. We want to see that school boards are able to deliver in the best interests of students. We want to see that they are focused on improving numeracy, they are focused on improving literacy, they’re focused on improving attendance, and they’re focused on improving engagement. These are the kinds of things that parents have been asking to see school boards deliver, and that is what we are delivering.

School boards are not entities that are there for any kind of cultural or political kind of motivation in these institutions. Their job as a governance board is in being an educational institute, and so we want to see that they are focused on delivering the best educational outcomes for all students, irrespective of their racial background, whether they’re Māori, Pasifika, Chinese, Indian, or of any racial background. To say that this is going to have a negative impact on Māori students—that is just rubbish. Why do I say this? Because still now, that is happening, and we haven’t seen that making any difference to Māori students.

I do accept that, yes, there will be some students who do lag behind. Not every student can learn at the same pace, and so what we need to do is we need to focus on those students on the basis of their need. Race has nothing to do with that, and giving effect to the Treaty of Waitangi is not going to help anybody. It’s just a waste of resources, and so I’m very pleased to see that in the committee of the whole House, we’ve managed to make this change. In my second reading speech, I said that this was going to be removed as part of the wider Treaty clauses review, or even before that, and so we’re really pleased that it has happened before that so that schools get more certainty, parents get more certainty, and students actually know that they have to focus on numeracy and literacy, and they have to focus on learning the subjects that are going to give them the skills to succeed in the real world.

Talking about attendance, yes, attendance management plans in schools are really important. We saw that attendance in schools dropped under the previous Labour Government, and we have been working really, really hard. Again, I want to commend the Hon David Seymour for his work, and we are seeing that the attendance data is looking better and better, day by day.

This will happen only when students see that they have value when they go to school. If we’re not providing value to students, they’re not going to turn up to school if we’re just wasting their time, and even parents will think that sending their children to school is just a waste of their time. We want to see that schools are able to provide real value to students so that parents also think that “Yes, my child should be in school.” That is what we are doing.

In this legislation, we are ensuring that schools will have attendance management plans, and, of course, I understand that there can be so many different reasons why students don’t turn up to school. That’s why we are saying that the schools should respond to the underlying reasons, as well, for students being absent, because that will give us a really good picture of what is happening in different schools.

Now, finally, I want to talk about freedom of expression in universities. Yes, we start from school, and in school, the children learn about the skills that are needed to succeed in the world. In university, they learn those skills, but they also want the exposure to the wider world, and what is happening at the moment is we are restricting that kind of exposure for students. We want to empower students. We want to protect those students who want to bring different kinds of speakers and those who want to express different views on campuses—they should be able to do that.

Under the previous Labour Government, open debate was under threat. Open debate was under threat under the previous Labour Government, and we want to see that open debate is protected.

We want to see that people are able to hear different kinds of views and they’re able to make up their own minds. If they want to accept those views and agree with those views or disagree with those views, students should be able to do that when they are at university. That is the age at which they should be able to develop that kind of thinking process, and we want to see that that is happening. I’m really pleased to see that in this legislation, universities will be required to develop and commit to having a policy of freedom of expression, and also there will be a complaints process, which will make this whole thing really transparent.

So this is a really good bill. We’re very pleased to support it and we commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thanks, Mr Speaker. When I was listening to the Opposition speeches, which seemed like a defence of the current education system, you’d kind of think that from the Opposition point of view, everything is working really, really well. Willow-Jean Prime said that this bill is a travesty. To me, that is defending the indefensible, because at the moment the travesty actually is that our education system has been failing our young people for a very long time and it’s getting worse. The level of attendance is really, really poor and we are starting to see that beginning to come back up again with a lot of hard work, particularly from the Ministers in this Government.

We’re also seeing the levels of achievement in some of those core skills—the ability to read, to write, to be numerate. Those kind of skills had got to a level which we should be collectively ashamed of and yet the Opposition seem to be defending that. That, to me, is defending the indefensible.

Look, if you don’t believe what I’m saying there, just look at what the regulatory impact statement (RIS) says: “While there is much good practice and achievement in the New Zealand education system, educational achievement data shows significant gaps and variability in the educational achievement of New Zealand students. The 2022 results of the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) examinations continue the trend of worsening overall performance of New Zealand students and large equity gaps.”

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What has that got to do with Te Tiriti?

ANDY FOSTER: That has nothing to do with Te Tiriti, but what that does have to do—actually, I’ll come back to that. It does have a little bit to do with Te Tiriti, but what it does say is that we have a problem in our education system. That problem is that our students—[Interruption] I don’t know what these people are yelling and screaming about, but what that says is that our education system is failing our students.

What this bill does is it quite rightly says that that is not acceptable, and it says that instead of a confused mess of several equal and competing objectives in the education system, we are going to say that there is a primary objective—a primary objective in the education system, a paramount objective—and then there are a number of supporting objectives. That seems reasonable, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it seem like common sense to say that a school board’s paramount objective in governing a school is to ensure that every student at the school is able to attain their highest possible standard in educational achievement? Does that sound like a terrible thing? It sounds like a very, very good thing to me, because what’s quite clear is that, at the moment, that has not been happening and this bill is about saying that is front and centre. There are a whole bunch of supporting objectives, but that is front and centre. That is the most important objective of our school system.

In terms of Te Tiriti, I think there was a question and a bit of interchange that that happened during question time. It was about what this bill does in terms of giving effect to Te Tiriti. Well, it actually does one very, very practical thing because what it says is it seeks to achieve equitable outcomes for Māori students. We know that Māori students generally are performing much worse than students as a whole, and so to lift that, surely, has to be a good thing, and it is not an amorphous objective about Te Tiriti. It is saying very concretely that we want to lift the performance of those students, in this case Māori students, who are not performing at the level that they need to. Across the board, our students are not performing at the level they need to. That is particularly true of some sectors of society—Māori students and people from lower socioeconomic areas are performing particularly poorly, and they need to be lifted up. We don’t want just to have some really high performers up here and then a big tail of people who are not able to cope in the education system. That is not setting those people up to be citizens of the world, citizens of this country.

The next part of this bill is about ensuring that schools have attendance management regimes. Again, that makes sense. How can you learn if you’re not actually at school? This Government has put a lot of focus there, and the Hon David Seymour has put a lot of focus on making sure that we get more of our students spending more of their time at school, so they are—guess what!—learning more. That has got to be a good thing.

Finally, in terms of the Teaching Council—because we had a lot of that from the Opposition as well—again, if you look at the RIS, the RIS is quite clear because it says that at the moment what’s happening is that we are not setting our teachers up for success either. It talks about saying, if I can find—oh, there we go. “If new teachers do not feel confident in their preparedness to teach areas of the curriculum, it is likely that their learners will struggle in these curriculum areas.” So what that is saying—and we know that’s the case—is that we are not setting our teachers up. I was a teacher 30-odd years ago. We are not setting our teachers up to succeed either, and it is really, really important that we rectify that.

The last couple of things I would say—what an impassioned speech that was from Lawrence Xu-Nan. In terms of history—and I used to be a history teacher once—we should be teaching every bit of history that we can. Of course, I mean, history is such an enormous thing. We should be celebrating history. We should be teaching that, and we should do that, warts and all. There are no perfect races, no perfect groups in history. We should be doing that warts and all. Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan, you’re quite right; curiosity, love of learning is really, really important. What we should be making sure is that people are able to look at that information and to make up their own minds about what it means, not be told what to think. I think that is much more the fault of Governments of the left rather than Governments of the right.

The final thing I wanted to say, it seems slightly anomalous to the rest of the bill, but it is an important thing as well, and it’s good that we actually bring a lot of things in together—the issue of freedom of speech at universities. Quite clearly, we have seen quite a number of instances where freedom of speech has been denied, where both staff and students have been unable to say what they would like to say. Freedom of speech is a cornerstone of democracy, and it is really, really important. It is really, really important that universities are required to adopt statements on freedom of expression and the way in which that is done is set out very, very clearly. I think that will make universities, which should be the place where you have debate, sometimes uncomfortable debate—they should be the place that we have those discussions, and I think that is a good thing as well. So with that, I commend this bill to the House.

The next call is a split call.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. It’s an honour to be here, standing on behalf of Te Pāti Māori in staunch opposition to this Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2). This is not a minor or technical tweak. It is actually the rotten stripping and the removal of Te Tiriti o Waitangi from the education system. That’s what we’re contending with today. It removes Māori partnership, it removes iwi partnership, it removes accountability to tangata w’enua, it removes accountability to iwi, and it’s deliberately silencing our tamariki Māori in their own classroom. It’s a regression. It’s a regression to a monocultural colonial model of education that is knowingly erasing Te Tiriti in this time and age—knowing the importance of mokopuna, of tamariki, of rangatahi, turning up to schools and being comfortable in their own cultural identity.

We are all here because of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and yet we have a Government who’s intentional on trying to wipe it and attack it from the moment it got in.

Repeka Lessels, who is the president of the New Zealand Educational Institute, with 50,000-plus members, said that this is the latest in a series of racist, dogmatic attacks on our education system. That is from an absolute specialist. We have got schools—and I’m going to read them out because what I want our whānau to do in listening to this debate is actually get in behind these schools and encourage more to join them: Whakatāne High School, Te Uru Karaka Newton Central School, Allandale Primary School, Apanui School, Tauranga Intermediate, Te Kura Takiwa o Opononi, Prospect School, Ao Tawhiti Unlimited Discovery school, Te Hiwa Shirley Primary School, Richmond Road School, Pāpāmoa Primary School, Somerfield Te Kura Wairepo, Sunnyvale Primary, Victoria Primary School, Te Kura o Hau Karetu, Huirangi School, Waterloo School, St Mary’s School in Foxton, Opoutere School, One Tree Point School, Ruakākā Primary School, South Otago High School, Porirua East School, Paraparaumu College, Albany Senior High School, Te Aute College, and Te Kura o Mangaweka. These are colleges that are actually in the areas that some of these Government MPs belong to, and huge accolades to these schools for showing leadership because they are actually doing something that we encourage the rest of the country and the rest of the schools to stand in solidarity and support them.

This is what we have, and Governments cannot wipe us out. Governments cannot wipe us out. They have tried before. Today, there are 29 kura and growing; 950,000 ākonga and tauira and teachers who are calling this Government out. They are calling out the Government’s short-sighted, anti-Māori, anti-Treaty approach that they have shown from the moment this Government got in.

I think of Moana Jackson above, who reminded everyone in Aotearoa that the Treaty has “never been about Treaty rights, it’s always been about the rightness that comes from people accepting their obligations to each other.”

This Government is out of touch with the very communities it’s meant to represent. Instead, this Government has been ignored, quite rightfully, by the schools that have got the courage to show their commitment to a united Aotearoa hou, to a country that is intentional on peace. Indeed, we’ll have the last laugh in 2026 when we see the end of this Government and its revolting attacks to Te Tiriti.

We have continued to see the beautiful, humble leader Rahui Papa and the National Iwi Chairs Forum have spoken out about this Government—spoken out about it again: its blindness to what it is that encourages our tamariki with their whānau, with their communities to stand in unison. You can only learn when you’re in an environment that encourages you to be who you are, when you are allowed to express your culture, when you’re allowed to express your hapū, when you’re allowed to express your iwi, and they are the very communities that help fund and get these schools up and running.

This Government is bereft. It is bereft of any conscience that should be shared towards these schools, towards our students, and towards the nation-building of Aotearoa. Shame, absolute shame on the whitewashing and the continual back-pedalling we have to the colonial construct that ruined the education, and the whole fact that they are in denial of the equity that we have in education. They are in denial of how Māori children arrive to not fit into this education system. No, instead we have a Government intent on dragging every Māori child back to where it is that they think normal is. Nō reira, we are absolutely opposed to this bill.

Members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7.30 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 5.58 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Good evening. We are still on the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2). Francisco Hernandez.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. And points for the full, correct name. I wanted to take the speech to—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): We do our best.

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, I’m rising in opposition to the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2), but in contrast to my usual form of speech, I’m going to try and give a slower and more measured speech. It’s good to, sort of, practise different kinds of speech techniques.

During the committee of the whole House, it was disappointing not to have been able to explore the contribution which I’m going to focus my speech on, which is the issue of how this bill potentially creates restrictions on the ability of universities to act as a critic and conscience of society—a function which I’m sure all of us members can appreciate. It is something that I’ve gotten a new appreciation for, on how important it is to ensure that universities are able to have people that are able to speak to potentially, you know, controversial ideas and such. I mean, obviously there’s a spectrum of what limits can be placed and there’s a spectrum of what sort of conduct is allowed to be engaged upon. But I think we all agree, in general, it’d be good to not place undue restrictions on the ability of people to exercise, you know—to invite speakers or overly restrict what speakers on campus are allowed to say and do.

This is something that was impressed on me, quite unusually, when as the Green spokesperson for tertiary education—we’ve been doing this save our polytechs tour—and I tried to get a booking on the Otago Polytechnic campus to hold a public meeting around saving Otago Polytechnic. It all seemed to be fine at first glance. They accepted the booking, but I think a few days before the event was due to be held, the event was cancelled at the last minute by Te Pūkenga, by the administration, because they didn’t want the campus to be politically influenced. So, having had that happen to me, I’m sympathetic to the idea that we should be protecting the rights of speakers to be able to speak on campus, because it is concerning that in a tertiary institution that people are not able to speak. I do think that this was one of the potential omissions of this bill that could have been included.

Obviously, we take exception to how sweeping the powers of the bill are, but if we are to place polytechs on the same status as universities, and I’m sure all of us members here agree that polytechs, you know, should be on the same status as universities, then they should also be required to uphold academic freedom as universities have been required to, in our view, in an overly strict way. I mean, we’d water the bill down and, you know, just protect the right of speakers.

We do take exception to the how this bill, essentially, restricts universities from being able to take a public position on issues. And this is concerning to us because, you know, when we asked the Minister questions during the committee of the whole House stage on how taking a public position would be defined, we weren’t able to get a concrete answer. That’s concerning to us because universities should be able to take positions as a public institution and also submit on bills. We got no assurance from the Minister that the function of universities as a critic and conscience of society in the context of being able to submit to, you know, for example, bills in the House or really any legislation, anything that’s being done in the context of the role, would be protected.

Another area that we would have grave concerns about, in terms of taking a public position provision, is in terms of the curriculum. Now, a very strict, hard-line application of this legislation could render universities being unable to take official stances on what they’re teaching. For example, whether it’s evolution versus creationism. Now, you know, we do know people are allowed to have opinions, but the difference is evolution is a scientific fact, and universities should be able to proclaim that. But, unfortunately, this bill casts doubt to that, which is why we oppose it.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. To anyone listening at home to this debate this evening, they might have got confused around what is trying to be achieved here. I want to help just make it pretty clear and pretty simple, because the Opposition have tried to confuse everyone about what the role of schooling is about. This bill is focused on ensuring we help get students to school—attendance—and, secondly, we focus on educational achievement; and for parents like me across the country, I know that that’s what we want. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you Mr Speaker. The Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2), the legislation that nobody asked for, that universities didn’t ask for, that schools did not ask for—yet here we are again, debating a piece of legislation that takes away the localism, the autonomy, the decision making of our educational institutions.

Hon Matt Doocey: Like three waters.

SHANAN HALBERT: Like three waters, and, Mr Doocey, you campaigned against that and you promised localism, and here you are taking it away. Minister Doocey is advocating for localism, in a bill that takes away localism. How does that go? All of this because this National-led Government thinks that they know better than our educators, the sector, the school boards, and universities. It’s another example where they are out of touch. In fact, the only people that this bill serves is Hobson’s Pledge, Don Brash, and the Free Speech Union.

I want to start by reflecting on clause 11 of the bill amending section 281, and its freedom of expression requirements for universities. Over the past eight months, I’ve had the absolute privilege to travel across tertiary education institutions in this country and see the fantastic work that they do. I’ve listened to the concerns of their leadership, their staff, and their students, and you know what? None of them have said to me that universities adopting a statement of freedom of expression is something that they want, that they need, or that it is a priority for them. This proposal is a mishmash of things. It’s an afterthought, mentioned as a joke in passing about how the tail wags the dog in this Government, because in the current educational environment this is not a priority for our universities. They want to focus on the core issues, the real issues: how they can deliver for students and provide an education that sets them up for a successful workforce.

On the perceived problem of freedom of expression, the Ministry of Education’s regulatory impact statement makes it very clear: “We have limited evidence on the actual extent and impact of freedom of speech concerns in New Zealand.” Additionally, it said that universities themselves have a “lower level of overall concern that freedom of speech is being constrained.” The ministry’s preference was in fact to maintain the status quo. When I asked the Minister, in fact, in our select committee, who it was that asked for this bill, the only person that she could reference was in fact Don Brash. Don Brash was the only person that the Minister could say asked for this piece of the legislation. It comes as no surprise to those of us who sit on this side of the House that during the select committee process’ submissions, only 13 percent of submitters who mentioned these sections of the bill supported these proposals. Ridiculous.

There were core themes throughout the submissions that were heard. This legislation is absolutely unnecessary, overly prescriptive, and actually creates greater risks around academic freedom and the freedom of expression. The New Zealand Law Society have noted that this legislation is unnecessary—they’ve noted it too—and “would at best simply affirm what is already accepted to be the case under existing legislation.” They asked a simple question: whether anything is gained by the proposed reform, which would impose legal obligations upon university councils.

Universities New Zealand, the sector voice for our eight universities that represents their collective views, I think answers this question best in their submission: “All universities in New Zealand regard the protection of freedom of speech, academic freedom and the encouragement of robust and respectful debate to be essential to our work and critical to our purpose. Given this enduring focus delivered via the current institutional policies, Universities New Zealand does not see that there is a problem requiring legislative change with respect to freedom of expression at our universities.”

So the question remains, who other than “Uncle” Don Brash and the Free Speech Union, does this part of the legislation serve? In the UK, the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act and its provisions, including a mandatory complaints process like the one proposed in this legislation, resulted in the proliferation of frivolous and vexatious claims, and weaponisation of the complaints process that actually had a chilling effect on free speech.

At the heart of it, we actually know what the real issue is here and who it impacts most. It will be Māori, it will be rainbow communities, it will be those with disabilities, those that are marginalised, and it will be women. This bill sets out to undo this.

I move on to the second part—and there’s a lot in this unnecessary, bundle-junket of a piece of legislation. It’s a lack—

Stuart Smith: It’s a bit negative, Shanan—quite negative.

SHANAN HALBERT: Somebody from the Government side just said that I’m negative. Actually, the entire sector is negative about this bill. They don’t agree with any of it, Stuart Smith. Are you in touch? Are you in touch with your communities? I will share one of my schools. Written to myself and National MP Dan Bidois, and to the Minister of Education, Erica Stanford, “As an appointed body to provide governance in this school, we are, effectively, the representatives of the Crown in a relationship with our school community and particularly, in this matter, with Māori. The obligations of the Treaty of Waitangi have been clearly and consistently restated by national and international rulings.” They are one of many school boards across the country releasing statements like this, open letters opposing this legislation. That is because they recognise the important role they play in honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi, a recognition that is built on their work on their ground in their own communities. Yes, we call that localism, and it is the National Government in this legislation that is taking that away. Boards of trustees lead our schools. They set the strategic direction and they are the vehicle for bridging the Crown’s educational responsibilities with their local community in its unique educational context.

The final comment: in the committee of the whole House last week, I asked the Minister directly: how do you achieve equity without Te Tiriti o Waitangi? I’ll repeat, for ears in this House—

Hon David Seymour: Just treat everyone like a human being.

SHANAN HALBERT: —how is it that you achieve equity without Te Tiriti o Waitangi? David Seymour wouldn’t know, he wouldn’t have any idea. The Minister came back to me and asked me how you achieve equity. It comes to partnership. It comes to taking care of all tamariki in our school system. It doesn’t come about by taking away the rights, the responsibilities of Te Tiriti, and the choices of schools, of trustees, and of whānau in our education system.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. One of the key parts of this bill that I think is really worth highlighting is that the foremost obligation of boards of trustees, the priority for them, is to concentrate on educational achievement. Now, if everything is important and everything is a number one priority, then nothing is really a priority. We’re returning a sense of order to things, and we are making it very clear that this is the one number one thing that we care about in education: actually educating our children. They need to turn up—and that is a part of the obligations—and they need to be seen to achieve. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Unfortunately, we have here a bill that got changed quite dramatically in the committee of the whole House. When those sorts of things happen, when we see a change that is made so drastically at that point, there is nothing other than to say that this is a grubby little bill. Not giving people the opportunity to actually speak on clauses and parts of this bill that are absolutely critical is a really, really big affront to democracy. I’m really surprised because I’ve heard members on that side of the House say that democracy is really important, and yet they go and they do this to this particular bill—particularly when we see how the bill now removes the need for boards of trustees to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

When I hear the arguments on that side of the House, I think “Do they not realise, when they say that that is what the Crown needs to be doing, that boards are a Crown entity?” It almost beggars beyond belief that they have no understanding of the make-up and the nature of a board of trustees. If that is the fact and, in effect, what they are saying, is it that they’ve got a broader agenda around what they want to do with those boards of trustees? Giving effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi is an incredibly important function of a board of trustees.

The fact that this came through almost under cloak and dagger was absolutely disappointing—and, yes, they should be hanging their heads for such an obvious affront to the democracy of legislation in this House. [The Hon David Seymour throws his hand up] And, yes, that member over there can go like that, because that’s how I feel when I see such a terrible piece of legislation that will impact on education.

What I will say, though, is that according to the bill as it was written and went through the committee of the whole House, boards of trustees don’t have to give effect to their change in their strategic plans until 2027 anyway. So that means that they will still have to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, which means that when this Government gets elected out in 2026, it will change anyway. So I would suggest that boards of trustees will be looking to make sure that they can keep that as they’ve always known, because it is an incredibly important function of boards of trustees—not that anybody that has not been involved in education would actually know that; they think they might know, but they don’t have the data to actually show how much that makes a difference, because they don’t understand it at that level.

The other important aspect that came in cloak and dagger in this particular piece of legislation, which was absolutely disgraceful, was the fact of altering the composition of the Teaching Council of Aotearora here in this country. It is just unbelievable that here we have professional bodies in every area in this country—we have lawyers’ professional bodies, we have doctors’ professional bodies, we have them right across the board, where the profession owns what is happening and owns what that profession will look like and the standards for that profession, but that Government on that side of the House will not give that ability to our teaching profession. What does that say? That says that they have very little regard for our teachers in this country.

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: No regard.

Hon JAN TINETTI: They have no regard for our teachers in this country, and that is absolutely disgraceful. No wonder the Ministers are getting so much correspondence from the teachers and from the principals saying how much they are absolutely upset with what that Government and what this Government is doing.

I would challenge anybody on that side of the House who comes from an alternate profession to say whether they would like the Government telling them how to do and how to run their profession—such as, how to do operations, how to run a business. No, because we have the people who are the experts in those areas who run those professional bodies. Yet that Government wants to take that away from our teaching workforce.

This is a disgraceful bill and shows little to no regard for our teaching profession in this country. I am disgusted in what is happening here tonight.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Education and Training Amendment Bill is focused on one thing: lifting achievement—lifting achievement so that every Kiwi kid can reach their full potential in school, which will equip them with the knowledge and skills they need to take on life and thrive. Thank you to our Minister of Education for being bold, for being courageous and being game-changing, and for believing in the power of achievement and the power of education to lift our kids from poverty of aspiration. I commend this bill to the House.

This bill demonstrates so much of what is wrong with this Government. It’s a grab bag of right-wing bigotry and settling scores with the Government’s perceived and imagined critics. It’s probably one of the reasons—the fact is that this Government is so inclined to pursue fringe ideological distractions, instead of focusing on the things that people in this country are most concerned with, and that’s the cost of living, actually, they spend the time of the House passing laws like this. This bill is not worthy of this House’s time, it’s not worthy of a Government with any self-respect and understanding of the importance of this country’s institutions, and it’s not worthy of a Government that claims to be laser focused on educational achievement.

Let’s take the issue of freedom of speech in our country’s universities. No evidence has been presented either to this House or to the Education and Workforce Committee to justify putting the long arm of the State into our autonomous universities to basically micromanage them and make them report regularly to the Government of the day on their free speech policies. There has been no evidence.

As Shanan Halbert said to the House, the only instance that was used to justify this, in all of the discussions at the select committee, was the incident when Don Brash was denied a platform at Massey University. That is the only crisis that justified this intervention. These provisions are the bastard children of the right-wing libertarian movement internationally, like the Free Speech Union, which is trying to use the power of Government to break open our universities and require them to provide platforms for the racists, the Holocaust deniers, the trans haters, all of the people that the libertarian right want to give respectability to. They want to force our universities to provide platforms for those fringe people at the cost of the credibility and the status of our universities.

The thinking behind this provision completely confuses the idea of free speech with academic freedom. Our universities are based on a tradition of academic freedom that is hundreds of years old, where ideas get tested against research in a climate that fosters independence, fosters critical thinking, and thinks about the quality of ideas. The notion of free speech that people like David Seymour and his ilk are promoting has no notion of quality. Actually, they want the most fringe, notorious people to have access to our treasured academic institutions.

It also completely misses the point that free speech traditions in this country have grown up with a much more balanced approach that requires people to think about the consequences of what they say, because we live in a small island country where we have to get on with each other. The whole idea of freedom of speech should, in any sensible society, sit alongside the balance and the responsibility to consider the consequences of what you say. In universities, it’s the job of the universities to make that judgment, not to have people like David Seymour and right-wing libertarians like him imposing some foreign concept of freedom of speech on our institutions.

I want to talk about the provisions in this bill that set out to neuter the independence of the Teachers Council. Again, a measure in this bill for which no evidence was provided—no serious or plausible rationale for these principles. Where did it come from? Where did it come from? The New Zealand Initiative. Now, I asked the House, why would the Government deliberately undermine the autonomy of the Teachers Council, the body that’s legislated to govern the profession and set standards? Who’s next? Lawyers, accountants, doctors? No, only teachers. That’s right.

There’s only one reason. We have to surmise, because they haven’t actually been open enough and transparent enough to tell us why, but there is only one reason the Government would do this, because they see teachers as their ideological enemies. Now, let’s think about that for a moment. The National-led coalition Government sees the people who get up every day and go off to work to teach our children and help them grow and develop and learn as their ideological enemy. You can see that in the recent comments that several Ministers made about the teachers taking industrial action.

They are happy, in the interests of cultural war politics, to reduce education policy to some kind of parody where they demonise the very people who teach our children. Their whole approach to education policy is to set up this false contradiction between teachers and parents that they’re somehow in opposition to each other. Well, they’re not. They are simply not. If you ask people in the community that I represent, if you ask parents what they think of the teachers in our schools, they respect them, they thank them, they appreciate them, because they know that their kids’ progress in life depends, to a large extent, on good schools and good teachers, but for this Government, teachers are just pawns in their culture war.

Finally, I want to talk about the move to remove the clause that says that schools don’t need to give effect to our country’s founding document. Whose idea was this? No, it wasn’t the Free Speech Union. No, it wasn’t the New Zealand Initiative. This one came from Hobson’s Choice, shoehorned into the coalition agreement by David Seymour and ACT, supported by New Zealand First.

No evidence was supplied to justify this move. In fact, it was basically inserted into the bill late in the select committee process. It’s just an assertion that parents and teachers, the people who govern our schools, cannot be expected to understand or give effect to the Treaty of Waitangi. Who says they can’t? How patronising, how absolutely patronising to say that the people who govern and run our schools—thousands of schools around this country, from one end of the country to the other—cannot understand and cannot give effect to our founding document.

Think about this: our public school system is one of the core and most indivisible parts of the modern State. It is one of the main ways that Government touches the lives of people on a daily basis. The people who run those schools are now being told, “You’re not capable of understanding or giving effect to our founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi.” It says to us as New Zealanders that we have rights and responsibilities for ourselves and to each other, that this country is built on a partnership between tangata whenua and tangata Tiriti.

Is that so hard to understand, that we owe each other the obligation to ensure that each other’s views are taken into account, are heard, that Māori have a say, that we share this place and we are bound together? Is that so hard to understand for the volunteers who govern our schools? I find it absolutely gobsmacking. I worry that this philosophy that is terrified of Māori aspiration, that’s terrified of our founding document is actually percolating through every Cabinet discussion, every Cabinet paper, every bit of law that comes to this House, they are trying to ethnically cleanse out of it the idea that sits beneath our founding document, and that is that this country is based on a partnership. For this side of the House, it’s so terrifying. It’s so obnoxious that they want to pour Janola on every bit of law and bleach out of it any kind of commitment to the Treaty of Waitangi.

Three changes in this bill—all of them fringe ideas that have come in from the outside, with no evidence to support them. This Government is content to bring pure right-wing ideology into this House at the expense of educational achievement.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I just want to note that there are many New Zealanders who moved here to seek refuge from actual ethnic cleansing, and I think the use of that term was incredibly irresponsible and, really, he ought to withdraw it for the reputation of the House.

No, Mr Seymour. I heard that and I think it’s probably a little bit of grandstanding on your part.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, it’s great to have the privilege to take the last call on this bill. It’s a great bill. Listening to the people on the other side of the House, I’m beginning to think they’ve missed the memo. This bill is very simple. It’s about prioritising educational achievement for students and children. And, you know what? I think it’ll do the members on the other side—they can do themselves a favour and go and stop talking to all their union mates and talk to parents—you know, those people out there that are parents. The ones that want to send their kids to school and let them get ahead in life.

This Government is focused on getting kids to school, educating children, and giving them a greater opportunity in life. I commend this bill to the House.

I declare the House in committee for further consideration of the Regulatory Standards Bill.