State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3)

I move, That the State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3) be now read a first time. I will recommend to the House that the bill be referred to the Education and Science Committee for consideration and for reporting back to the House by 19 March 2004. The States Services Commissioner currently has statutory responsibility for collective bargaining for employees of school boards of trustees. This bill gives the commissioner the associated bargaining tools available to employers under the Employment Relations Act, including the power to discontinue the pay of striking employees. It does not stop schools funding strikers from locally raised or operational funding if they choose to do so. The bill also includes provisions to limit the payment of redundancy compensation to employees affected when schools merge or close, in order to make sure that teachers are not paid twice for the same period of time. It also ensures that principals in those merged schools are appointed on merit. I commend the bill to the House.

The National Party will be opposing the bill. That is not just because Trevor Mallard put it up, although that is a good reason. The reason I say that is because this bill is more bully-boy tactics. This legislation should be a warning to people who think that Trevor Mallard does not like them or what they do. If he does not like them, he will take up the time of the House in passing legislation that will give him a bigger stick to beat them with, and that is what this bill is about. In this case, it happens that I share some of his views about the Post Primary Teachers Association, but not all of them, and I certainly do not share enough of those views to support this legislation.

This bill would be more correctly called “Last Year’s Strike Revenge Bill”, because that Minister was put on the political rack by the secondary teachers, by the Post Primary Teachers Association itself, and by his own colleagues. He had eroded the traditionally close relationship between Labour and the Post Primary Teachers Association so much that even in the face of an election, it would not settle. That damaged Trevor Mallard’s credibility permanently. Every night on television, parents saw teachers and children marching. They saw anger and bitterness, and the escalation of those feelings whenever he went into the room to negotiate.

This year he has decided to get all the sticks lined up for next year, and here it is. The State Services Commissioner will now have all the usual rights, duties, and powers of an employer for the purpose of, or in relation to, collective agreement negotiations. I congratulate the Minister on at least being upfront. He does not hide behind bureaucratic terminology. The explanatory note states: “This includes the power to discontinue the pay of striking Board employees and to suspend or lock out Board employees …”. That is pretty straight up. I congratulate the Minister—he did not mince his words. Everyone knows how big the stick will be. I want to tell the Minister that it is already having the effect that one would expect. Post Primary Teachers Association union meetings are reflecting at least the same level of bitterness as the last time. In the very short time I have been the education spokesman—about 3 weeks—I have been amazed that in the staffrooms of New Zealand, the National Party spokesman is more respected, less hated, and more welcome than the Minister of Education. This legislation will only make the gap grow.

The real problem is that Trevor Mallard might be putting the bill through so that he can beat the teachers with a big stick—and beat them a lot harder than last time—but the Labour Government, as a whole, sees it as a logical move back to centralised control of our education system. The normal rights and duties of an employer are to hire and fire. It will not be very long before the Government decides that not only are boards incapable of making judgments about whether to pay their teachers, they are also not very capable of making judgments about which ones to hire. That is worse than the bad old days of the Education Board. It will be back to the States Services Commissioner.

I have no doubt at all that within the term of this Government there will be another State Sector Amendment Bill appropriating more powers to the State Services Commission over our schools and the teachers in them. I know that because I know that the Post Primary Teachers Association will again give Mr Mallard a run for his money in the next industrial round. It will humiliate him again, because this bill will not make much difference. If Mr Mallard is going to go out there beating his chest with this kind of legislation, he had better have the political will to follow through. I can just see the eminently flexible Ms Helen Clark sitting in her Cabinet meetings saying: “Trevor, I know you said you’d lock them out if they went on strike, but I lost two points in the last poll and the Opposition spokesman on education is running rampant. Trevor, I just want you to back off.” This legislation feels good now, but by the middle of next year the Labour Party will wish it had never passed it—just as its members will wish they had never thought of school network reviews.

I have some advice for the Minister: why does he not get an assessment from that psychologist at the Ministry of Education who said that our children were being damaged. The children I saw were orderly, forthright, and articulate, but I can see that the Minister is clearly under psychological stress. He shouts, he abuses people, he puts them down at public meetings, and he threatens to walk out if they disagree with him. If I were the Minister, I would spend less time worrying about technical redundancies in school mergers and closures and more time looking after his own psychological welfare. The pressure is only just beginning. Parents are starting to realise, as I have told them, that he is just a bully. No one is holding a gun to people’s heads, it is not inevitable, and their successful school of 250 does not have to be closed. The next time Trevor Mallard turns up, people do not feel quite so fearful.

There will be some issues that the select committee will have to deal with, but here is the beauty of creative spin. This bill gives the Minister the power to lock out teachers and stop paying them, because boards kept paying them when they were on strike. Members should look at clause 6, “Amendment to section 65A of Education Act 1989”. It provides that during the course of a strike or lockout, the school is deemed to be open for instruction. When the Government locks teachers out, the school is open. If any other employer locks out employees, the workplace is locked out—there is no one working there. But in the newspeak of this Government, when teachers are locked out, there are no children and teachers are not getting any pay, but the school is deemed to be open.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: That’s exactly what the member did.

The Minister should get up and tell us why that is the case. If that is already the case, then why is the Minister going to pass this legislation? It must be different, or he would not be passing this legislation, at all, so I look forward to the scrap. This is a case of both pistols being drawn at sixty paces on the left—the Post Primary Teachers Association versus Trevor Mallard.

💬 Simon Power: It’s going to be nasty.

It is going to be nasty, because there is one of him and there are thousands of them. Their average pay is already over $60,000, so they will not have all the public backing they would expect. In fact, the information for the Government Superannuation scheme tells us that the average secondary teacher’s pay is $65,000, so they cannot expect everyone to be behind them. But nor can Trevor Mallard, because, as parents, we know that this legislation signals that he is in for a last stand with the Post Primary Teachers Association this time. If he thought he was in a better position, he would not need these powers.

That will be the sideshow, but the big game is the continued move back to a centralised, bureaucratic education system, where the Minister, apparently, is the model of all standards and decision-making capabilities. He is the model, he is widely acknowledged as such in the country, and this is all about him making decisions for our children.

Mr English might think that the public has amnesia, but I want to assure him that they do not. The teaching profession, in particular, remembers only too well what National Parties have done to it in the past. This is a very good bill, and we need to get on and pass it.

I make a quick reference to statements made by the new National spokesperson on education, Bill English. I have to point out to him that when secondary teachers went on strike during the arguments over the 1996 collective contract, on the days they withdrew their labour, it was considered that schools were open for instruction.

💬 Hon Bill English: They were getting paid.

No, they were not getting paid.

💬 Hon Bill English: The boards were paying them.

No, the boards do not pay teachers, and they did not pay them then—they were paid through a centralised system. During that time, the open-for-instruction situation was not applied. I can also tell members that there were hardly any strikes—none in terms of collective contracts—during the time that Wyatt Creech and myself were in the education portfolio together.

One of the very few strikes was a wildcat strike by a school in Auckland. When we came into Government with National, the bulk funding issue was swirling angrily through the educational fraternity, and the board of trustees of a secondary school in Auckland was looking seriously at whether it could become bulk funded. The staff decided to go on a wildcat strike. They walked out and kids were told to go home. Then the staff went to the board of trustees—the strike was illegal—and said they wanted the board to ensure that they were paid, in order to demonstrate the board’s goodwill towards them. Even though they had withdrawn their labour, the staff still believed that the board should not write to the ministry and tell it to deduct their pay. If the board did so, the staff said they would go on strike.

That is the situation boards have been caught up in, and boards are much closer to the immediate communities the schools serve. They are much closer to staff than Governments are. For example, boards do not have to see the big picture in terms of educational expenditure, so are reluctant to upset the staffs they have to work with on a day-to-day basis. So I understand that boards have been caught between a rock and a hard place, but it is unfortunately true that many of them did not write to the ministry to say which members should have had their pay deducted.

It was even worse when the Post Primary Teachers Association started to use the rostering-off system, where they said, for example, that on a certain day teachers would not teach third-formers. That meant that boards of trustees had to go through the whole staff to work out which teachers’ timetables for teaching third-formers on that day to take, and how many periods they took. Then they had to go off to the ministry and say: “Look, you have to deduct this number of hours from this teacher, and this number from another teacher, etc.” Once again, boards were very reluctant to do it, and rostering-off was a very powerful industrial tool.

We recognised that in 1998, and we nipped it in the bud before it even got under way. The Post Primary Teachers Association threatened it, and I put out a press release to say to parents that if they did not send their children to school under those circumstances, they were in breach of the law. Paul Holmes picked it up, and we had an interview with Martin Cooney. I did not have to do much work, because Paul Holmes did most of it for me. He did a snow job on Martin Cooney, and the very next day the association withdrew its threats of that sort of action. A day later, Martin Cooney resigned his president’s position with the Post Primary Teachers Association—notice of which, I think, made it probably the best press release I ever put out during my time as Associate Minister of Education.

But Bill English was right about something—2002 was appalling. Industrial relations, and its ongoing effects on students in our secondary schools, were absolutely appalling. We have to look at that and ask ourselves whether we are prepared to put up with that sort of carry-on yet again. Secondary teachers must be the only group in this country who believe that they should be able to withdraw their labour and get paid at the same time. There is nothing moral, ethical, or uplifting about that sort of belief or position.

At an area school in the 1980s, and as Post Primary Teachers Association members, we went on strike, but we did not withdraw our labour. We continued to teach to ensure that students did not lose their day’s learning. We then donated our money to the Post Primary Teachers Association.

💬 Hon Bill English: Did the kids notice?

Yes, they noticed. They thought it was a wonderful self-sacrifice by the teachers at the time. Nowadays, teachers want to walk out and still be paid. We were prepared to continue to work and give up our day’s pay to make the point we were making at that time.

💬 Hon Bill English: Did it work?

Stan Rodger was putting through the State Sector Act at that time—I think that was the issue—and no, it did not work. The Act still went through, so that was a waste of money.

Nevertheless, I say to the Minister that this bill is reactive. Certainly the Government’s performance in handling the round the last time did not bring it great honour, and it must be done far better this time. The legislation is reactive in terms of the specifics of how the Government can deal with the next pay round, but in this particular case it does not overcome the systemic flaws in the adversarial industrial arrangement between the Government and teachers. There is a unique, quite idiosyncratic relationship there. The industrial relations arrangement is simply inadequate in terms of being able to handle things, and it certainly leads to a continuation of angst and unhappiness. We cannot have a constructive teaching force that is continuously in that state of low morale.

New Zealand First will vote for this bill. We believe that in the best interests of the education system we have to have it. We cannot have an environment like the one that existed in 2002 going on into the 2004 round—simply for the well-being of education. The days lost from the education of those students will never be made up. They cannot be—they are lost opportunities to the nation. New Zealand First believes that we need to look at the whole industrial model around which we negotiate teachers’ salaries, compared with the one we have at the moment. I do not think that anybody can consider that that model has worked well in the past.

We believe that the actions taken by certain teachers—not necessarily endorsed by the Post Primary Teachers Association—who withdrew their labour and still expected to be paid, were absolutely unethical and immoral. I am surprised that the National Party is supporting that form of unethical, immoral behaviour by some of our teaching staff. Therefore, we will support the Government in this part of the bill.

I want to talk about one other aspect of the bill—the closure of schools. An important point is being made in this case, but I want to refer to the fact that this Government is hell-bent on closing schools whether they want to be closed or not.

We have a situation up in Northland where a school wants to be closed and the ministry will not close it.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Which one?

It is Taipuha. Having had extensive consultation with its community—it is down to seven kids—the school wrote on 3 or 4 August and said it wanted to be closed. About 2 months later, the ministry comes along and says it has to go through a process. The school wants to make sure that it is closed in time to get its kids into a new school for next year, but no, this Minister will not do that. He is too busy out there closing the schools that do not want to be closed, and this is a school that wants to be closed.

I have to point out to the Minister that he really needs to sort out his ministry’s act, and that of some of the people in it. If that closure is not gazetted 28 days before the opening of schools for next year, those students will be left in a helluva mess. They will have to stay at the school they were at, with no transport arrangements. It will cost the taxpayers additional money, because the teachers’ salaries will still have to be paid, even though they want to move on into the next part of the thing. So I say to the Minister that he had better sort out that part of the ministry’s act.

In terms of this particular legislation, however, what is in there is sensible. With the merging of schools, a number of small schools coulld merge into one and the principals of each of those schools might not have the requisite educational leadership or administrative skills to be able to professionally lead the larger institution that is formed. Under existing legislation, one of those principals has to get the job. Under this legislation, where a large school and a small school merge, and the principal of the larger school does not want the job, the principal of the smaller school—who might not have the experience to carry that job—does not get it.

The educational leadership role of principals in schools is so critical and important that it is wise—and New Zealand First agrees with the Government on this one—that that position be advertised when we have these school reorganisations. New Zealand First agrees with the decisions that have been made by the Government in this particular case, and we will be supporting this bill.

I rise to speak on the State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3) on behalf of the Green Party, and to inform the House that the Greens will be supporting this bill to the select committee. We have made no commitment to support the bill further than that, but we think it should go to the select committee so that we can hear the submissions and work through the numerous issues in the bill.

We think there is some merit in the bill, particularly from the point of view of school boards, and Brian Donnelly has already canvassed some of those points. It is clear that school boards are increasingly responsible for the administrative management of schools. Those functions take precious hours from committed volunteers—hours that would otherwise be devoted to the educational needs of the schools and the children who attend them. Recent changes in the provision of school housing, for example, have put a significantly greater administrative burden on schools, while putting school boards in an additional power relationship with their employees—that is, the teachers they work with.

It is important that members in this House remember that boards of trustees are volunteers from the community. Some of them have management responsibilities in their jobs and day-to-day lives, but if a board is to be truly representative of its community, many of those trustees will be ordinary mums and dads. Many of them will never have had to bear the responsibilities peculiar to the role of an employer, and it can take a real toll on the individuals put into those positions. People put themselves forward for those roles because they are committed to their school and to the best educational outcomes for their children, and they have to deal with significant and serious management issues in the role they have taken on.

The Greens have a great deal of sympathy for school trustees, and for the boards that did not dock teachers’ pay during past industrial disputes, because they had a genuine and legitimate desire to maintain good relations with their staff. We think it is a significant obligation to place on boards, especially if they are supporting the teachers during an industrial dispute. Those disputes, of course, are not between teachers and the school, but between teachers and the Government, and boards have had to deal with being in the middle of those disputes. Schools and boards bear the effects of the disputes, but they have no role in managing them through to a satisfactory and expeditious conclusion. We think there is real merit in removing the obligations on boards to dock pay. It would be helpful to school trustees and to the boards, because they would not have to take up that responsibility and face the conflict that then develops in their relationship with their teachers.

It is also true that teachers who strike should expect to have their pay docked, which is one of the trade-offs of industrial action. No one wants to have his or her pay docked under any circumstances, of course. It is a hard world and people struggle, and teaching is not exactly an overpaid profession. But in industrial disputes it is one of the costs recognised by unions and unionised workers. The fact is that the pay will be docked within the current process for industrial disputes. Whether it is done by the board or by the ministry, this bill does not alter that basic fact.

The Greens also agree with the position of the Post Primary Teachers Association on many issues, and in particular that this seems especially punitive and unnecessary legislation on the part of the Minister. We think the Minister could be concentrating on lots of other more useful things in the education portfolio than simply reorganising who takes the money off the teachers. The education system remains under-resourced, and we draw particular attention to the area of special needs. The devotion of ministerial resources to that and other educational areas should be a greater priority, notwithstanding that some aspects of this bill have merit. We think the Minister could have been spending his time on more constructive things.

We have a number of particular problems with the bill. One of them is around the new powers of the commissioner. We completely disagree with the power the commissioner will have to fine boards that do not provide information about which of their teachers are on strike. That provision is disgraceful. It takes money out of the school budget for an administrative purpose that is not related to the provision of quality education to our children. That punitive action against schools is completely inappropriate.

As I have already foreshadowed, we are voting the bill to the select committee. We expect to see some amendments made there, and we have made no commitment beyond that. Some members say the Greens should be voting against the bill, but I do not see that as a reasonable position to take. A more constructive position would be to support the bill to select committee and then seek amendments on the areas we disagree with. I note that Mr Rodney Hide said that the best reason for opposing the bill was because it was put up by Mr Mallard. I realise it is the end of the year and people are getting scratchy, but that is exactly the kind of thing that makes the public of this country look at this House and ask what we are doing. Let us engage with the issues.

The Greens look forward to hearing the various views on this bill at the select committee stage. We hope to hear rigorous submissions—particularly from school trustees—so we can get a very clear picture of what this legislation will mean for them in practice, and amendments can be made accordingly. The Greens will be supporting this bill at the first reading.

I am not surprised that voters keep coming up to Nandor Tanczos to ask him what he is doing here. He started his speech by saying that the Greens are going to support this bill, and that they have made a commitment to support it all the way. That is what Hansard will record him as saying. Then he went through his speech and convinced me that this bill is bad. He went all the way through his speech saying how bad the bill was, then said he was going to support it, having convinced me that it is bad.

I must also admit that I look at every bill Trevor Mallard introduces into this House and think: “This will be a bad bill.” He has never disappointed me yet. I am amazed as I go around the schools of New Zealand to hear teachers say: “We didn’t like him when he was a teacher, and he is worse, now that he is a Minister.”

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Which schools? Name one.

Do not deny it. Can anyone find a teacher who likes Trevor Mallard? I cannot. Everywhere I go they say: “He was not a very nice man when he was a teacher, and he has not improved in the Labour Party.”, which I can understand. When one looks across at the Labour caucus, one sees that it is not something to make one feel bright, cheery, and optimistic about the human condition.

But let us go back to Trevor Mallard. I say to Mr English that this is what we might call a bully-boy bill, from a man who was going to fix the rugby union with a bottle in the right place. This is his approach to public policy: the teachers go on strike; where is that bottle? Well, he is not allowed to say that in front of Helen Clark, so he comes down to the House with a bill that says: “Oh, the person who I tell what to do can stop the pay of the teachers if I want it to be stopped.” That is what this bill says. [Interruption] I say to Mr Donnelly that, yes, it does. If they go on strike their pay will be stopped.

💬 Hon Brian Donnelly: Only if they go on strike.

That is true. But there is another option.

💬 Hon Brian Donnelly: Getting as bad as Nandor.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: If you shared the haircut, you would look all right.

I do not know what is in that tie, but I am feeling a bit woozy.

What do we have boards of trustees for? To run the schools. We have a misalignment here of the decision to run the school and the pay, and the decision about whether teachers’ pay can be stopped if they go on strike. We have two options here. As Mr English pointed out, one is to shift more power to the centre, to the Government, which is the Trevor Mallard option—“I know best; let me have the power with the State Services Commissioner”—versus the option of giving more power, authority, and control to the boards.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Bulk funding.

Absolutely!

💬 Hon Brian Donnelly: They would deduct it if it was bulk funded.

They would not need this bill. So why do we not put the money across to the board of trustees and have the board pay the teachers? Then the board would have the authority to stop the pay. Is that not what we expect a board of trustees to do?

What we have is this mad situation where we pretend that the board is running the school—but the Government is paying all the salaries. Then, if teachers go on strike, Trevor Mallard has to ring the State Services Commissioner to stop the poor teachers’ pay. In fact, the teachers are not in dispute with the board that employs them but with the Government that does not employ them. That is the madness of this bill. So why do we not come to the logical conclusion, and say: “If the board is going to employ the teachers, why not give them the money to pay this?”. Would that not solve it? But Trevor Mallard would hate that. The thing a bully boy wants all the time is the bottle. He wants the bottle. He wants to have the power. He has to have the big hammer to throw around.

💬 Simon Power: He wants to be the king of the Heinekens.

He wants to be the king of the Heinekens in order to be the bully boy.

Of course, if we did the logical thing and started trusting New Zealanders, started trusting parents, started trusting boards of trustees—indeed, let us be perfectly frank, started trusting teachers—we would devolve the payment of teachers to the board. We would allow the board to run a school, and we would not have this legislation handed down. Imagine what would happen in New Zealand. We would have some responsibility and accountability.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: This is the speech I want to send to the PPTA.

I would love Trevor Mallard to give this speech to the Post Primary Teachers Association. If he gave that speech, then came to the House with this legislation, he would have National Party support. He would have the New Zealand First Party’s support, I think—no?—he would have the ACT party’s support, and, depending on what tie Nandor Tanczos was wearing, he might get Green Party support.

Opposition Member : What about United Future?

United Future would vote for it. Of course, we still have not heard from Craig McNair. Craig McNair should speak. He has just left school and he can tell us what it is really like. I am surprised Darren Hughes is not here, because he has just left school.

💬 Simon Power: What do you mean? He’s on his school holidays.

At 9 o’clock he is at home, in bed.

But why does this Minister not trust boards of trustees with the responsibility to pay teachers? Why will he not trust boards of trustees with the responsibility to run schools? Why will he not trust parents to look after, in their communities, the best interests of their children? Why will this Minister not allow some freedom and responsibility, some diversity and choice? Why is it that at every opportunity Trevor Mallard comes to this House and says: “Give me more power. Give me more control. Let me walk around as the king of the schools.”?

I think it is revenge time for this Minister. I think there are some old headmasters, from the days when he was a schoolteacher, whom he has to settle a score with. He has got out the Heineken bottle, or something, because he wants the power.

Here is a question for Mr English. I ask him whether he can remember a Minister of Education who was more disliked.

💬 Hon Bill English: No.

Never—and in the shortest time possible.

💬 Hon Bill English: He’s more disliked that the Hon Merv Wellington.

I can hardly remember Merv Wellington. He is more disliked than the Hon Merv Wellington.

💬 John Carter: He’s dead.

Oh, I never had the pleasure of meeting him. But this Minister of Education, in the short time he has been Minister, has managed to alienate more schools, more boards of trustees, and more teachers than any other Minister of Education I have witnessed. I am staggered that he is coming down to this House with a bill to give Michael Wintringham the power to stop teachers’ pay. What the hang has that got to do with Michael Wintringham? What does a school’s management have to do with him? I cannot figure that out. The Minister never explained it. He walked into this House and mumbled something about: “The teachers really annoyed me last time because they went on strike, and the boards seemed to like them, and I had to keep paying, and that gives teachers too much power. I want the State Services Commissioner to have the opportunity to cut their pay if they go on strike.”

How many times does it have to be said? It could be fixed simply by saying that we have boards of trustees. They run the schools. We should give them the money to pay the teachers. If the teachers go on strike it is against the board, is it not? It is not against the State Services Commissioner, for goodness’ sake. Let the boards sort it out. That is what happens in the good schools in New Zealand.

United Future will support the first reading of the State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3). We do not think it is fair to put boards of trustees in the kinds of difficulties in which they found themselves during the last negotiating round for the secondary school teachers’ contract, particularly when it continued for such a protracted period of time. As we know, it was up to each board to decide whether to dock the pay of each teacher taking industrial action. But many boards were very sympathetic towards teachers’ claims, especially since the boards included representatives of teaching staff and students, as well as principals. In cases where the board did decide to dock pay that often created tension within the board, and between the board and the staff, and had the potential to continue to impinge on other spheres of school life. There was a lot of inconsistency across schools about whether their teachers were facing any financial consequences for their actions, and that created inequity amongst teachers as to who was getting paid and who was not.

This bill, I believe, tidies up yet another inequity. Although teachers have the same ability as other employees to take industrial action, they do not face the same consequences if there is no guarantee they will face the same kinds of sanctions as other employees. I think that this bill attempts to take boards of trustees out of the equation by transferring their employer functions to the State Services Commission. However, it relies on boards informing the State Services Commission, and some of the feedback from boards since this bill was introduced suggests that their sympathy with the teachers might extend to sending false returns about how many staff are actually teaching. The select committee will need to look at how that is going to work in practice, and it would be very useful to listen to the School Trustees Association about the feasibility of such requirements.

On another matter, and it has been raised, I bring the attention of the House to clause 5, which relates to redundancy resulting from school mergers and/or closures—a very topical issue at the moment. Although each board is still a separate employer, in the case of a merger or closure an employee may be offered a similar position by another board in the same locality, but without the need for the board to comply with the provisions of the Act that require employers to advertise vacancies and give preference to persons who best suit that position. I am very sympathetic to teachers, and indeed communities, who face the prospects of school closures or mergers, but I believe that schools recruiting teachers should have the merit of the applicants uppermost in their minds. I, too, invite the select committee to investigate the issue of selecting teachers on merit, rather than just by region, in its consideration of the bill.

I rise to support the State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3). It corrects an anomaly that can arise out of the mergers of schools and the treatment of employees by boards of trustees, so I am pleased to support this bill.

I am pleased about Steve Chadwick’s speech, as there were a couple of things I did not understand in this bill and she has clarified them. This is not really a bill as such; it is more a document that confirms a divorce. It confirms that the cosy relationship between Trevor Mallard and the Post Primary Teachers Association (PPTA) has finally come to an end. This Minister—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: A former regional secretary.

That is right. This Minister was widely reported, prior to 1999, as being the darling of the teachers unions. He was going to be the Minister who would make everything all right and chase away the allegedly bad policies of the 1990s. Teachers today are being asked to sign the divorce papers between Trevor Mallard and the PPTA; the marriage of convenience is over. It went through a rocky patch in 2002 during the National Certificate of Educational Achievement strikes, but what this bill is really doing is allowing the Minister, by way of legislation, essentially to put the boot into his ex-partner. Essentially, this legislation will say to the PPTA that the honeymoon is over and the Minister is coming after it. It has taken a while for the Minister to show his colours on this issue, but that is, as Bill English has said, absolutely black and white.

Before we get into the detail of the bill, I just say that the contribution by Bernie Ogilvy was just extraordinary. It was extraordinary that Bernie Ogilvy said United Future was going to support this bill. If I heard Marc Alexander from that same party correctly, he said in this House once that the party is anti-bureaucracy and anti-limits—

💬 Bernie Ogilvy: We are extraordinary.

The member says that United Future is supporting it. How can a party be anti-bureaucracy and vote for a bill that recentralises power to a Government department—to a Government commissioner? That makes no sense, at all. But, worse than that, Mr Ogilvy’s colleague Murray Smith is running around the school review meetings, standing on the platform, and saying things like he has no respect for Trevor Mallard and the way he is dealing with the school review closures. Murray Smith has said he does not want to be associated with what is going on in the Government’s education policy. Yet now, when we come down to the House and members on the Opposition side are thinking Murray Smith has put a line in the sand on behalf of United Future, by saying he does not want to be associated with Trevor Mallard and has no respect for his education agenda, Bernie Ogilvy gets up and says that United Future will be voting for the bill.

💬 Richard Worth: I can’t believe it.

Well, I say to Mr Ogilvy that that is extraordinary.

I give Bernie Ogilvy this promise: at the next election, I look forward to the United Future candidate standing on the platform in Rangitikei next to me, and explaining United Future’s education policy to the assembled masses. Government members should hope he takes their side, and not Murray Smith’s side. The population is confused about United Future’s view on this bill. I say to Mr Ogilvy that it is not too late. When the vote is taken he can change his mind, show some consistency, and, for goodness’ sake, back Murray Smith. He should not leave him out there dangling—[Interruption] Jill Pettis fires up again. There she goes again—the seagull caught in the clothesline. Jill Pettis is away again. I just say that I was at Kapuni School last week, talking about its school review. When I asked what Jill Pettis was doing to represent the school’s interests to the Minister of Education with regard to the south Egmont review, people asked what I meant.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: More than that member has ever done in Taihape.

Trevor Mallard should hang on, because he will be interested in this. I asked what Jill Pettis had said when she had gone to the school. I was asked what I meant. I asked again what Jill Pettis had said when she had gone to Kapuni School to discuss the review. The people there said she had never been there to discuss the review. I said that could not be right, because although I did not agree with all Jill Pettis’ politics, she was pretty industrious. But, no, they said she had never been there. They said they thought she had driven through Kapuni in a car once, but that she had never been to the school. I thought that was just extraordinary.

This bill is interesting, because it comes at a time in the political cycle when, in the second term of this Labour Government, it is beginning to reflect some of the things that are going on in the second term of the Labour Government in the UK. The second term is when Labour starts to knock around its traditional supporters. We are seeing that with Tony Blair. If I were a traditional Labour Party supporter, and if I were one of the Government members who owes his or her place in the caucus to the PPTA, I would be looking at the situations vacant column about now. The PPTA will not back any of the teachers union - backed members of Parliament sitting on the Government benches when the next election rolls around.

Rodney Hide was right on the button when he said we do not need legislation that recentralises bureaucratic control into the hands of the State Services Commissioner. What boards need is a whole lot of freedom and flexibility to be able to do whatever they need to do in order to ensure the one thing that is missing from this bill—the one thing that is not mentioned in it—which is the quality of the education that is provided to the students in schools. There is not one mention of the educational standards that would be met by implementing this legislation—not one mention of what it means for school kids, students, and pupils throughout New Zealand. That is disappointing, because that does make this a vengeful piece of legislation. It is a piece of legislation whereby Trevor Mallard is now saying to the Post Primary Teachers Association that time is up, that he does not need its support any more, and that next time the Government will deal with it through the State Services Commission with regard to rectifying industrial disputes.

When I had a quick look through the bill one of the interesting things I saw was that the purposes of the bill seemed to me to be all over the show. A bit of a mishmash of reasons has been put together in this legislation. Clause 3(a) enables the State Services Commissioner to negotiate collective agreements. Clause 3(b) requires the unions representing the board to give prior notice of a proposed strike, and clause 3(c) requires the boards to report to the State Services Commissioner. Well, that is just what volunteers, parents, and members of communities with big hearts need, when they go on school boards: more reporting requirements! What we would like to see in legislation are provisions that would allow communities and school trustees to get on with the business of providing a quality education to the students and pupils of their schools, rather than requiring them to fill out more forms when dealing with the State Services Commissioner, and having to answer to another Government agency in the form of the State Services Commissioner.

Then the purpose clause goes on to preclude compensation for technical redundancies around the school reviews. Much of that territory has been covered by Brian Donnelly, but I will just say this: during the school review process we should concentrate on modelling and copying schools that are doing well—schools that are succeeding. It is a real problem when schools are not succeeding, and that is the type of difficulty that this legislation should address. When the Hon Bill English led off the debate for the National Party, he made that point very clearly when he said that we would be opposing the bill for those reasons. I tell Bernie Ogilvy to talk to Murray Smith. Murray Smith does not want to vote for this bill, and that member should have checked with him before he pledged United Future’s support to push this bill on towards a select committee.

I have nothing to say to the representative of the 26 or 23 percent party. We have heard a speech of absolute opportunism. I support this bill. I wish it full speed to the select committee. It is a good, fair, and consistent bill. I support this bill.

If I was to stand before this House tonight and tell members that this bill is a complete and utter disgrace, and that the Minister should be ashamed of it, members would not be surprised that that was coming from the National Party. But I could be speaking on behalf of the Post Primary Teachers Association (PPTA), because the PPTA also finds this bill a disgrace. What is more, it has read the Labour Party manifesto. It has read the bits about partnership. The words that one sees in the Labour Party manifesto are about partnership, and working hand-in-hand with the community. But this Government is not in such a partnership. This Government reeks of arrogance; it bathes in it. The Government is telling the PPTA that because it does not like what the association is doing—standing up for its people—it will change the legislation.

The last Labour Minister whom we saw come into this House with such an arrogant view was the Hon Dr Michael Cullen. He came into this House and said: “We won. You lost. Eat that!”. That went down like a cup of cold sick with the public of New Zealand, in just the same way that this legislation will go down. The Minister of Education, the Hon Trevor Mallard, is now coming to this House and saying: “You won. I lost. Beat this!”. That is what he is doing. In this bill, called the State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3), he is changing the rules of the game because he cannot beat the PPTA. The PPTA had a very valid argument, indeed. It had the argument that teachers are underpaid in this country. Good teachers are not being paid what they deserve, and we know that they deserve a great deal more. This is just a classic example of what we have seen from the Labour Government since it has been in power, which is a continuation and an expansion of the nanny State.

We can see the nanny State wherever we look. We have seen it in the health sector, with primary health organisations being rolled out all over the place to give free health-care, whether that is to millionaires or to people who really need it. We have seen it in accident compensation, where we had a perfectly operating private sector. But this Government came in and said that no, the private sector might be doing very well, might know how accident compensation works best, and might be able to deliver results for New Zealanders that were proven to work, but Labour would still nationalise it. We have seen it in the area of superannuation, with the “Cullen fund”. Labour does not trust New Zealanders. The Labour Government’s message is that it does not trust New Zealanders to save for and invest in their own retirement, so it is delivering the wholesale “Cullen fund” and sending 85 percent of it off shore, so we do not even invest in our own country—in our own people and the very businesses that drive economic growth in this country. That is what Labour is doing.

Here, lo and behold, exactly the same principles are to operate in education. I am very surprised at that, because today the OECD released a 159-page report that told the people of New Zealand the policies of the current Labour Government are failing. They are failing in all sorts of areas, and education is one of them. So when I see this bill, I can tell members that I know it is a very sad day, indeed. The Government cannot win the argument, cannot believe in the boards of trustees and the people who are engaged in delivering education in our society, and thinks it does not have the competency, the skills, or the ability to win the argument. So the Government has got the sledgehammer out and, in a very arrogant way, has delivered legislation that it thinks is the king hit.

I would suggest that if Trevor Mallard has the guts to front up at the PPTA annual general meeting next year, he will find a very different president from the one who probably welcomed him in 1999. This president has stated in his own annual report: “It is time to find another Minister to take education forward.” When someone’s own people have turned on a person, that person knows he or she is in the schtuck. One knows one is in serious trouble when one’s own people turn on one. That is the sort of reception that will await this Minister of Education when he fronts up—that is, presuming he does front up.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: The member is making it up.

The member is not making it up. The member is reading an accurate statement, which he is happy to present to the House at any particular time.

If this Government was more positive, the people of New Zealand would have a brighter hope. But yesterday in the House we had members argue that New Zealand could not deliver economic growth, could not deliver productivity growth, and could not deliver higher wages, so the best we could do for people was to give them a 4-week holiday. That was said to be the best we could do. Now we have a Minister of Education who says that school boards of trustees are not capable of engaging in an employee-employer relationship, and are not capable of being with the people that they know best and delivering the results, in terms of the best education for our own children. So the Minister says the Government will empower the State Service Commission to do the dirty work—do the hard work—for the Government. That is what will happen under this legislation. I say to the Minister of Education that this is a disappointing day for the people of New Zealand. If he had a more positive view, and if he was prepared to engage with the boards of trustees and give them more power, as opposed to taking power away from them, he might have found that they reacted in a very, very different way.

We know that this is just the start of things to come from the Labour Government. When Labour came into this House in 1999 as the Government, it told us that it would raise taxes in only one area: the top personal taxation rate. The Government cruelly raised that rate from 33c in the dollar to 39c in the dollar as a pure envy tax, because it did not need the fiscal revenue from that to deliver its programme. What the Labour Government did then is no different from what it is to deliver under this bill. This bill is just the start of what is to come. Mark my words, since the Labour Government has been in power we have had 19 increases in levies or income tax. New Zealanders are getting taxed to death under this Labour Government. We will see just the start of that in the education sector.

Today we see the boards of trustees being robbed of their most crucial relationship with their employees. We will see that situation continuing into the future. This Minister will use the powers he has for whatever he can legislate to go forward. When the people of New Zealand take the time to look at this bill they will reflect on the words of Mr Simon Power, the outstanding member for Rangitikei, who said that Trevor Mallard was in divorce proceedings with the PPTA. Simon Power was quite right when he said that. It is an irreconcilable divorce, and one that will end up, as so many divorces sadly do, in tears. This is a sad day for education in this country. National will oppose this bill, and rightly so.

Unlike the personal comments that have dotted some of the Opposition’s comments on this bill, I rise to support my colleague, whom I regard as an excellent Minister of Education. He is a Minister who has made a really positive difference to literacy and numeracy in the early years, as all the testing will show members, and therefore I support this bill.

I move, That the State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3) be considered by the Education and Science Committee, and that the committee report the bill finally to the House by 19 March 2004.