Education (Disestablishment of Early Childhood Development Board) Amendment Bill

This is the title of the bill. It reads: “This Act is the Education (Disestablishment of Early Childhood Development Board) Amendment Act 2003.” In fact, we know that this bill is being passed into law in 2004, more than 12 months after the board’s disestablishment. This is a wide-ranging debate under the new rules, and I want to draw attention back directly to Part 2. Clause 5 states: “On the effective date,—(a) the Board ceases to exist;”, and the effective date is the date on which the bill comes into force. We have the extraordinary situation whereby the bill declares that the board ceases to exist at the time the bill becomes law, but the board has already ceased to exist.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: No, it hasn’t.

In practical terms it has ceased to exist, and the Minister knows that. We are in the amazing situation whereby the Government, months after the board has been disestablished, wishes to address its constitutional errors retrospectively. They are taking the attitude—[Interruption]—and the Minister, in a cavalier kind of way through interjections—and are being completely indifferent, callous, and careless about the constitutional process that is occurring here. What would, one wonders, their former hero, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, think of this? Would he applaud that paragon of constitutionalism, Trevor Mallard? I suspect that no, he would not. Will this lead to a footnote in Bridled Power—the later version of Unbridled Power—to show that, unfortunately, even his former colleagues have not learnt basic constitutional lessons?

National will vote against the bill on the principle that we are opposed to retrospective legislation—legislation that is intended to perfect errors. The reality is that there was a different way of doing this. The Government could have introduced legislation and passed it into law, then gone about the disestablishment in a procedural sense.

That brings us to the second objection to the bill, in the first place. Unlike New Zealand First, we are opposed to the centralisation of power into the ministry in order to obscure the way that the sector can interact. That reduces transparency and largely takes away the autonomous entity that was the direct conduit for the sector—in short, its own board. It has been buried in the ministry.

We had to listen to the extraordinary contribution earlier in the Committee stage by Dr Ogilvy, who seemed to be of the view that that was inappropriate and wrong. Yet I would suggest that, notwithstanding that United Future speech, its members will be voting for the very thing that he spoke against. I know that the Deputy Prime Minister is looking puzzled. He is wondering whether he has United Future under control in the way that he would like to have. The reality is that it seems not. But on the votes, I can assure him, he has United Future members under control. They are his willing lapdogs on all issues, even if, in a mild kind of way, they kick from time to time through their speeches. The reality is that they are willing cohorts of the Government in that process.

It was interesting to hear from the previous speaker, Dr Wayne Mapp, that National opposes this bill on principle because it is opposed to retrospective legislation. That is somewhat different to a conversation that I had with National’s early childhood education spokesperson when this bill first appeared. The member rang me up and said: “What are we going to do with this bill?”. I said: “Well, look, New Zealand First is going to support it because we don’t believe in wasting taxpayers’ money, but you guys will probably oppose it because you’re opposed to the centralisation of power into the education ministry.” And guess what? When Mr Heatley came down to the Chamber, I heard him make a speech about how National was opposed to the centralisation of power into the ministry, and it is interesting that Dr Wayne Mapp also just made that speech. The question really has to be just why it is that National opposes this bill. I will have to give more extensive explanations next time to Mr Heatley.

However, I believe that the bill should be called the Education (Belated Disestablishment of Early Childhood Development Board) Amendment Bill. We have gone over the point. It has been belated, and there have been some costs, pretty obviously. I know they are minimal, but the fact is that members are wrong when they say that the board has already been disestablished. It is actually still there in a minimalist form, and there have to be some costs associated with it.

💬 Dr Paul Hutchison: Who’s there?

It is Labour’s form of minimalist Government. They keep those boards going but doing nothing. It is a bit like the school up at Taipuha, which was kept going for a term even though it had no kids. It could have been shut down, and the board wanted it shut down, but the Government had to pay out $30,000. So it is a similar situation to Taipuha. We have continued to have a board since 1 October last year, even though it has in fact been disestablished for all practical purposes.

I take the opportunity to congratulate and thank the members of the board. I referred, in my second reading speech, to the fact that in its early period the unit did have some difficulty in connecting with the broad range of population groups and needs in the early childhood sector. However, it recognised its lack of capacity and made some very, very genuine strides over that period of time to extend its capacities, as it were, and to ensure that the functions it had to fulfil were carried out.

When it comes to early childhood education, one of the things that National has been criticising is centralisation and the bias towards kindergartens over private sector providers. That occurred during the unit’s time. In itself and by its existence, the unit could not prevent some of the great evils, when it comes to early childhood education, that members have been told about this morning.

I finish off by saying that once again we do have to mention the mismanagement that has allowed a bill to come before Parliament calling for the disestablishment of the Early Childhood Development Board 8 or 9 months after the actual disestablishment of the unit itself. Nevertheless, we would still be supporting the bill because of the organisation that is actually functioning behind it.

I am speaking to the title, clause 1 of the Education (Disestablishment of Early Childhood Development Board) Amendment Bill. The Hon Brian Donnelly highlighted the issue of the constitutional problem of having the board already disestablished and then passing the legislation 12 months after it was first announced that the board was to be disestablished. He says that that is mismanagement, and the Minister in the chair, Trevor Mallard, interjected earlier, saying that he is a hard-working and overworked Minister, but those are not excuses. They might be reasons for the strange—to put it kindly—process taking place, but they are not excuses for the Government to behave in an unconstitutional way: when it does something and we then have the final reading of a bill under urgency, as we will shortly, that legitimates something that has already happened—something that has already been pushed through.

If we were really seriously and honourably debating the title “Education (Disestablishment of Early Childhood Development Board) Amendment Bill”, we would not already have seen that board pushed into the Ministry of Education 9 months ago. It is utterly outrageous that the Government is allowed to behave in that way. [Interruption] Seven months ago. I say to the Minister that it is a matter of degree. If it is 7 months, not 9 months, it is not quite as bad—Is that what he is trying to say? He should take a call to justify to this Committee how he can sleep at night, when he uses Parliament to pass legislation to legitimise what he has already done by force. It is a very, very bad precedent for this Government to be setting.

We have a unique process here in this country, where we allow people to appear before select committees with their submissions and have their say on legislation and how it should be improved. It is called consultation. The chief Government whip justified this legislation earlier on in this debate by saying that everybody supports it. She knows that that is not the case, because she was on the select committee when it was announced that this board was going to be disestablished, and she asked questions. The reason people have not submitted or appeared before a select committee, the reason they have not gone through the usual process when legislation is brought in, is that it had already happened, and it happened without consultation with either the Early Childhood Council or the early childhood sector of the New Zealand Educational Institute.

The Hon Brian Donnelly cynically asked why ACT should be standing up and backing the New Zealand Educational Institute. The ACT party does support people who voluntarily join a union. We have absolutely no problem with voluntary unions. We do support the people who are members of that union, who are involved in the early childhood sector, and who would have liked to have some say on this bill. But as they said in the Education Review magazine, they did not get a chance. It is absolutely outrageous that we are now debating this after those people have been denied their chance to put in submissions and appear before a select committee because it has already happened.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: What?

If the Minister does not believe me, I have the articles here if he wants to read what the secretary of the New Zealand Educational Institute said at the time about consultation and about his view on disestablishing the Early Childhood Development Board.

I would like to conclude by saying that clause 2 states that in this Act, the Education Act 1989 is called the principal Act. I hope the Minister adheres to that and calls the police in.

Undoubtedly, the title of this bill is hugely reflective of how little importance the Labour Government views early childhood education as having. Clause 1(1) states: “This Act is the Education (Disestablishment of Early Childhood Development Board) Amendment Act 2003.” That reflects absolutely accurately what the Labour Government has to say about the importance of early childhood education. I can think of no other area that is more important in terms of the outcomes for our children than early childhood education, and it is important to have a special focus on it. It seems absolutely remarkable that on the one hand the Minister has praised the Early Childhood Development Board, yet on the other hand in this bill he is callously disestablishing it.

Let us put aside the constitutional aspects. Well, we should not really put them aside at all, because as my colleague Dr Wayne Mapp has pointed out, there has been constitutional carelessness on the part of the Labour Government here. He is quite right in saying that Sir Geoffrey Palmer would be wringing his hands in despair over what his former colleagues are now doing in this bill. They are disestablishing a part of the education spectrum that was specifically designed to focus on early childhood education. It does seem extraordinary that, as the Minister says, the board was replaced a year ago, and now here, finally, under urgency, this bill is being put through Parliament. It does seem remarkable how careless the Government is, how careless it has become, and how carelessness is very much a trend that we are seeing in this Labour Government. My colleague Dr Lockwood Smith says it is arrogance. That is right. We must also throw in that quality, and that is such a pity, when this issue is all about the hugely important area of early childhood education.

I was a bit surprised to hear New Zealand First’s Brian Donnelly say that the Government had behaved in a minimalist way in terms of the board. I think that is quite outrageous, because there is nothing minimalist about it. The Government replaced the board a year before bringing in this bill, and the title of the bill clearly reflects just how severely wrong it was to do that. If anything, the early childhood area should be focused on, strengthened, and kept away from that ever-burgeoning bureaucracy, the Ministry of Education. I can see the Minister smiling and he should not be, because he knows about the excesses of absolute inefficiency that go on within his ministry. We have seen that up and down the country as the Minister does U-turns and weaves his way, trying to defend the mistakes he has made over the last 3 to 4 years.

The Minister cannot even tell us what sorts of outcomes there are from the interventions he has implemented in terms of early childhood education. That is an absolute outrage in itself. We should be measuring at the early childhood stage, because that stage is fundamentally important for the children of our nation, in terms of the chances they have to achieve their potential. But oh no, the Minister intends to disestablish this board, which he earlier said had carried out its functions very well. In fact, let me repeat this: “I want to make it clear that this decision in no way reflects on the work that the Early Childhood Development Board has done.”

I move, That the question be now put.

I appreciate the opportunity to talk on the title of the Education (Disestablishment of Early Childhood Development Board) Amendment Bill. I would like to make a suggestion that has not yet gone down by way of amendment to this clause. The title should really read the “Education (Post-disestablishment of Early Childhood Development Board) Amendment Bill”. I say “Post” because, as we know, although this statute provides a mechanism for the Minister to axe the Early Childhood Development Board, that has actually been done already, almost 12 months ago. In other words, this bill, by way of statute, lags behind what has happened by almost 12 months. We have talked a lot about the constitutional ramifications of the situation whereby a Government can go out and act, railing against legislation and regulation, and then 12 months later come in and tidy it up—in other words, make it lawful that it disestablished the board.

We have seen a lot of legislation in the last 12 months, and I, as National’s spokesperson on fisheries, have seen lots of retrospective legislation regarding fisheries matters go through this House. I know that Damien O’Connor has registered concerns about the Ministry of Fisheries supporting such legislation year in and year out, but now we see the Minister of Education getting into the same habit. A mistake is made, or a gamble is taken—in this case, the gamble was to disestablish the Early Childhood Development Board—and the Minister comes into the Chamber 12 months later and has legislation passed that allows him to do that. I do not know why, in a Western democracy, we should allow that to happen. That is why I suggest the title should be the “Education (Post-disestablishment of Early Childhood Development Board) Amendment Bill”.

I listened keenly to Brian Donnelly’s speech. He is a member of Parliament for the New Zealand First Party. I recall making a phone call to Mr Donnelly to ask his advice, because I respected his opinion. I got Mr Donnelly’s opinion. He then came to the House a few weeks later and dogged me in this House, basically mocking the fact that I had rung him and asked for his advice. Since that time, and it must be a good 6 to 12 months ago, I have not rung and asked him for advice—and I never will, again. It is a very sad thing indeed, that when a member of Parliament looks to a member of another party, asks for help, and suggests they work together on something, the member who was approached would come to the Chamber and mock the member who did that. I am quite disappointed by that, and I know that listeners to the radio broadcast of this debate and the people in the galleries will be, also. Whereas we would have been able to share information, no longer will we be able to—certainly not after today, when Mr Donnelly decided to do that again. I find that quite appalling, particularly given we both live in the same city. Working together, we could achieve much more. It makes me sad that we cannot do so. I digress, but I did want to make that point, and I ask the member for New Zealand First to reflect on it.

I go back to my original issue, which is the fact that we are passing this legislation today. National will be voting against it, for all the good reasons we have put forward previously. I wanted to highlight that particular constitutional issue, because I do not want the Minister of Education to get into the habit, in such an important area, of having policy go into action and then for him to sweep things up afterwards with legislation. It should not happen that way. We are a democracy. This is a transparent nation, and a transparent Parliament. To have him do that reflects only an arrogance that I hope is not growing in this Labour Government.