State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3)

I move, That the State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3) be now read a third time. I want to thank members for their readiness to stand and support me on this legislation. It is interesting that an afternoon in the Chamber is quite an educational process for people. I want to say a special thankyou to members of the Education and Science Committee in the House at the moment: Lynne Pillay and, especially, Brian Donnelly, who chaired the committee. [Interruption] And Bernie Ogilvy; I apologise. There is no doubt that the bill is a better bill as a result of their work.

I will express slight amazement at the Green Party’s voting. Their voting against the bill does not surprise me very much, but their voting against the improvements made in the select committee—lining up with ACT and the National Party on that—really surprised me. This is a bill around which some unholy alliances have been built. That ACT and the National Party voted for teachers being paid while on strike is a really interesting and novel approach, although not one that I would expect from them.

One can work one’s way right back on this bill. There was a New Zealand Educational Institute official whose name I will not mention who, when this bill was first mooted, indicated to me that this measure is what the private sector had always done, and the current position had to go some time. This bill makes it very clear that people do not get paid to be on strike. That is the proper approach, and, as a long-term trade unionist, I know that that is part of the deal.

The Minister purports to say that this bill is all about some narrow purpose of avoiding paying teachers who are on strike. Certainly, that is in the bill. But there is a much wider objective here, and the Minister well knows—because he has been listening to the debate at least some of the time—that National’s objection is much more fundamental. It is about the philosophy of the bill—of centralising the control of negotiations back to the State sector, reinforcing the power of monopolistic unions, and the control of the Minister at each and every stage over negotiations. That is the intent of the bill—the real intent. It may be disguised as having something to do with strikes. Unfortunately, New Zealand First has fallen for that, but it has ignored the real motivation. The real motivation is that centralisation of power.

I say to New Zealand First and United Future members that they should broaden their vision. They should look more broadly when they read a bill of this nature, because the real intent here has to be—I imagine, at least—contrary to the philosophy of both those parties. Surely it is the case that both United Future and New Zealand First would understand the importance of community control. The Greens are being consistent. The one thing I have always understood about the Green Party is that it does believe in decentralisation and community control. So, from time to time, it is not surprising that the Green Party ends up alongside National and ACT. It may be from a different philosophical base, but the outcome is the same—giving autonomy to people in the community.

We come from the perspective of freedom—the freedom of people to negotiate their own contracts, freed from the strictures and powers of the State. I appreciate that the Green Party comes from a different philosophical perspective, although, perhaps, if one digs deep enough, it is not that different in reality. I presume that even the Green Party believes in freedom. On the other hand, United Future and New Zealand First have hog-tied themselves to a hapless and failing Labour Government—a Government that can only ever find the answer in State control and the power of the big unions. That narrow and declining base in New Zealand is the Government’s support base.

Members will be interested to know that the number of New Zealanders joining unions is going down all the time. The only bastion of unionism left now is in the powerful State sector unions, like the Post Primary Teachers Association and the New Zealand Educational Institute. It is not surprising that so many members of the Labour Party caucus have that as their origin—like the Minister himself, in fact. He comes from that union background. So they are always going to be looking for opportunities to centralise, to increase the power of the State, thereby increasing the power of unions.

All that is against the interests of teachers, children, and the community. There is a different way to deal with this, and it is reflected in the National Party minority report. We believe that the more appropriate approach is flexible employment agreements at board level. After all, boards are, at least in theory, the employers of teachers. We say we should give the boards real power. We should let them be the negotiators, and let them have the funding—which I know Mr Donnelly actually supports—so that the true negotiation, the true employment contract, is between the board and its employees, the teachers. In that situation, we will be treating people with respect.

It is inappropriate that teachers march up and down the streets, as a form of old-fashioned industrial protest. It is not my image of what modern professionals do. Modern professionals negotiate directly, either by way of an individual contract or by way of site contracts, for want of a better term, and the negotiation occurs at that level. When it does, there are no strikes. Frankly, I believe the Post Primary Teachers Association and the New Zealand Educational Institute demean the professionalism of their members. It is not the way professional people conduct themselves. If teachers want to be regarded as professionals—and I am sure they do—they will move towards modern negotiating systems. They will free themselves from the strictures of centralised State control, and negotiate directly. That is something I am looking for in contemporary, modern approaches to industrial relations.

This bill sends completely the wrong signals. It empowers the State, it empowers unions, and increases their power. Mr Ogilvy would do well to look more at the deeper meaning of a bill like this. If he did so, his party would be voting against it, because it surely cannot be part of the philosophy of either United Future or New Zealand First to give more power to the unions.

I want to conclude on this point. This bill might be a small bill, like the previous bill, but within them they contain the deepest philosophical divide this House has to deal with. That is the nature of the relationship between the State and the people. For Labour, it will always be a case of increase the power of the State and reduce the power of the people. For National—and, I would like to think, for other sensible parties of the centre and centre-right—the reverse would apply. We believe in empowering communities and individuals to make their own agreements, and to reduce the power of the State. In 18 months’ time, or maybe less, New Zealanders will get to make that clear choice, because we on this side of the House will be offering that choice. Labour, I guess, will be offering its centralised State control prescription. I am confident New Zealanders will make the right choice, for freedom.

I am very proud to stand and speak in support of this bill. In doing so I want to pay tribute to all who were involved during the submission process. I include in that the unions—the New Zealand Educational Institute and the Post Primary Teachers Association—which the other side of the House is so intent on bad-mouthing, and the boards of trustees that gave very common-sense, practical, and constructive advice. This bill has improved, it has been made better, and that is certainly because of the good submissions we received.

This bill deals with technical redundancy, and there is some real common sense in that. The bill recognises that the top priority in our education sector is job priority—that is the main focus—and that in a redundancy situation, people do not actually double dip. That is, they do not keep their job and get paid redundancy compensation. I also say, as a proud trade unionist, that, unlike the Opposition, I do support the idea that if people are in the position of withdrawing their labour in a strike situation they should not get paid for it. That is supported by all union members and everyone involved on this side of the House. It is quite strange that we hear contrary arguments from the Opposition.

I would like to point out to Dr Wayne Mapp one issue that he seems to be overlooking—that is, the New Zealand Law Society, which I presume he was once a member of, is in fact akin to a compulsory union. I am not too certain how the compulsion in that particular fact reduces the professionalism of lawyers. I would also like to make the same point made by my colleague Pita Paraone, who asked how come New Zealand First is defending this bill, and why Government members do not get up and try to defend their bill. So it was good to hear a little contribution from Lynne Pillay.

New Zealand First has been criticised for cosying up to Labour on this bill. That is not true at all. If it had not been for the firm and determined opposition of New Zealand First to some of the draconian measures in the bill, I doubt whether we would have been able to force through some of the changes. We are very pleased to see those changes, although I have already mentioned that it was through the real effort of the select committee working together as a whole.

Dr Wayne Mapp, once again, talks about National coming from a perspective of freedom. It must be that National has had a road to Damascus experience since 1999. As I have pointed out continuously, this bill reduces some of the powers of the unions, not adds to them, and modifies the industrial framework that was left behind when National left office in 1999.

But in this third reading I want to get on to some of the other points, because I think we have made many of the points about the legislation. No party is more supportive than New Zealand First of Tomorrow’s Schools and the concepts behind it, and of school trustees and the School Trustees Association. There are some concerns, and I say to Government members that the school trustees are feeling somewhat sidelined, not necessarily over this particular legislation, but on a number of other issues where they feel they have not been adequately consulted by this particular administration. Yet it is critical that we maintain the importance of school trustees within our schools. There are elections coming up, and I want to take the opportunity to pay tribute to the many thousands of New Zealanders who have offered their services to represent their communities, through the school trustee role, to ensure their community values are reflected in school practices, and that community priorities are reflected in the curriculum and the budgets of their schools. I believe that Tomorrow’s Schools, by introducing parents to the decision making, and creating a real partnership between the professionals and the parents’ representatives of the communities, was a very, very favourable step; it strengthened education immensely. Members might remember that I was one who worked under the old education boards, and under the new system.

I also have to mention that I am the only member in this House who was a principal of a bulk-funded school. We have heard a lot about bulk funding from all these people who know the ins and outs of bulk funding, but I can say I have had that particular experience. I can say now that I was very, very proud of that school and the condition it was in when I left. I can also say that I am still very, very proud of that school. It is amazingly successful and a very, very good school—even though it no longer operates under a bulk-funding regime.

So the question has to be asked: is it the bulk funding that created the very good practices within that school, or were there other factors? I would have to argue that bulk funding was only a very minor factor within the really important factors that make a good school—and, certainly, that have made Whangarei Intermediate a very good school. Those factors are the quality of staff, the leadership of principals, and the quality of school trustees and the way they get involved with schools and make decisions for the benefit of the students and teachers within those schools, and the parents. That is what makes a good school.

We have heard a lot of simplistic slogans—and it really worries me a little bit—about whether this is where what are called the centre-right parties are planning to go. I think it is retrogressive. I believe that if we want to achieve a high-quality education system, we have to go beyond some of the simplistic slogans of the 1990s that, when put under the test of practicalities and pragmatism, actually fall apart. We talk about vouchers. What good are vouchers to Te Hapua? We talk about zoning. In fact, it was the National Government, with the support of ACT, that reintroduced zoning. So all these so-called simplistic slogans, which are to be the magic bullets, will not be the magic bullets. I say that if that is all those parties can come up with for their future plan, when those things have been tested and found to be wanting we will have real difficulties.

In terms of the legislation itself, I believe that rather than focusing on those theoretical issues we need to focus on the issues that will drive our education system forward—and we certainly need to value our teachers. The unfortunate thing about our industrial relations is that it is in the interests of the unions to continue holding our teachers in a state of angst and unhappiness, and to have them feeling dissatisfied with their roles, so that they can utilise that hostility against the Government in the adversarial model we now use. I believe that we need to look at that adversarial model—at whether it is the sort of model we can utilise in order to have a modern education system.

How does a nation create an education system that is productive, constructive, forward-looking, and requires so much energy for the children in its care, if the teachers—the very ones who drive it forward—are kept in a state of constant hostility? Therefore, the adversarial model does need questioning. However, between now and the next round of collective bargaining, we certainly do not have the time to be able to go through that whole process. So there are practical issues involved. The practical issue, simply, is: do we maintain the structure that was left behind by the previous National Government, which has been shown to be faulty, or do we make the necessary modifications so that we can go into the next round with a more level playing field?

New Zealand First says that common sense and pragmatism say to make those necessary adjustments now. We can go through this big debate—that suddenly National wants to go into, again, after all these years—between the bargaining time and the next election. At this particular point in time, we have to look at what will occur over the next 6 months. As a result, New Zealand First supports this legislation—most of all because it will get rid of the invidious tactic, which Post Primary Teachers Association members in particular use, of rostering students off. They say they will not teach third-formers, for example, on a particular day. That puts boards of trustees and parents into the position of having to break the law. That is not fair; it is not justified. We need a model and a mechanism that certainly allows for the withdrawal of labour, but also allows for withdrawal in such a way that people lose their payment, etc., for it. It is a fair arrangement, and I think this bill takes us into a much fairer bargaining environment than we had before. Therefore, New Zealand First will support the bill.

The Greens have not been convinced to not oppose this bill. We remain disappointed that the Committee of the whole House did not support the amendment to delete clause 5 from the bill.

The Greens also strenuously object to the inference from Government members that teachers are engaged in a form of double-dipping when they are entitled to redundancy and then find themselves employed in another school. No double-dipping is going on, and this bill does nothing about that, because it does not happen. At present, teachers who take redundancy when their schools have closed, and then later get a job in another school, are required—and have agreed in the collective contract—to repay or refund their redundancy payments. Therefore, they are not getting paid twice, but are making the best possible choices for themselves and their employment in schools around them, in the circumstances in which they find themselves. Teachers are not in any way asking for any alternative or different approach to that. No one is seeking that some form of double-dipping be allowed, and implications by Government members that teachers are asking for that are mischievous and untrue.

With the passing of this bill, the situation for those teachers is, in fact, much worse, because they will no longer have the choice of taking redundancy when their schools close. Where the Minister offers an equivalent position—and whether a position is considered to be equivalent to their current employment conditions is the Minister’s decision—those teachers will be required either to take that position or find themselves unemployed with no redundancy. In this bill, the Minister does not consider the nature of the employment teachers are taking, the culture of the schools in which they may be forced to work, and the fact that teachers are entitled to choose whom they work with and whether they go to a school with one or another management structure or cultural approach. This bill, in effect, strips away that choice and that opportunity for teachers.

It is true that this bill is much better now than it was when it first came to the Education and Science Committee, and the committee deserves a great deal of credit for the work that was done. None the less, the bill is still infected with the philosophy that the Minister is able to alter collective agreements by legislation rather than through bargaining. If the Minister were seeking to manage the consequential employment difficulties that would arise from school closures—that is, that he would not be able to find teachers to teach in new schools because of the destruction of relationships through the process—he should instead have negotiated and, by agreement with teachers, sought to find ways to remedy or find a better process when schools close.

Teachers are open to those opportunities and those discussions, but the Minister has made no attempt to do so. Instead, he has taken the same approach to this issue as he has to the network reviews—that is, he has a desire for a particular outcome and refuses to engage properly with the affected parties: the teachers and communities in the case of network reviews, and the teachers over these redundancy arrangements. Instead, he chooses to use his legislative powers to push changes through, regardless of the damage he is doing to communities and the Government’s relationship with those communities.

The Minister is prepared to exchange the potential for good-faith bargaining for a legislative quick-fix that will, without doubt, cause more problems for teachers, who are already under huge amounts of pressure, as well as the Government, which is wanting to have relationships with schools, teachers, and communities in the future. So the Greens will continue to oppose this bill.

I have heard no arguments today to persuade the ACT party to support this bill. All we have heard this afternoon are the same tired, old, patronising “we know best for everybody” arguments.

The Hon Brian Donnelly attacked the National Party for not doing anything. He did not actually inform the House that he was Associate Minister of Education for 2 years during that time, and I do not recall any flashes of brilliance coming from him in terms of changing things then.

This legislation is the example of what happens when more and more power is devolved to the State and taken away from communities. This is the second bill in a row today that we will be passing that enables the Minister to exercise more control over the education sector. The Minister is punishing teachers for striking. This bill is not just about the principle that teachers will not get paid while striking, and it is very simplistic for both the Minister and the bill’s supporters to allege that. Of course, that is what happened when this Government got rid of bulk funding and landed boards of trustees in the situation where they were the meat in the sandwich.

But this bill is not just about that. If it were just about that principle, as the Minister claimed earlier, what about integrated and independent schools, as I mentioned earlier? When those teachers strike, will this Government hurry through legislation in urgency, insisting that the employers of those teachers cannot pay them if they strike? What if those employers—those boards, or the boards of trustees in State schools—actually sympathise with their teachers? This is exactly what the union members said when they came to the select committee with their submissions. They said a lot of boards of trustees chose to pay their teachers in order to avoid stress—and I will get on to more of that in a moment.

This bill is the Minister’s attempt to desperately try to right a wrong that he has already created, and he is digging himself further into a hole. The boards of trustees are, in essence, the representatives of the parents of the children of that school. They are the customers, the consumers. They try to have their say on how the school is run and what sort of education is delivered to their children. We have already seen an erosion of parents’ power on boards of trustees, because the Minister has imposed more and more compliance costs on those boards. Their time is taken up more with complying with all the legislation, rather than having any sort of meaningful say in the quality of education their children receive. They have absolutely no say in how to reward good teachers and get rid of bad teachers. That is entirely removed from them.

The centre-right knows what the top priority of education is. We heard Lynne Pillay say in this House that the top priority of education was jobs. So we have this huge bureaucracy, and taxpayers have all that money taken off them, to keep people in jobs? Excuse me, but I thought education was about teaching children to learn and become autonomous and independent so that they can go out and support themselves later in life. That is what the centre-right knows education is all about, and that is why the centre-right says give parents the freedom to choose. Bring in student entitlements, vouchers, tax credits—whatever they are to be called—it does not matter.

We heard Brian Donnelly say that simplistic options do not work.

💬 Hon Brian Donnelly: Absolutely.

That is typical of a politician who thinks he knows best, and that ordinary parents cannot choose and do not know what is best for their children. I do not know what is best for Brian Donnelly’s children, and he does not know what is best for my children. Politicians do not know what is best for children; parents know what is best. Families know, and they do not have that choice.

💬 Peter Brown: Not always.

Yes, sometimes they do get it wrong, but they do not get it wrong as often as the Government does. I will guarantee that.

Jim Peters said he was championing the cause of the Post Primary Teachers Association. I wish he had read the association’s submission before he came into the House and said that, because I would like to tell members what the association said when it came before the select committee. It drew our attention to the fact that the Government’s explanatory note to the bill suggested that there was an ill to be remedied. To remedy that ill the Government proposed to confer on the commissioner—effectively the Secretary for Education by delegation of the Act—all the rights, duties, and powers of an employer under the Employment Relations Act. As the Post Primary Teachers Association very correctly pointed out, the Secretary for Education—the Government—already has huge powers to intervene in collective bargaining, pass regulations, and dictate to teachers what they can and cannot do. No other employer—I am not saying this, it comes from the Post Primary Teachers Association—has the full powers of the State at its disposal.

The second important issue the association brought to the select committee’s attention was the fact that the Government had said that whether teachers might or might not lose pay, be suspended, or locked out, was not an incentive for them to take industrial action. The Post Primary Teachers Association objected strongly to the use of the word “incentive” in terms of why its members decided to strike or not to strike. As it said, when making decisions about strike action, teachers are aware that their pay is at risk and that suspension or lockout could also result. Of course they are aware of that and take it into consideration, but more often than not their decisions to take industrial action are driven by the belief that the position adopted by the Government in bargaining will be to the disadvantage of students.

There may well be some teachers who are cynically opportunist, but many boards of trustees—as I have said, and as the Post Primary Teachers Association pointed out—chose to support the position of teachers rather than that of the ministry because the implementation of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement was increasing the workload on teachers. That is why teachers decided to take industrial action, and the boards of trustees, as good employers, were concerned about the stress on their employees, and they had the right to support them then. Under this bill, the rights of boards of trustees to support their own teachers is being taken away.

On behalf of United Future I rise to speak on the third reading of the State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3). Firstly, I wish to thank all the submitters to this bill who came to the Education and Science Committee: the New Zealand School Trustees Association, the New Zealand Educational Institute, the Post Primary Teachers Association, and the New Zealand Law Society. I also thank my fellow select committee members and the chair, who did an outstanding job under quite a bit of time pressure, and also under the pressure of the exacting word-use needed to ensure we had this thing crafted correctly, so that we we could stand up and hand on to the nation a bill that was very effective, from the schools’ point of view—school trustees, parents, and children—and certainly from the point of view of teachers. So for that I am very grateful.

On the third reading of this bill it is good to remember the reasons it is here. There are a very simple couple of reasons why we are making this law. One is a very common-sense concept: to ensure we do not support the concept of “no pay for no work”. In other words, those who are against this bill are saying they want pay for everybody who does not work. I find that an absolute shocker. I really found it difficult to hear some of the people not supporting this bill upholding this incredibly different view. If people do not work, they should not get paid—and that is as simple as anyone should be able to place it. It is for that prime reason this bill has come into the House to become law.

Moreover, it also assists boards of trustees in times of strikes, so that they do not have to get caught up in heated arguments and conflicts with staff whom, of course, they have employed. They do not wish to get entangled in the options of whether they should pay them or not pay them, or of how to support them. This bill clearly sets out the fact that the State Services Commissioner takes on that role in an impersonal manner, and therefore frees boards of trustees from that conflict of interest. I think that that is a very, very sound process, when we consider what happens with the mums, dads, and children to whom they are responsible.

Overall, United Future is supportive of this bill. At this stage, we believe that all the bugs in it when it came to the select committee have been taken out. I thank members for the occasion to speak on the bill.

I am very happy to rise to support the third reading of the State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3). I also want to congratulate the select committee on the work it did on this bill. I think the amendments that have been made at the select committee are extremely useful and will contribute to the usefulness of the bill as a whole.

The bill corrects an anomaly that exists in respect of collective negotiations for teachers. I think it is extraordinarily unfair to expect boards of trustees to have to make a call or have the power to decide whether teachers are paid when they are on strike. It is often a very emotional issue. Not surprisingly, they are very reluctant to exercise that power. This bill means that striking teachers will be treated the same as any other employees who go on strike. In fact, we could say that it is “one law for all workers”, and that is why I find it very strange that National and ACT are not willing to support the bill. This bill will go a long way towards making the roles of boards of trustees a lot easier.

I support the bill and look forward to the rest of its passage through the House.

Listening to the honourable member who has just resumed her seat, one could get the impression that this State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3) is purely a technical bill. I think she said that it just fixes up an anomaly to enable the better negotiation of teachers’ salaries. She made the point it was good that teachers will all come under one law.

We also heard another view during the Committee stage, and that is that the bill covers one of the more important issues in our country. This bill is about the negotiation of the employment arrangements of our teachers. It empowers the State Services Commissioner to have all the powers of an employer under the Employment Relations Act to negotiate employment arrangements for our teachers, despite the fact that the Education Act makes the employers of our teachers the boards of trustees. Far from being just a technical issue, this issue goes to the heart of our country’s education system.

Anyone who knows anything about education or schooling knows that it is great teachers who make a difference. All research shows that. Great teachers make a difference in our schooling. Therefore, if the system this legislation puts in place does not allow for the employment arrangements that enable great teachers to be employed, and great teachers to be retained—because their employment arrangements reward their efforts and reward their skills—then the legislation cuts at the heart of the schooling of our children in this country. That is why I say that this legislation is far from technical; it is actually very, very important for the future of our country’s children.

I know there are some who would argue—and I think the Labour member Miss Mackey, who just resumed her seat, seemed to say—that one employment arrangement is better for all our teachers. I think that that is what she was implying, but I do not happen personally to agree with that. I think that different employment arrangements enable differently skilled people to be employed. The skills required in teaching are not the same for every child. Some children require different skills from their teachers. Different ways of teaching can work better with different children. So I am not saying that one skill is the best; I am saying we need to have a system that can employ teachers in a way where the skills that work with the children they are teaching can be recognised and rewarded.

This view is different from the one held by Labour members of Parliament. I am prepared to concede that my view, though quite deeply held, may not be right. I am prepared to concede that Miss Mackey and her Labour colleagues, United Future members, and New Zealand First members who support this legislation, which recentralises employment arrangements for teachers and gives more power to the State Services Commissioner, may be more right than I am. Maybe their view is more correct than mine, but I argue that the education of our children is too important for us to take the chance on having one system imposed across the entire school system.

I argued during the Committee stage that if the Government is so right about recentralising the employment arrangements for teachers—which is a move backwards from what was in the mind of the Picot task force that preceded the Tomorrow’s Schools reforms—and steps back from that and recentralises employment arrangements for teachers, surely it makes sense to allow some options, some choices. If the Government believes that what it is imposing on this country is so right, why not allow some options? If this legislation is so good, then allowing options will not change anything. People would automatically choose to go with this system.

I put to the Labour Minister of Education, the Hon Trevor Mallard, and his colleagues: why not allow State schools that do not like this to have choice? Some State schools, like Avondale College and Rangitoto College, did so well under the Tomorrow’s Schools regime of the 1990s and just blossomed. Avondale College was not in a high-decile area but that school blossomed, as it was able to employ and reward great teachers. The bulk funding arrangements of the 1990s, while far from perfect, at least gave that school some freedom and flexibility to employ teachers who could really make a difference with their children in that community.

If Labour believes this legislation is so right, why not amend it to enable schools with boards of trustees that do not want the State Services Commissioner to impose one employment arrangement over all their teachers to opt out of the system? Why not allow those schools to negotiate different employment arrangements with their teachers? That question goes to the heart of the success of our education system. Why not allow more freedom, more choice? All of history shows us that more freedom allows greater progress. We can look at the Soviet regimes, where they imposed control over everything—and got no progress. If we kill the spirit of freedom, we kill enterprise and progress.

I say to the Labour Government that we should not argue too much about what is right or wrong with this legislation, but the legislation should allow a choice. The Government should allow the State schools that do not want imposed on them what the State Services Commissioner might negotiate, the right to negotiate with their own teachers—within a budgetary constraint so they cannot spend endless amounts of taxpayers’ money, or any more taxpayers’ money than any other school gets to spend. Surely it makes sense to allow teachers to be employed under slightly different arrangements.

I go one step further. I say that if this Labour-led Government is so confident that what this legislation is doing is so right, why does it not allow real choice for parents. Why not allow State schools to choose to negotiate separately with their own teachers—so they can reward skilled teachers; so they can reward teachers who put greater effort into the well-being of the children—and why not also allow parents to take their children to whatever school they choose? If this monopolistic, one-size-fits-all State system is so right, why does the Government not allow parents to take the funding that we taxpayers provide to them to whatever school they choose?

I say, too, that where a child has greater educational need, let that funding be greater. There is no problem. Let us recognise that some children have more need. We should fund that need more but, when it comes to the schooling of our children, why lock them in to a system of one-size-fits-all?

It is interesting to see who is snuggling up to the Government today. On different days different parties around this House seem to snuggle up to the Government, and today it is United Future and New Zealand First. Those parties in this Parliament—United Future and New Zealand First—say: “Oh no, we’re not about children having the chance for a better education, at all.” They say: “No, no. We want a State monopolistic system of one-size-fits-all and to hell with the children who don’t prosper and learn well under that system. Let them just suffer.” That is what United Future and New Zealand First are saying in supporting Labour.

However, National says we should allow our schools to do things differently and allow them to employ teachers who work for their children. Then those schools will be different from the schools in a national monopolistic system. The employment arrangements would be different if we allowed that, but I can assure this House that we would get better educational outcomes for our disadvantaged children if the system allowed schools to employ teachers under different arrangements. If parents had real choice we would see the State system start to respond to parental needs and the needs of our children’s education. At the moment there is no pressure on it to do so, but it is time that happened.