Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill

I pick up from where I left off last night. I was talking about the importance of the democratic process and of the importance of the Minister Anne Tolley answering the questions that have been put to her by my colleague Grant Robertson and other members of the Labour Party. We should bear in mind that this bill has not been through the select committee process. The public has not had a chance to have a say on it. Teachers, parents, and boards of trustees also never had that chance. So the Minister should write down the questions we have put to her. She should pay attention to what we have to say, and she should stand up and answer our questions.

We all agree that truancy is a bad thing. We all want the kids to be in the classroom and learning, but we have yet to be convinced about the way this bill will make a difference. For the Minister’s benefit, I will run through some of the questions we raised last night. One of the most important questions asked what consideration had been given to whether increasing the fines would make any difference. The explanatory note of the bill states that there is a low rate of prosecutions under the current law and under the current level of fines, so we need to consider both the reason for this and the resources that are given to boards of trustees to take these prosecutions in the first place. Is it that schools are not prosecuting parents because they do not have any support to do so? I suspect that that is a good part of the problem. How will this bill increase resources to school boards of trustees? The explanatory note states that boards are unaware of their ability to prosecute under the Act. What steps are going to be taken to remedy that? What information will the Minister be giving school boards of trustees about the current provisions and the new changes? What resources are schools going to get?

The second issue is that this bill increases the powers of the Secretary for Education, but we have no information about how that will be implemented. I draw the Committee’s attention to some of the things said about that in the explanatory note. One of them is: “The Secretary for Education’s ability to take prosecutions will enable the Ministry of Education to intervene when schools are not taking action to deal with chronic parent-condoned truanting. These changes will not incur significant costs for schools.” But presumably someone is going to have to pay for them. They will have to be paid for somehow. At a time when the Government has put a sinking lid on expenditure by Government departments, we are going to load a few more responsibilities on them. So much for cutting red tape!

Furthermore, the explanatory note states: “Increased prosecution activity may impose new costs on the Court system.” What satisfaction can the House take that the court system will be given the resources needed in order to be able to do that? The explanatory note also states: “There is some risk that prosecutions for non-attendance may be pursued inappropriately, with parents being unnecessarily exposed to the threat of serious financial sanctions.”

💬 Hon Member: Good parents.

That is right. These are good parents who could be exposed to serious financial sanctions. The bill itself says that. What protections are going to be put in place? What guarantee are parents going to have that their kids have not been at school before they find themselves standing in the dock? In order for that to happen, schools need the resources to be able to tell parents that their kids are not attending school. What is the Minister going to do to make sure that the schools actually get the resources they will need?

This bill takes a very punitive approach to student attendance. It does nothing—absolutely nothing—to turn schools into places where students want to go; it simply threatens to punish them and their parents if they do not actually arrive at school. I want to know how this fits within the Government’s wider agenda for education.

We are here on Saturday, under urgency, because the Māori Party, the ACT Party, and the National Party have agreed to push through legislation that fundamentally affects many New Zealanders across our country, and those New Zealanders have not had a say on any of it. This Government expects that it can rush through legislation that affects ordinary New Zealanders, without letting parents or schools have a say on it and without even bothering about what they think.

So in rising to speak to Part 1 of this Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill, I want to ask the Minister a couple of questions as well. I think the point was well made by Grant Robertson when he asked why there has been no ability for parents to have a say on how a punitive step will actually affect their ability to support their children in education. After all, we all want our kids to do well in the school system. We all want them to achieve. We all support schools lifting their game to support our children. But it is about quality teaching and creating a learning environment, and that is not what this bill does. This measure takes a punitive step against parents.

I absolutely agree with Chris Carter: good parents should not be punished by imposing punitive actions such as a fine system. Why? Let us think about common examples in our communities—real examples. For example, a woman with three children whose husband has left her may be on the domestic purposes benefit. Will a punitive step actually help her to support her children in their education? She is putting kai on the table and has it in the cupboard. She supports education. Is she totally responsible for what her child does because there are issues of dysfunction in her family that perhaps are not being addressed? What does the Minister say? She says “Let’s fine her. Let’s fine that solo mum whose child does not turn up to school because his father has not been in his life and has not taken an interest in his education. Let’s just fine her.” There are already exacerbating pressures on a family like that.

This legislation will do nothing to support those mums who want their children to be educated in our communities, and that is what this Government has not done. It has not really looked at the implications of a punitive system on vulnerable families who will need support not only from the community and the schools but from us as legislators, to ensure that when we apply legislation it will have a positive effect out there in our communities. I do not think that a punitive step really reaches out to the families who will be affected.

Has the Minister asked herself why truancy is happening in our communities? This is a difficult issue, and we are taking it seriously. Truancy is a very serious issue in all our communities, because we all know that if kids are at school for longer they are more likely to achieve. But why does truancy exist? I put that question to the Minister. Dr Pita Sharples spoke in this Chamber about this particular issue, and he knows very well that if we were to compare mainstream schools with kura kaupapa and wharekura we would find there is a higher rate of truancy overall in mainstream schools than in kura kaupapa and wharekura. Why? Every one of those kura kaupapa and wharekura schools will say that it is because teachers make the difference in the learning environment in terms of valuing the students and who they are.

If we talk to parents of children attending mainstream schools about the issues of why truancy exists—if we bother to talk to them—we will often hear them say that it is because their children do not feel valued, especially Māori students and perhaps Pacific students. Dr Pita Sharples raised the issue himself. A number of the truants we are talking about are in alternative education centres. When we talk to those children and ask them why they are in alternative education centres, they will say “The teacher couldn’t even be bothered with me. I was just a number—couldn’t even say my name properly. I didn’t even bother going to school because the teachers don’t value who I am.” That is what students will tell us.

So when the Minister takes an approach like the one that has been taken in respect of this bill—a very punitive approach—she actually fails to recognise the number of other issues around the help that families need in order to be able to support their children’s education. The Minister needs to take a call on this, because it is a very, very important question.

💬 Hon Chris Carter: She won’t take a call.

No, she will not take a call, but she needs to. She needs to take a call because a punitive measure such as this will punish good parents who want to support their children’s education. Those parents must be supported in doing that.

The question that has to be asked about this Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill is how it will improve educational outcomes, which surely should be the purpose of the bill. A bill should not come into the House for purely ideological reasons. There should be some reason, one would hope, why the bill will actually improve educational outcomes.

We have quite a lot of information about children who do not go to school or who have very poor outcomes from our education system. One of the things we know most of all is that they live in poverty, and they are more likely to be Māori. We know that children who are missing school are more likely to come from difficult backgrounds.

I am quite interested in the relationship between this bill and the 90-day bill. If a parent is working a couple of part-time jobs in order to pay the bills, and he or she gets a new part-time job and finds out that his or her child is truanting from school, what choice does that parent have at that point? The choices are either to take some time off work to sort out what is happening, because the child is missing school, or stay at work. If that parent stays at work and does not deal with the problem of the child not going to school, the Government will come in and say “We’re going to whack a $3,000 fine on you because your child is missing school.”

Let us say that the parent decides on the alternative of not going to work and asks the boss for the day off to try to sort out the problem of the child missing school. Let us say that the parent is within the 90-day period where he or she can be sacked at will. That parent knows, because of the new legislation that has just been passed, that if he or she takes time off work during those 90 days to do something about the child who is truanting from school, the employer can sack him or her at will. The employer will say: “Oh, that’s one of those useless workers who tries to make sure their child gets an education. I don’t want one of those workers; I will just sack that worker at will.”

How will fining those workers $3,000 help them to deal with the problem in front of them of trying to put food on the table, pay the rent while their child is missing school, and meet the principal and teachers to find out what the problem is? If they do those things, the employer can say “Well, you’re obviously not the kind of employee we want in our workplace, and we can give you the sack, because the National Government has just given us the right to sack people who try to make sure their kids go to school.” Well, thanks to the National Government, people are caught between a rock and a hard place.

How does this bill help people who are in those kinds of difficult, real-life situations—not pretend ideological situations, because, let us face it, this measure is just an ideological burp—deal with the problem of trying to get their kids to go to school when they are in a 90-day period in a new job? Has the Government thought about how these two pieces of law, which it has been ramming through the House—and we are sitting on a Saturday now—might interact when it comes to real people living in the real world who are not sitting on Ministers’ salaries but are actually doing their best by their kids and paying their way? Has the Government thought about how these laws might work together?

What about the parent who works two jobs because the minimum wage is so low, and has kids who are truanting? The fact that the minimum wage is so low puts enormous pressure on parents. These are the real issues faced by parents whose kids are not going to school. They have to have more than one job in order to pay the bills, instead of having the time they need to pay attention to their kids.

If this was a family-friendly Government, surely its first priority would be to make sure that parents have enough time to spend with their kids in order to make sure they are not truanting from school. What about the fund to insulate housing that National has now said it is not going ahead with—the $1 billion to help insulate cold, damp houses? We know kids get out of the habit of going to school when they get sick. They get sick when they live in cold, damp houses. They get glue ear, they have poor educational outcomes because they cannot hear what the teacher is saying, they get isolated and alienated from their school, they do not want to be there, and they get sick. What do we do? We could insulate the houses so kids do not get sick so often, but instead we say “Oh no, that would be bad—we wouldn’t want to do that. Let’s get rid of that billion-dollar fund that was going to insulate houses so kids could actually get to school more often. That might help reduce truancy, but we do not want to do that; we’ll get rid of that, as well.”

I will make a couple of points in relation to some of the comments that have been made so far. I firstly refer to the rather eloquent speech made last night by the previous Minister of Education, the Hon Chris Carter. He talked about what his Labour Government had done and talked about the many measures it took to address truancy. He asked why there was not more in this Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill to address truancy. Well, in a way he is right, because all the measures he was talking about are other ways of addressing truancy, and we have indicated in our policy that we support many of those initiatives. We intend to bring in more initiatives and we have made some more funding available. However, none of those initiatives require legislation, which is why they are not in this bill before the Committee.

But it is interesting that for all the previous Minister said about what his Government had done for truancy, he was unable, at any time, to tell us exactly how many truancy officers are out there on the ground in New Zealand. He clearly did not want to know. Under his watch truancy grew in this country by 41 percent—a 41 percent increase occurred under all those initiatives he was talking about last night, and that was with all those dollars that had been put in. At any one time under that previous Minister’s watch 30,000 children could be missing from school. That is the record of the previous Minister.

The question has been asked as to whether prosecutions work and whether there has been any research. Well, there has been some research here in New Zealand. Back in 2004, under the previous Labour Government, the ministry ran a streamlined truancy prosecution trial. The results of that trial showed that the threat of prosecution, where it was used appropriately, had amazing effects. In fact, out of 30 families who were threatened with prosecution for persistent and wilful recidivist truancy, only one family was prosecuted—only one out of 30. The threat of prosecution has an effect on those parents who are wilfully supporting recidivist truancy, and they are the people whom we are targeting with this measure.

The last point I will make is this. If raising the fines and making the penalties for wilful truancy more serious in this country is such a bad thing, then why have two former Labour education Ministers talked about raising the fines over the last 4 years? All Labour did was to talk about it; it never did it. Well, this Government is doing it.

Is this not interesting? Here we are on a Saturday, in this maniac burst of pseudo-urgency, considering poorly thought-through bills. We are setting aside the proper processes of Parliament and conveying the impression of urgency and the impression of action—the impression of government. We fiddle while the world burns. Is this a serious response, in anybody’s book, to the international economic crisis? Kiwi mums and dads at home or at work this morning are feeling apprehensive about the future of their jobs, and more apprehensive after the passing of the 90-day “hire and fire at will” bill. They are at home and feeling apprehensive about their ability to pay the bills, and what are we doing? Pinging them with fines for truancy.

So why are we doing this? No one likes truancy. We have, as the previous speaker admitted, put in a raft of policies to address it and we have been making progress. But is it not interesting that the party that decried nanny Statism and the erosion of civil liberty—the imposition of solutions against the many to address the problems of the few—is now addressing this with a blanket law to fine parents for something that none of us, including most parents, would want to see?

Achievement does not equal compulsory testing, attendance does not equal compulsory fining, and a safe society does not simplistically equal tougher sentences. Those things are apparent, rather than real. They are worthy goals, but they are tokenistic solutions. They give the impression of action, rather than being real action.

I picked up this bill off the Table and thought I must have picked up an amendment. But no, this is the whole bill—an introduction and one page of measures. We are setting aside the select committee process to pass flimflam. This is flimflam. This is not policy, this is not government; this is complete procedural and policy nonsense.

The reason we are here on Saturday is that this is an abuse of Parliament. If anybody at home was in doubt, Anne Tolley proved it. She first recognised the range of measures that our Government put through. She then said that this new Government had a range of things it wanted to do on truancy. OK, I ask where they are, and moreover, I ask why those measures are not in the Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill. If the Government does not have them ready yet, I ask why this so-called bill is on the Table. Why is it on the Table, being considered under urgency, when, apparently, most of what the Government is going to do is not here? Why does the Government not tell the public what it is going to do? It cannot possibly be this bill, because this bill is a joke.

I think the public knows that this bill is not a solution; it is the impression of a solution. It is not a policy; it is the impression of a policy. This is not government; it is the impression of a Government. The difference between National and Labour is that we take the public seriously and we give them the honour of knowing that they can tell the difference between good policy and bad policy. They know this is a joke and an excuse for government while the world burns, and the new Government is really trying to work out what to do. The Government is here to convey the impression of urgency without having anything real to put through, because it wants to look like an action-oriented Government, whereas in fact this is not real action. In the world around us the Americans are debating the bail-out of the auto industry, the British are restructuring their banking system, Australia has just announced another major stimulus package, and what is our Government doing? It is fining parents for truancy, as if that is going to change the world and as if that merits urgency. I say to members opposite that they are here today because they are abusing Parliament and the public. Members opposite may give the impression of being a Government, but we will most definitely be a real Opposition.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Kia ora tātou i tēnei ra. I really enjoyed last night’s debate. There were some great contributions from across the House, and it was pleasing in terms of Māori education to hear contributions from my own co-leader Pita Sharples; from Mr Kelvin Davis, who came from a practical point of view; from Hekia Parata, who has been involved in a number of initiatives in respect of Māori education; from Metiria Turei; and also from Parekura Horomia. It was great to know that although we might speak across the House from different perspectives, in the end, as Māori and as those involved in education, we acknowledge the importance of education to each of us. There was a huge wealth of experience in the House last night, and all of us being here today clearly shows that we take education seriously.

I want firstly to recommend the report from the Education and Science Committee in February of this year. New members should have a look at that report, because, firstly, it contains 2 years of work, and, secondly, a huge amount of discussion came to the table. I acknowledge the contribution of the late Brian Donnelly, who led that select committee. I think it would be good if this Parliament picked up on the recommendations of that 2-year report. What was it all about? The title of the report was Inquiry into making the schooling system work for every child. I suppose that title recognises that the system does not necessarily fit all students.

I suspect that Part 1 of the Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill—“School enrolment and attendance”—is an effort to get students to go to school. The problem is that the recommendations in this part may well result in parents having to pay fines for their children not showing up, but they do not address the fundamental problem. I have some sympathy with the Supplementary Order Paper lodged by the previous Minister of Education, Mr Chris Carter, but we will consider it down the line.

Is there a truancy problem? Hell yeah! We do not have to go very far to know that. I do not think that having select committee hearings about whether there is or is not a truancy problem will do very much. There is enough evidence around to tell us that there is a problem, and, indeed, previous administrations have recognised that by way of providing truancy officers, the Waitakere truancy project, the truancy from school research project, and the text messaging project, which, I understand, Mr Mallard was part of initiating. Is there a truancy problem? Yes, and we have to acknowledge that.

As other members have said, it is likely that Māori and Pasifika students are participants in truancy. As I said at the Education and Science Committee, truancy is a sign of a bigger issue. It is likely that those who are involved in truancy are also involved in the poverty trap, and their families are not likely, in the end, to be able to pay the fines included in this part of the bill. Truancy can be viewed as a sign that the school and/or the system as a whole is not making a connection with the students. We acknowledge that the Te Kōtahitanga project was recognition by the previous Government that the teacher making a connection with the students is a very important element of our education—and Mr Davis took that angle last night. We say that that project needs to be developed, in light of Part 1. Of course, the downside for us at the time was that the Te Kōtahitanga money was taken from the manaaki tauira project, which was indeed a valuable pūtēa, or pool of money, available to assist Māori students in the tertiary sector.

I will confirm some figures in terms of truancy rates. In 2002 truancy rates were 3.6 percent for Māori, 1 percent for Pākehā, and 2.9 percent for Pasifika students. In 2004 those rates were 3.7 percent, 1.2 percent, and 3.7 percent, and in 2006 they were 4.5 percent, 1.3 percent, and 1.4 percent. Clearly, those who are suffering at the notion of attending school are more probably Māori and Pasifika.

Is there a better way? Perhaps a lead could be taken from a project that was developed in Hawaii called the Truancy Reduction Demonstration Project. Rather than our saying let us just fine parents, I tried to look for some sort of solution that had come out of research. I did some research and found that in Hawaii a project had been developed to combat truancy. The project identified five key elements to addressing the issue of truancy: parent and guardian involvement; a continuum of services, including meaningful supports, incentives, and consequences; collaboration with community resources, such as law enforcement, mental health, mentoring, and social services; school building - level administration support and commitment to maintaining youth in the educational mainstream; and, finally, ongoing evaluation, including meaningful and relevant outcome data geared towards increasing productive factors and reducing risk. I suppose those are wide-ranging points, but truancy is not limited to Aotearoa; it is a factor across the world. Will introducing high fines to deal with this issue make a difference? It seems to me that it will not, and the research does not really say that.

In terms of addressing that matter, I have lodged a Supplementary Order Paper, and I look for support for it from across the House. Basically, it separates the two issues in this bill, to allow the issue of truancy to be dealt with by itself, and the assessment issue to be dealt with by itself, in the belief that upping the fines may not necessarily, in the end, deal with the issue. If it is about getting our tamariki and our students to go to school, putting up fines, which may well affect only the parents and not those students, will not deal with the bigger issue. The bigger issue is building the relationship between tamariki and the school and, indeed, as Mr Davis pointed out, the teachers themselves, and back the other way—between the teachers and the students.

The Māori Party asks for a little bit more work on the part of the bill dealing with fines. We do not think it will work, and we look forward to some support in the House for separation of the issues. It may well be dealt with a little further down the line, but from our side of things, today is not the day to deal with the issue of fines.

I am happy to take a call on this part of the Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill. Truancy is an issue that everyone in the House is concerned about. It is an issue that the previous Government did much work on. It is an issue, of course, that this Opposition will be happy to work with the Government on if it puts before us measures that we genuinely believe will combat truancy and will not potentially make things worse.

I start off by acknowledging Hekia Parata and her maiden statement. Her sister Apryll was my sixth-form English teacher at Lytton High School. She was a very, very good English teacher. She was also my sixth-form and seventh-form dean. I am not worried to say that we were all a little bit scared of her, but she was a very good teacher, and it is very nice to have Hekia Parata in the House.

One of the things that I think is important, and we need to acknowledge this when we look at the statistics, is that we do now track children through the ENROL system. There was a time when we really had no idea where a lot of those children were, particularly the children of those families who travelled around a lot and changed schools regularly. When we consider the statistics, an important part is acknowledging that we do track children now and that we have a far better idea.

We are concerned that this bill will have no select committee process. None of the bills in this urgency motion will be referred to a select committee in order for the public and the sector to have their say. I just make a comment to Mr Flavell, who has just resumed his seat. The reason we are concerned about that is not that we do not think there is a truancy problem, but that we do not know whether this bill is the solution. We believe that the sector should have the opportunity to have its say because the bill might make things worse—we never know. If a family that is burdened with debt gets another fine on top of that when they are desperately trying to hold it together, it might actually make things worse. That is why we believe this bill should have gone to a select committee.

I ask the Minister in the chair, the Hon Anne Tolley, what evidence she has that parents who cannot afford the fines now will be able to afford them when they are greater, and what difference increasing them will make. If those families are throwing up their hands now and saying they cannot do it, then why will making those fines so much more burdensome make a difference in those families? If it will make a difference and the Minister can show us the evidence, then why not make the fine $10,000 or $100,000 for parents whose children truant? I ask why we do not do that if the level of fine is what is important.

I think the problem is that we have been told that other measures are coming, but this bill is putting the cart before the horse. We do not know what those measures are. We do not know how they will fit in with the raising of the fines, and how it will make a difference. [Interruption] Maybe Mr King can tell us what these extra measures are. All the evidence we have seen this week so far, under urgency, is that this Government will pursue policies that hurt the most vulnerable families. We have seen tax increases for our low-income families. We have seen an employment relations bill that will take away rights at work for members of those families who are the most vulnerable in the first 90 days of employment.

I ask the Minister to consider this scenario. Let us suppose a mother is working two or three jobs, trying to hold her family together. It is hard to be a parent and try to hold the family together at the same time, especially for a solo parent. Let us say that she is in her first 90 days of work and she gets a phone call from the school telling her that her son or daughter has not turned up and that the school does not know where the child is. What does she do? Most people would say she will go to her employer and say: “My child is the most important thing. This is the thing that matters most so I will leave here, go home, and try to find out where my child is and get that child to school.” By doing that she flags to her employer that this might be an ongoing issue. This parent might be constantly called away from work, and what can that employer do in the first 90 days of that job?

Let us remember that hundreds of thousands of people change jobs every few months. They are mostly low-income people, who go from part-time job to part-time job, and who work a lot in the hospitality industry and in other areas where there is a high turnover.

That employer now thinks that he or she has someone here who will want a lot of time off, because this mother obviously has a kid who is in trouble or will truant a lot, even if that is not the case. All the employer has to say is: “Don’t come Monday.” Under the legislation passed in this House under urgency, where the public had no chance to have a say, all the employer has to say is: “Don’t come Monday.” The employer does not have to give a reason.

Kate Wilkinson, the Minister of Labour, might say that the mother can take a human rights complaint because she is parent and that situation is unfair. Well, she cannot do that, because how will she prove that she was fired because her child was a problem at school and because she is a solo parent? She cannot prove that. All the employer has to say is: “I am sorry. You do not look happy in your work. Don’t come Monday.”

I want to know whether the Minister is connecting these dots. I ask whether she is connecting the dots between the policies we have seen this week under urgency, which disadvantage our poorest families and give them no security at work, and the scrapping of a billion-dollar fund—as my colleague Dr Russel Norman has pointed out—that would have meant more healthy homes and more kids at school.

I want to raise another issue, and that is about a blog about a parent with a child with autism.

I move, That the question be now put.

I was not going to speak in this Chamber until I had given my maiden speech, because that is the ancient tradition of this esteemed institution and I wanted to honour that. So to those who have gone before me, I do apologise. But last night I sat in this House and listened with growing anger and frustration to the utter drivel spouting from the mouths of members on the Government benches, and I felt I had to break my own rules on a topic that is so important it warrants it.

I listened to Mr Peachey lecture us about educational achievement. That member was the headmaster of one New Zealand’s largest schools, but it was also one of New Zealand’s wealthiest. His students knew about aspiration. They grew up with education—

💬 Allan Peachey: Don’t talk rubbish! Get it right!

—because their parents read them stories at night, I say to Mr Peachey. They had full tummies when they went to school. They went there in clean clothes, they understood education, they had a healthy lunch, and they had a great attitude. I say to Mr Peachy that his students’ greatest problem these days is where to park their cars when they get to school. [Interruption] You may have been able to get away with bullying your students and your staff, but you cannot do that here.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): The member cannot use the word “you”, as he is bringing the Chair into the debate. Also, members should please keep the tone down. Interjections are fine, but members should keep the tone down.

Then Todd McClay lectured us about 9 years of a Labour Government, when he was not even in the country then. Todd McClay said in his maiden speech: “ ‘I have two ears and one mouth. I will be able to listen’ ”. Then last night he said he had talked to thousands of people in Murupara. What did he do? Did he talk or listen? He did not listen. Of course the people in Murupara want better for their children; we all do. But Mr McClay and Mr Peachey completely missed the point. [Interruption] The member wants to talk about educational achievement. Well, I tell him that I am in the throes of completing a masters thesis on tertiary education, economic transformation, and education. So I know a little about that.

The arrogance of not taking this bill to a select committee astounds and appals me. Democracy is the foundation stone of this country; “demos” means people and “-cracy” means rule. The select committee process allows democracy to be expressed. Democracy was the model first used in ancient Greece, when Solon founded the first democratic State over 3,000 years ago. How dare the Government dishonour that tradition when proposing social legislation? We may represent the people, but it is our duty to give them the right to speak and be heard. Does Anne Tolley understand that? [Interruption] The issue is not about her; it is about listening to the people who gave her the mandate to represent them. I say to Mr Quinn—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I know the member is a new member, but we are debating Part 1 of the Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill, which deals with the issue of truancy. I have listened to the member very carefully, and I have not heard any reference to the bill, at all. We have had a great socialistic lecture about all sorts of things, but I think, Mr Chairman, that you should require the member—particularly as this part has been debated for some time—to address Part 1.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): The point is well made by the member. We are looking specifically at Part. I ask the member to confine his comments to that. But I bring to members’ attention Speakers’ ruling 57/3, which relates to interjections. It states: “(1) Interjections in debate are out of order unless they are rare and reasonable; (2) occasional interruption by way of interjection is in order if relevant;”. I just draw members’ attention to Speakers’ ruling 57/3.

Let us talk about truancy. Is that a decile 10 - school problem? Does Remuera Primary School have a truancy problem, a truancy issue? No. Truancy is not an educational problem; it is a social-economic problem. Of course parents want what is best for their kids. They want them to be educated, but instead of low-income parents reading stories to their children at night, I tell Mr Peachey, those parents are cleaning his office, and they are delivering Mr McClay’s newspaper at 5 a.m. At 7.30 a.m. they are heading out to work in their day job, I tell Mrs Tolley. National’s tax cuts for the top 32 percent of income earners have made matters worse. Truancy is an issue because desperate parents cannot find the time and money to put food on the table, let alone books in homes.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Excuses—more excuses.

Then that Government is going to fine them a month and a half’s salary. Does Mr Smith think that will help? No. I tell the Minister in the chair, Anne Tolley, to start addressing the issues, see where the failures lie, and understand the demographics of failure. It is not in Epsom or on the North Shore; it is in our poorest communities, where people are struggling with everyday issues of life. What are you doing about it? Nothing!

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): The member cannot use the word “you”. He should talk about the person by using his or her name, or by using the term “the member”. That might be the easiest way to do it. As soon as you mention “you”, it refers to the presiding officer at the time, so I ask the member to please take that point on board.

I apologise—I apologise. The Minister should go and hold a select committee meeting in the Māngere community centre, take Mr Sio with her, and hold the meeting at a time when people can attend between shifts.

I will tell members this: at least Labour endeavoured to address what we know was the problem, through Working for Families and increasing the minimum wage significantly during its time—measures that the National Party voted against every time. National should address the cause of truancy and raise the minimum wage under urgency. That will help educational achievement, not this legislation. I dare the National Government to address the issue of the minimum wage. Let us do that under urgency—address the minimum wage. Truancy is a social-economic problem, not an educational problem. It is not an educational problem. The Government should go and hold a select committee meeting in the Māngere community centre.

I start by saying that the goals of what the Government is proposing are quite laudable. Truancy is not a joke. We all agree with that; everybody on every side of the House agrees with that. And we are starting from a reasonable base.

As the explanatory note of the Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill says: “The schooling system supports educational success for many students and, by international standards, a high proportion of New Zealand’s students achieve at levels comparable to the best in the world. The system, however, is not serving all students well, with 14 percent”—not one in five—“of students leaving …” without achieving good standards of numeracy and literacy. So we are starting from a good base, and it is laudable that the Government wants to do better. We all want to do better. That is great, but there is debate about how we do better. Because the Government has decided to get up on its high horse—its high Trojan horse—draw its sword, and crusade this legislation through Parliament under urgency, there is no opportunity for that debate.

We are not hearing from principals, we are not hearing from teachers, we are not hearing from students, we are not hearing from parents, we are not hearing from truancy officers, we are not hearing from the police, and we are not hearing from the truants. That would be a good place to start, would it not? How about we go and talk to the truants? That would be a good place to start. But we do not get to hear from any of those people, because the Government is ramming this legislation through under urgency. Here we are on a Saturday. I could be back in my electorate, listening to people. I have had to cancel four engagements today. One of them was at a school. I could have been listening to teachers and students talking about this issue. But, no, we are here, under urgency, because the Government is so keen to look as if it is doing something.

So let us hear from principals; let us give some of them a chance to speak up. The President of the Secondary Principals’ Association, Peter Gall, said in the New Zealand Herald yesterday: “Parents are very much in the same boat as schools, struggling to ensure the kids are in school, … Unless the truancy is condoned, it would not be right to prosecute the parents.” The Edgewater College principal, Allan Vester, in the Howick and Pakuranga Times on 13 November, said that any worthwhile plan introduced by the ministry needs a lot more than an increase in the level of fines. “Very few cases go to prosecution and that type of long term truancy is very uncommon.” He argued that what is needed are more resources for schools to follow up with families of students who miss more than the average days in situations where there is not a major medical issue. That is what those principals are saying; that is what they are telling us. But the Government insists on ramming this bill through anyway.

I decided that it would be a good idea to listen to my constituents, so I made a few phone calls yesterday. I canvassed a few educators in Palmerston North and managed to get hold of a couple of them, even at such short notice. Do members know what? The first person I spoke—

💬 Nathan Guy: Ring Maharey? What’s he up to?

He is a vice-chancellor, and I know what he does. The first educator I spoke to was a principal of a primary school. I explained what the Government was suggesting in the way of putting up fines. I asked her whether she thought that was a good idea. Well, when she had stopped laughing, and when she had managed to compose and control herself, she asked me a simple question: “What’s the point?”. I ask the Minister in the chair, Anne Tolley: “What’s the point?”. The Minister had trouble writing down all the questions my colleague Grant Robertson had last night, so I have a simple, easy question for her: “What’s the point?”.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Get the children to school.

The member says that it is to get the children to school, but where is the evidence to show that putting up fines will actually achieve that? That is what we want to achieve, but how will putting up fines actually achieve it? The Minister has said that the threat of prosecution is enough. The threat of prosecution is already enough. A thousand dollars is already a lot of money. I am not fundamentally opposed to the Government putting up the amount; that is not a problem. But what difference will it make? A thousand dollars is a lot of money, and the threat of prosecution already works, and this is what we have got.

The Minister says that the Government has a priority plan of action. What is the first priority? She says that a range of options are available, yet the first priority is to punish parents. The first priority is to go after parents and to punish poor parents—the ones who are struggling.

This particular provision is for me primarily and largely about vulnerable families, and we need to factor them into the programme we are now debating. As we increase penalties for the most vulnerable, we must know that it is serious for them, and everyone from our side has already spoken out about that. We need to be clear that we understand when those punitive measures are to be triggered. They have to be triggered at the right time, particularly for vulnerable families. In order to ensure that we have the trigger points right, we ought to take much more advice than we have taken at the present time.

The Minister, Anne Tolley, said earlier that she was relying on 2001 research on the effects of this, which the ministry or someone else might have done. However, I say to the Minister that she ought to rely on contemporary evidence, and that contemporary evidence comes from the people who are not teachers but are working in schools right now, and who are working with these vulnerable families.

I was part of a group that pioneered school social work in this country. We placed social workers in schools for a good reason—to help and work with vulnerable families. I would like to hear from those social workers. What are they saying? What is their advice? What have they found out so far, what works, and what does not work? I think we ought to bring that into the consideration of this particular clause.

I agree with Mr Te Ururoa Flavell when he talked about the experience from Hawaii. As I understood from what he said, they were talking about involving parents and having a continuum of services. I did not hear him talk about punitive measures; I heard him talk about measures that enable people to participate. So simply increasing the fine will not address what is perceived as an important problem at the present time. I think the House should have the benefit of those people who have the experience and who know the conditions under which optimal assistance can be provided to families. The provisions in clauses 5 and 6 do not do that.

These considerations are important, because the families likely to get caught out for the non-attendance of their children come from the lower economic and vulnerable levels of society. They are likely to be families on a low income, or families with irregular work, and, more important, are likely to have many, many social issues. Those issues need to be understood and heard. We need to know what other factors must be considered in those sorts of provisions, so that changes can be made.

I ask members to consider for a moment these different conditions. If it were a family like mine, then working with the school would be quite easy. But consider the family that I talked about in my maiden speech; a family with disability in the home and difficulties with three children. If those kinds of families, which are coping with inordinate difficulties in the home, are fined or face a prosecution, how does that help them? The system the Government has designed in clauses 5 and 6 will punish them. When I worked with those families, it was the bringing together of all of their needs and using the power of the State, and the provisions that could be made, that made a difference in the life of those families. It will not be done by punishing them with fines. I urge the Minister to send this bill to the select committee, so that the experts can come along and improve on the proposals. This is a one-shot act of conscience only; it satisfies those people who want to punish.

The Minister is acting in an authoritative way but these provisions are not authoritative. What will make the Minister authoritative is to take the best evidence, take the right experience, from those who work with such families. We have worked with those families in the past ourselves, and having worked with them intensively, I say we need to understand their experiences and what will help. It simply satisfies the expectations of a different sector of society, who believe that only by punishing the vulnerable will we will improve their life situation. There is no evidence of that. We will develop a dog-eat-dog society, but we want to avoid that. If we listen to those with experience, we will avoid that happening.

I move, That the question be now put.