Education Amendment Bill (No 2)

I move, That the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a second time. I wish to thank the members of the Education and Science Committee for their thorough consideration of all aspects of the bill. A significant number of submitters were heard by the committee, reflecting strong public interest.

The bill introduces a range of measures that will provide strong professional leadership for the teaching profession, strengthen and lift the status of the profession, promote quality teaching and leadership, and increase public confidence in the integrity and quality of the teaching profession.

I also wish to acknowledge the many organisations and individuals who made submissions on the bill and who attended hearings, often travelling some distance to do so. These submissions informed the consideration of the committee. As a result, the committee has recommended changes to improve the bill.

I will speak on the changes recommended to the parts of the bill concerning the audit and moderation functions of the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand (EDUCANZ), the membership of EDUCANZ, and the disciplinary framework. My colleague the Hon Steven Joyce will speak in more detail about the tertiary and international education aspects of the bill.

The bill responds to issues identified through an extensive review and consultation process that included a review of the professional body for teachers, the New Zealand Teachers Council, in 2012. The review found that the council as currently structured, governed, and positioned was not best placed to lead the education profession. The bill establishes the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand, which will be a new, independent professional body for the education profession, replacing the existing New Zealand Teachers Council. I would like to again express my thanks to the New Zealand Teachers Council for the outstanding work that it has done over the duration of its existence and thank it for the work that it will continue to do until the new body is in place.

The quality of teaching and education leadership has a direct impact on educational success. Supporting a transformed professional body is one of a number of reforms by this Government to influence the quality of teaching, leading, and learning, and is the cornerstone of our quality teaching agenda. Other initiatives include the $359 million investment in professional career pathways over the next 4 years. These roles will recognise and use talent where it is needed most. They will be implemented from next year to support communities of schools across the country. Importantly, the pathways will have a focus on supporting teachers to collaborate to lift achievement.

The annual Prime Minister’s Education Excellence Awards recognise and celebrate outstanding achievements in early childhood education, primary and secondary schooling, and secondary-tertiary transitions. The inspiredbyU website is where people can write public postcards of thanks to their inspiring teachers. The education festivals in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch showcase school best practice to each other, to parents, and to the community, and celebrate what is happening in our schools. There are the new postgraduate qualifications in initial teacher education and the sector-led review of professional learning and development. The teaching profession makes a powerful contribution to lifting student achievement. This Government is backing our teaching profession to win—in policy, in practice, in funding, and in law.

The Education Amendment Bill (No 2) has three main objectives. The first is to ensure that New Zealand’s education sector is equipped to meet the challenges and opportunities of the modern learning context. To meet this objective, the bill establishes EDUCANZ as an independent statutory professional body, led by a board appointed on the basis of skills and experience, for teachers and education leaders across early childhood education and schooling. Teaching needs a strong professional body that provides leadership to, and is owned by, the profession. As an independent statutory board, EDUCANZ will use its skills, expertise, and authority to provide important leadership and regulation for the teaching profession. EDUCANZ will promote educational leadership, accountability, and high standards within the system; help to drive continuous improvement by strengthening and streamlining quality assurance processes; and establish a regulatory framework for the protection of children and for discipline.

The second objective is to create a regulatory environment that promotes accountability and high standards. To achieve this, the bill will strengthen the regulatory framework for teaching to ensure consistently high standards of entry into the profession and ongoing competence of teachers and education leaders. The bill clearly separates registration, which recognises that a graduate is qualified to become a member of the profession, from the issuing of practising certificates, which recognise the competencies and experience required to work successfully as a teacher.

The third objective is to drive continuous improvement in the education sector by clarifying, streamlining, and strengthening processes. As such, the bill will bolster and simplify the disciplinary regime to ensure that there are high standards of conduct and that the response to possible misconduct is timely, effective, and fair.

The bill generated a lot of public interest, which was reflected in the number of submissions received by the Education and Science Committee. The committee has carefully considered all of the submissions, and as a result a small number of changes to the bill have been recommended. These changes help further clarify the intent of the bill and the functions of EDUCANZ. By a majority, the committee has recommended a change to the membership requirements for the council, to the effect that at least five members must be registered teachers who hold a current practising certificate. As originally drafted, the bill required a maximum rather than a minimum. It also required that members be registered teachers, but did not specify that such members must also hold a current practising certificate.

The bill’s intent was that the council of EDUCANZ would have a strong core of members with current teaching experience as well as broader skills in governance, financial management, leadership, and understanding of partnership principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. I am very supportive of this recommendation as it clarifies the membership requirements as well as the intent of the bill.

By a majority, the committee has recommended a change to one of the functions of EDUCANZ. EDUCANZ is required to undertake audit and moderation of the assessment process and the issue of at least 10 percent of practising certificates in each year. The change clarifies that the purpose of this function is to ensure that both the process undertaken by professional leaders for the issue of practising certificates and examples of such achieve the required standard, and consistently so.

The committee has also recommended a number of technical amendments—for example, providing more precise specification of some details regarding mandatory reporting requirements, ensuring all mandatory reports are made in writing, and including concerns about teachers who, rather than resigning, merely finish a fixed-term appointment. Previously, these teachers were not covered by the reporting regime. The amendments clarify that EDUCANZ may charge for the provision of goods and services consistent with its functions and provide increased transparency in response to the recommendations of the regulatory review.

By a majority, the committee has recommended some technical amendments regarding the powers of the complaints assessment committee, to provide for consistency in committee procedure. These ensure the committee’s powers relate only to matters that are not serious misconduct, as these matters are to be dealt with by the Education Council Disciplinary Tribunal. Changes also clarify that the complaints assessment committee may take more than one of the actions open to it.

The Government intends to support the amendments recommended by the majority of the committee. We want to build on the good practice that occurs in schools every day and support the education system to promote high professional standards, performance, and accountability, and thereby continue to raise achievement for all children and young people.

To conclude, the bill introduces a range of measures that provide strong professional leadership, strengthen and lift the status of the profession, promote quality teaching and leadership, and increase public confidence in the integrity and quality of the teaching profession. I am confident that this bill supports the Government’s aim of strengthening and raising the status of the teaching profession and the quality of teaching and leadership within it. I now commend the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) to the House.

If Hekia Parata was actually backing the teaching profession to win and was actually focused on raising the status of the profession, then perhaps one way to start would be to give the teaching profession some degree of control over the professional body that is now going to regulate it and that it is going to be paying for. But, no, that is not what this Government is going to do. This Government, so confident in its views on education and so confident that it knows better than the profession, is going to take complete control of the regulation of the teaching profession. It would not do that to lawyers. It would not do that to accountants. It would not do that to doctors. It would not do that to any other profession, but with teaching, the Government seems to think it knows better than the profession itself. It is not going to have any democratic process for appointing the people who are going to be involved in the regulation of the teaching profession—none whatsoever.

So arrogant is this Government that it seems to think that it can have complete control of the teaching profession and that that is not a problem. Here is a parallel. A few years ago, when the then Labour Government was trying to regulate the real estate industry, National members came down and filibustered for hours and hours, complaining that real estate agents should have the right to elect representatives to their own governing body, and now here National is, saying that although real estate agents should have it, and it was willing to delay the progress of legislation in the House for hours and hours to give that right to real estate agents, it is not willing to give that right to every teacher in the country, and that is wrong.

If this Government really wants to raise the status of the teaching profession through the creation of a genuinely independent professional body for the teaching profession, it could start by giving the profession some democratic control over who actually governs it, but that is not what this bill does. That is not what this bill does at all. In fact, it makes no reference to teachers or teaching in the name of the organisation. This organisation, whose primary purpose is to regulate the teaching profession and to raise the status of teaching, is not even allowed to mention teaching in its title. That shows the attitude of this Government when it comes to the teaching profession.

Instead of a code of ethics, an aspirational code of ethics for the teaching profession as we have now, this Government is going to introduce a heavy-handed code of conduct—a heavy-handed code of conduct—because, of course, National knows best. National knows best when it comes to teaching. In fact, I am surprised that all those National Ministers are not actually out there in classrooms every day teaching the kids themselves, because they seem to think they know better about how kids learn than the people who are actually trained to do it and who actually devote their lives to educating the kids of this country.

If this is really about raising the status of the teaching profession, why is the Government seeking to deregulate parts of the teaching profession in the form of the changes that it is making to limited authorities to teach, which in fact lower the entry standards for the teaching profession? They lower the entry standards for teaching. That is what this Government is doing. So much trust does this Government have in the teaching profession that it wants to audit 10 percent of all of the teacher registrations in a year. Is this going to be like a good appraisal? No. It is a paper-based audit. It is about: “Have they filled in the right forms?”, and: “Have the right boxes been ticked?”.

Oh, this is going to be a huge, paper-based exercise. Who is going to pay for that? Is it going to be the Government? No. Not one Government dollar is going to go into this massive bureaucracy that is going to be required to audit teacher registrations—to do paper-based audits of teacher registrations. No, no. The teachers are going to have to pay for that themselves through the form of increased teacher registration fees, and yet not one additional person is going to be sitting in a classroom working out whether that teacher is actually any good. It is a paper-based review. It is a shuffling exercise. Have the right boxes been ticked? But, actually, there is no guarantee that in fact the teachers are going to be any better as a result of that. It is a paper-based exercise that will result in an enormous increase in bureaucracy, and it will not actually increase the quality of the teaching profession.

If the new Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand is supposed to provide leadership to the teaching profession, why is it that the teaching profession is not allowed any say in who its leaders are going to be? What is it that this Government has against democracy? It certainly does not seem to think that the teaching profession should have any role in that process. Why is it that this body is going to be responsible now for the dissemination and the sharing of best practice within the teaching profession? What does the Ministry of Education do? What does the Education Review Office do? What do those thousands of people employed by the Public Service do if not share best practice? What do the colleges of education do if not share best practice? What does the New Zealand Council for Educational Research do if not share best practice? These are all Government-funded entities, but instead the Government is going to transfer that responsibility to the teaching council—which, of course, is not allowed to be called the Teachers Council any more—that is paid for by the teaching profession.

So, basically, we now get a form of user-pays professional development through the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand, where teachers have to pay for it themselves, as opposed to something that might be provided by, oh, you know, their employer, which happens to be the Government. Who will pay? It will be the teaching profession that ultimately ends up paying for this, and yet it has no say over how this body is made up.

The Government wilfully ignored the vast bulk of submissions to the select committee. The vast bulk of the submissions to the Education and Science Committee were near unanimous, basically saying that this bill was opposed almost in its entirety. Very few submissions—there might have been half a dozen—

💬 Tracey Martin: 13.

—13 were in favour, compared with the hundreds and hundreds of submissions that we heard that were opposed to this bill, and yet the Government said: “We’ve made a few minor technical amendments in response to public feedback.” No, actually, the Government largely ignored the feedback that it received from the teaching profession. Such is the high esteem in which it holds the people who are in classrooms educating kids that it is willing to just completely ignore the feedback from the teaching profession. That is, of course, what we expect to see from this Government.

Of course, it would not surprise me now if those who took the time to submit find themselves the victims of the vile smear machine that exists within the National Government because, of course, we know that as long as National is in Government, when people put their heads above the parapet, they will be absolutely smeared—

💬 Hon Steven Joyce: Yeah, whatever.

Steven Joyce, the master of smear over there, is interjecting when we know that he has got his fingerprints all over John Key’s vile smear machine, which has been operating out of the Beehive. In fact, it is not just on the ninth floor; it is on the seventh floor as well, because that is where Steven Joyce’s office is located. That is where Chris Bishop used to work. He used to be part of the vile smear machine that exists within the National Government.

We know that when teachers put their heads above the parapet and criticise Government policy, the big clobbering stick that this Government has is going to come heading in their direction because this is a Government that does not like criticism. It is a Government that does not actually want to listen to the people of New Zealand. It pays democracy lip service, but does not actually believe in the fundamental principles of democracy. If it did, and if it was genuinely interested in raising the status of teaching in New Zealand, it would ensure that New Zealand teachers actually had a chance to have a say over the governing body.

💬 Hon Hekia Parata: Five out of nine is a majority.

Five out of five is what Hekia Parata says. Who picks the five out of five?

💬 Hon Hekia Parata: Five out of nine.

Who picks the five out of nine?

💬 Hon Hekia Parata: The Minister makes the decision.

The Minister makes the entire decision about who is going to be on the governing body of the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand. That is not called democracy. That is not democracy when one person hand-picks—hand-picks—the people who are going to be responsible. That is not democracy. That is the National Government’s definition of democracy, but that is not what most New Zealanders would regard as a democratic process.

So heavy-handed and arrogant is this Government that it seems to think that having Hekia Parata hand-picking the representatives—the nine people—who are going to be on this council is democracy. That is democracy, apparently, according to Hekia Parata. And if teachers do not like it, they can write her a letter and suggest some people who might be on the council. Of course, she can completely ignore that, but, oh gosh, they get a say. They could write her a letter. But do you know what? When people write Hekia Parata a letter, they get an automatic bounce-back that says: “I may or may not reply and I may or may not read your email.” That is what people get when they send anything to Hekia Parata, and that is her solution to democracy. If they do not like the members on the council, oh, they can write her a letter, which she may or may not read and may or may not reply to. That is democracy, National Government - style. That is how arrogant and out of touch it has got.

The Labour Party will be opposing this legislation because it is heavy-handed and because it does not raise the status of the teaching profession. In fact, it belittles the teaching profession. It says to teachers in New Zealand that they cannot be trusted and that they need a heavy-handed National Government to tell them what is good for them. It says that the National Government thinks it knows better about what is good for educating kids than the people who are trained and who devote their lives to doing so. That is why we will be opposing it. We will be opposing it because it removes democratic representation from the governance bodies of tertiary councils in New Zealand. This is a bad bill. This is a bad bill, and the Labour Party will be opposing it.

Can I thank the previous speaker, Chris Hipkins, for his contribution. I must say it is amazing how someone so young has become so much part of the furniture around here in the education space. He fulminates along at great length and is actually a bit like those two guys from The Muppet Show now. I do not think that is a compliment for someone so young. You would hope they would come up with fresh ideas and they would be actually open to new ideas and open to new ways of doing things, but not Chris. He gets his advice from education unions. He gets his speaking points and he stays very close to those, so much so that on Newstalk ZB on Wednesday mornings he has been replaced by that up-and-coming talent Annette King. We are thrilled to see Annette back on Newstalk ZB, although Chris was not too bad.

Anyhow, the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) is a very important bill. It has three objectives: to ensure that New Zealand’s education sector is equipped to meet the challenges and opportunities of the modern learning context, to create a regulatory framework that promotes accountability and high standards, and to drive continuous improvement in the education sector.

My particular interest is in the area of university and wānanga governance, and the amendments to university and wānanga governance proposed in the bill will meet the bill’s objectives by creating smaller skills-based councils that will be able to respond more quickly to the modern-day challenges of tertiary education and give universities and wānanga more flexibility to reflect their unique stakeholders on their councils and tailor their councils to their specific needs. The amendments will also clearly define the duties and accountabilities of council members so that they know what is expected of them and can be held accountable for poor performance.

The reforms will modernise councils so that they can more easily meet the needs of a rapidly changing employment market, can adapt to the new challenges from changing technology in teaching and learning, and can operate more effectively in an increasingly competitive international higher education environment.

I would like to thank the members of the Education and Science Committee for their diligent consideration of the bill. I would also like to thank the organisations and individuals who made submissions on the bill. The Education and Science Committee received a large number of submissions regarding the tertiary governance provisions in the bill. Submitters discussed the impact of the changes on institutional autonomy and academic freedom, on diversity, on links to the community, and on staff and student voice. They emphasised the special characteristics of universities and wānanga, and their role as critics and the conscience of society.

Many commented on the proposed increase, as they saw it, in the proportion of ministerial appointees on the councils. Evidence for the proposed changes was also a prominent theme. The most commonly cited reasons for submitters opposing the governance provisions in the bill were that they would, firstly, negatively impact institutional autonomy and academic freedom; secondly, lead to greater ministerial control; or, thirdly, lead to the loss of student and staff voices on councils. I would like to take the time, in this second reading, to respond to those concerns.

Firstly, the amendments will not affect institutional autonomy or academic freedom, as these are guaranteed by section 161 of the Education Act. I myself recognise the value and importance of institutional autonomy and academic freedom, which is why I am not proposing any changes to this section of the Act.

The bill’s amendments will also not lead to greater ministerial control of institutional councils. Despite claims to the contrary, the Minister will have no mechanism to instruct council members to make certain decisions, nor will the Minister, he or she, have the power to sanction council members for their governance decisions. The Minister’s powers over appointed members are limited only to ensuring that members comply with their individual duties as council members, and he or she could sanction a council member only at the behest of the council itself.

The amendments will not prevent institutions from having any of their stakeholders represented on the councils. Which stakeholders are represented on a council and how those stakeholders are appointed will be a matter for each individual institution’s constitution, rather than being specified in the Education Act. I actually think that is a grown-up approach to the institution’s governance. There is nothing in this bill that will prevent an institution from having student representatives or staff members on its council.

I am pleased that the Education and Science Committee has recommended by majority that the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) be passed with no substantive amendments to the tertiary governance provisions. The committee has recommended several minor technical amendments to the bill’s tertiary governance provisions, which I will briefly cover.

The committee has recommended the bill be amended to clarify that tertiary education institutions may continue to co-opt members on to their councils by direct appointment. The councils of institutions are not subject to the Local Authorities (Members’ Interests) Act 1968, and during the transition to new councils the Minister is required to consult with the council before giving any directions he or she thinks are necessary to ensure it can function effectively. The committee has also tidied up inconsistencies between the bill and Part 15A of the Education Act 1989, which sets out the governance arrangement for polytechnics.

The Government intends to support the amendments recommended by the committee. The international education components of the bill will create a more robust regulatory framework for our international education sector. This will better protect international students in New Zealand and ensure that international education continues to grow in a sustainable manner.

The committee made one minor amendment to the international education provisions in the bill. This amendment specifies that the purpose of the new code of practice for the pastoral care of international students is to ensure that international students have a positive experience in New Zealand that supports their educational achievement. The Education and Science Committee did not recommend any amendments to the bill’s quality assurance provisions.

This is a sensible bill that builds on the strong foundations of the tertiary education system, which have been developed and strengthened by this Government. It makes important, relevant changes to the governance of our universities and wānanga so that they can respond more quickly and strategically to the challenges of modern-day tertiary education. This is a good bill, and I commend it to the House.

It is my pleasure to take a call on this legislation. I would like to begin by acknowledging the large number of submitters who came and addressed the Education and Science Committee in the final months of the 50th Parliament and offered their expertise. We had an impressive array of submitters on this bill, from some of the country’s finest teachers, who came and voiced their opposition to the changes that the Minister of Education was attempting to make, although she claims that this is about giving teachers what they need and want. I would also like to acknowledge some of the country’s finest academics who came and made their views very clear on this bill and the impact it will have on our tertiary education sector in New Zealand. It would be fair to say that it is not something that is regarded as necessary, and it is not something that is wanted by the country’s leading academics. Indeed, the vice-chancellors of our universities were united in their opposition to this. Universities New Zealand, the umbrella group that covers off our universities, was opposed to this legislation. I will go through a number of the reasons why.

This bill, the Education Amendment Bill (No 2), continues a theme in education that we have seen from this Government. This is the lack of respect for the profession, whether it be at secondary level, primary level, or tertiary level. It is also about eroding the democratic principles that are currently enshrined within our education system. I will go into more detail at the Committee stage when we go through this bill clause by clause. What we see is the extension of what we saw with the charter schools legislation and the extension of limited authorities to teach. We heard school after school address our committee and tell us that they simply had no need for the changes that the Minister was bringing in under this legislation. This is simply an attempt to further devalue the work of registered, trained, and qualified teachers within our education system.

What we have also seen is the lack of democracy, whether that be around the Teachers Council or the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand, or EDUCANZ. I think the teachers who appeared before our committee thought it was more a case of “Edu-can’t”. It was going to be to the detriment of the teaching profession and to what our students and our children ultimately received at the end of it. Certainly, consistently we heard from those in the tertiary sector that the changes that Steven Joyce is proposing, tucked into a bill of Hekia Parata’s here, are a solution looking for a problem. We struggled to find why it is that the Minister wanted to make what are actually very sweeping and fundamental changes to our tertiary education system. Changing university governance is fundamental to the way a university operates, and has been so since the Middle Ages when university councils were put in place to protect academic freedom. This is a very, very evolved and very cherished principle, and we should all be concerned when it is eroded. Universities are our critic and conscience, and we should never let that place in our society be in any way weakened. We will all be the poorer when that is the case.

The only clues that we could find of what it is that the Minister thought here is that he talked somewhere about efficiency and the ability to make decisions. If we actually look at how this stacks up, New Zealand universities typically have 15 to 20 members at the moment. The proposed legislation was to take them down to between eight and 12 governing members of their institutions. If we look around the world at some institutions, I will let you be the judge as to whether they are struggling with their performance, their efficiency, and their ability to deliver. Cambridge University has a council of 24 members—an institution that most of us see as a little bit shabby and not being able to foot it. Oxford University has 25. Harvard has 32. Stanford University has 33. That well-known institution that has no ability to lend anything to innovation, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has a whopping 72 members of its governing body! There simply is no evidence that suggests that cutting the number of people on a governing body of an institution is going to lead to the outcomes that the Minister says that we need to achieve.

In fact, there is evidence to the contrary. Far be it from me to ever conflate correlation and causation, but if we do look at some of the changes that this Minister has brought in, if we look at the changes that were brought into our ITPs, to our polytech sector, by this Minister in 2010, when the governing bodies of those institutions were slashed, what have we seen within our polytechnic sector? Well, if we use as a performance measure—one that the Minister will understand and I am sure would hold dear as a good performance measure for our ITPs—the operating surplus, i.e., profitability, what we see if we measure it is that on average we actually see this in decline in our ITPs since the councils were halved. Since we instituted these more skills-based, nimble, efficient, and driven governing bodies, we have seen a decline in the very measure that I am sure this Minister would hold dear about the success or otherwise of a polytechnic in this country.

Not only do we have a reduction in the size of our university councils but we have a parallel system happening in our universities as to which the Minister is proposing with our Teachers Council, and it is what my colleague Chris Hipkins referred to as “hand-picked democracy”. Not only are we going to radically reduce the number of people governing our academic institutions; the Minister is going to appoint some of them. The Minister is going to appoint them there and the Minister has the power to remove them as well. This is one of the things that was brought up by many, many of the submitters as something that was a fundamental problem. It was a conflict between various clauses in this legislation that amounted to an absolute assault on academic freedom.

It is somewhat disingenuous for the Minister, the Hon Steven Joyce, to stand in the House and say that it is all right; academic freedom is intact—and there is nothing to see here because he is not touching section 161 of the Education Act. Yes, Minister, this is the section in the Act that guarantees academic freedom and sets out the purpose of the university. The problem that I will go into at the Committee stage is the way in which the subsequent clauses interact with section 161 of the Act, and the very assault they put on it. I have talked about the Minister appointing members. I am talking about the Minister having the power to remove, and I am talking about who members are accountable to. Is it accountability to the institution? Is it accountability to the governing body? And these are all fundamental questions that chip away at something that we should hold very dear in our country, and that is academic freedom. It is for these reasons that Labour will oppose this bill. For the Hon Steven Joyce to say that it is OK, that universities can choose who they put on, they can choose to put students and they can choose to put academics—that is not good enough. We need legislative protection of these very fundamental principles of what our universities should be about.

What we heard from vice-chancellors and the universities of New Zealand is that actually it is not enough to have one student representative on their councils. This is something that they have learned because actually many of our vice-chancellors—all of them, in fact—see having the student voice involved in an institution as a positive thing, and they actually think the institutions benefit. So we would like to see the legislative protection for that contained and enshrined in this legislation. Actually, they have found that when they have multiple student representation, they do actually get better input from the students. We also heard from the vice-chancellors, as well as academics themselves, and the collective bodies of academics about the very need to have academics involved in university councils.

Our universities are not businesses. These are colleges of colleagues. This is a place where people come together in a collegial way to advance the field of human knowledge. This is not something that the Minister can just muddle with. This is something that has evolved within our culture over centuries. It has always been about academics having a major stake in their institution. We cannot stand by and support changes that chip away at that. The critic and conscience in our society is so important. We are seeing ways in which we need to hold power to account in this country. We need the protection for individuals within our universities to be able to think, to be able to voice criticism, and to not live in fear of that. Labour opposes this legislation.

I rise to speak on the second reading of the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). First of all, let me briefly introduce my background, particularly my relationship with the education sector. As you may know, I was a university lecturer before becoming an MP 3 years ago. My wife still works at the university. My parents and parents-in-law are all in China. They are all retired teachers in China. My younger brother is a deputy principal in China and my sister-in-law is an official in charge of education in Shanghai. So my two families all relate to education. I feel passionate about education and feel very honoured and privileged to be able to chair the Education and Science Committee.

I support this bill because we believe the bill, as eloquently elaborated on by Minister Parata, will ensure that our education system is well equipped to meet the challenges of modern learning contexts. Also, it will help to achieve the goal of five out of five students achieving success in education. The National Government has always paid special attention to education simply because we understand that education is the key to success, in terms of individual success and in terms of national success. For that reason we launched the $359 million Investing in Educational Success initiative, which will create communities of schools to strengthen collaboration between principals, schools, and teachers in order to raise student achievement.

We believe we should reward and recognise expert teachers and expert principals. I understand the Opposition never liked that idea. You know the reason? Their argument is very simple: because all teachers are experts—all teachers are experts. If they are not, that is a problem of the Government. I find this argument very, very ridiculous. Why is that? We can argue that all researchers are experts and all students should be A+ students, otherwise that is a problem of teachers. This is ridiculous. The reason here is very simple. Labour, the Opposition, never rewards talented, responsible, and hard-working people. We reward these people. We recognise them. We reward them. That is why we believe that Labour, or that part of the Opposition, never, indeed, will be able to enhance the quality of teaching in New Zealand. We will support our teachers—expert teachers and expert principals. For that reason, I believe I will support this particular bill. Thank you.

It is a fascinating day at Parliament, and a particularly fascinating debate. The parallel universes continue to collide. They collide over the meaning of success, education, freedom, representation—you name it. We seem to be talking from different planets. The Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand (EDUCANZ) Bill—it is a funny name, “EDUCANZ”. It sounds like recycling or something; you get education and you shove it in a can. It is not the Teachers Council. There is nothing wrong with reviewing the Teachers Council, but really one of the things that the fifteen hundred and—was it 25 or 75, Tracey?

💬 Tracey Martin: 25.

1,525, the majority of whom—there were only 13 who supported the bill—were really concerned about it. It started with the title, because they felt that the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand (EDUCANZ) did not uphold the purpose of a professional body to represent some professionals—i.e. teachers. That was just a point for them. It was not the only reason they were opposing the bill, but it was the starting point because they were very concerned about it.

There are many issues with this bill, but I would just like to start with a quote from one of the vice-chancellors. Although it applies to the provisions around tertiary education, it really applies to the whole Government approach to education: “First, you funded us, then you supported us,” he said, “and now you are molesting us.” I thought that was a really powerful statement from a vice-chancellor of a university. First, Governments used to fund the education profession and trust it. Then the Government stopped funding it completely, but at least it supported the profession. Now these professionals are saying: “We feel we are being molested.” He is referring to the fact that the Government is confusing governance and management completely, and does not understand the value of university councils. But you could equally refer to the debacle over EDUCANZ. EDUCANZ is being set up to replace the Teachers Council without the teachers’ enthusiasm or consent.

There were a lot of issues that were raised, but let us start with the code of conduct. In many ways, this is a symbolic issue rather than a substantive one, but I think it is a telling issue. The teachers who made submissions to us were really fascinating because they had made an effort to bring in younger people and older people, experienced teachers and new teachers, passionate young idealists and people who had worked in every type of role in schools. They came together from their different school backgrounds to present very coherently, and they were very concerned about the code of ethics being changed to a code of conduct. That was one of their issues because they felt the change demeaned the profession.

That was symbolic for the teachers, because when you set up a council where they do not get to vote for who is going to be on it, they will be looking for signs of trust or low trust—and this is a sign of low trust. It says: “We don’t trust you, so we will appoint who’s going to be on your council. We don’t trust you, so we will make sure that there are provisions in the bill where you are tied to a code of conduct, because we don’t think you’ve got sufficient ethics or the capacity to manage your own ethics. It’s OK for doctors, it’s OK for others, but teachers—no, you need to be tied to a code of conduct, not a code of ethics.” It is a small point to some but it was brought up by many because they felt it was about a lack of trust. It was like the Government did not trust them.

The huge issue that was fought through and won at the Education and Science Committee was the issue of the right for there to be teachers represented on the council at all. Originally, there was a very low ceiling put on that, but we have managed to get a guarantee of five people with registered practising certificates. That was the big fight. That fight was won, and I think it is an absolute credit to the 1,525 submitters, many of whom addressed that issue as one of their primary motivations for speaking to the committee—that teachers need to be represented by teachers. So that was achieved. But, unfortunately, unlike the current Teachers Council, with its absolute stalwarts such as Claire Amos and Lynda Stuart, and people like that–people who are actually capable of leading successful, innovative, ground-breaking schools, people voted in by their own profession because they have that leadership and because they understand what educational success is all about—teachers are not necessarily going to be on EDUCANZ unless the Minister thinks it is a good idea. It is pretty odd thinking to make a professional body chosen by non-professionals—i.e. by politicians. It is going to be appointed by the Minister and then he or she will let some teachers be on it but will decide who they are. That is a low-trust model. It is a continuation of a low-trust model. Really, in the context of the educational debates that have taken place over the last 6 years, we do not need any more low-trust models. We need a bit of mutual respect and we need a professional body like a teachers council—if you must call it EDUCANZ—to be elected by the teachers for the teachers.

The Green Party opposes the bill, clearly. We do support the improvements to quality assurance and registration. If that was all the bill was about, which is what it was claimed to be about—if it had been just a tidy-up of registration issues—I think the Government would find a lot more support across the House. But it has not. In addition to those registration and quality assurance improvement issues, it has jammed in all these other things—all this molesting and cutting and faux representation and ministerial control, which is really not a credit to the Government or a credit to a modern education system.

So those are some of the issues. The upshot of this was really that the teachers do not feel like paying for it—because it has to be remembered that they pay fees. They actually pay for this body. It is not something that the Government provides for them. It is not a gift to the teaching profession. It is not something whose members the Government is going to appoint and then fund the cost of. Oh no—the teachers are being asked to pay for it themselves.

💬 Hon Hekia Parata: Oh, isn’t that terrible!

So if they have to pay for this, perhaps they should get to decide, Minister, who it is they are paying for. I know it is a radical idea, given that we have just passed a bill to limit democracy, but it is quite important that these people are able to have more choice. We just had a vote for those people and they are very disappointed in the new regime. They do not believe it is a democratic regime at all. In fact, the Teachers Council did have a representative role as well as an appointment role and now EDUCANZ will not.

So why should the teachers pay? Do not be surprised if some of them will not. Do not be surprised if some of them refuse to pay, because, in fact, they are able to.

💬 David Seymour: But don’t they also get a monopoly on being able to teach in schools—a monopoly on being able to? Isn’t that what they get?

I am afraid that the ACT Party member is ranting about monopolies and business again, but this is a debate about education. This is a debate about education, and I would like to support Dr Megan Woods on her point that it is not about a business. This is not a business model. A profession should choose who represents the profession. A profession should be able to decide—whether it is the University Council or EDUCANZ, it should all be in the hands of the profession.

The profession is upset not because it is going to have teachers. There were 1,525 submissions in which the consistent theme was that they were all concerned—and they represented far more than the people who came to the select committee. They represented schools, they represented clusters of schools. If you had been at the select committee, you would have been impressed and amazed at the number of people those teachers represented—and they are not happy. It is OK if the Government decides it wants to do this, but do not expect them to be happy, because they are not. So let us not just play around and pretend that they are because it would suit the Government’s rhetoric. They are not happy.

They are also unhappy about the issue of moderation of 10 percent of their registration. They think that is a logistical nightmare and a disaster, and I think they have got a point, because, again, it is a paper-based appraisal that could actually be very expensive. The Government may say: “Oh well, they can pay for it again whether they like it or not, whether they have power over it or not.” But they are having a system imposed on them that they do not think will work.

Interestingly, nobody really knows what the broader powers of EDUCANZ are going to be. You know, there is a lot of rhetoric in the bill. It is quite a wordy and confusing rhetoric about what its powers will be, and I think others have mentioned this. We are not quite sure why they need these powers. We are not quite sure why there is an intention to enhance the limited authority to teach, unless it is to support more chartered schools, which is always an option. It seems to be what the parliamentary under-secretary lives and breathes for, but it is not actually what the teaching profession and the people who came to select committee are going to be supportive of at all.

So there are a lot of issues with this bill that are very disappointing. It has been a major fight, and if it is supposed to be about raising the state of the teaching profession, one does not do that by taking away teachers’ sense of autonomy and professionalism. That is not actually how it works. My colleague will talk more about the university councils part of the submission, but that was a disaster for the Government. Person after person—from the highest level, from the vice-chancellor to the students, from every university that I have ever heard of in this country—came and said: “You don’t even understand what you’re doing. You don’t know the difference between governance and management. Management needs to be small and efficient. Governance needs to broad and professional-creative.”

It is like they did not even know what they were doing. It was some bizarre idea of Steven Joyce’s, and it absolutely went down like a cup of cold sick with some of the most professional people in this country who run these universities. I was very surprised to see the range of people, and they talked about a conflict of interest. They talked about the role of universities as the critic and conscience of society, and therefore we will not be supporting the second reading because this is another unfortunate mess.

Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. I stand on behalf of New Zealand First to oppose the bill. But before I address the bill itself, I want to give credit where credit is due. I want to give credit to the speech-writers and the marketing personnel inside Steven Joyce’s office, and inside Hekia Parata’s office. If people out there, the New Zealand public, go back and have a listen to Ms Parata’s speech and Mr Joyce’s speech, they could be forgiven for mistaking a fact about the 1,525 submitters, who actually represented, the Minister says, 102,837 currently registered and practising teachers. She makes small of the fact that of the 1,525 individuals who actually came to submit to us—who represented organisations and groups of teachers that, as she mentioned, travelled many distances to get there—only 13 of them supported this bill.

But the Minister shouted across, when Mr Hipkins was making his contribution, that 3 million people had given the Government a mandate. That is very dangerous in a politician, New Zealand. It is very dangerous for a politician to say: “Now I’m here I’ll do what I like for 3 years. I won’t bother listening to you, the country, I won’t bother consulting or sharing information or any of those things because now I have a mandate, and in 3 years’ time, if you’re lucky, you can get rid of me.” Well, in 3 years’ time you had better hold out, New Zealand. That is all I can say. In 3 years’ time you had better hold out.

💬 Hon Hekia Parata: Speak to the bill.

Speak to the bill? It is the bill. And I want to be clear also that Ms Parata and Mr Joyce again and again and again mentioned the phrase: “the select committee did it by majority”. I want to be clear: New Zealand First was not part of that majority—was not part of that majority. And if a member of the Opposition had not been sick on that day, or been caught somewhere else on that day, this Government would not have had a majority. So do not let it imply to you, New Zealand, or to any of the teachers out there, that this Opposition in any way supported this bill.

Once again the Government has taken some positive recommendations from the review of the New Zealand Teachers Council. It looked very sensible. They were very sensible and logical changes. I also want to apologise to you, New Zealand, and to the teachers of New Zealand, for the current Government members of the Education and Science Committee. Not a single one of them appears to have read this bill. If that was the contribution from the chair of the Education and Science Committee, then we are in for a hell of a time over the next 3 years. You did not address this bill.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order!

The chair of the Education and Science Committee in no way addressed the bill and spoke on a completely different topic around a completely different area of the education system in an attempt to pretend that he had any concept of what we are discussing here today. The same appears to go for Mr Seymour. So I apologise to you, the teachers of New Zealand, that this Government and its hangers-on do not appear to think enough of you to even read the piece of legislation it is bringing in here in the first instance.

This Government took the original review of the New Zealand Teachers Council—and the review had some sensible and logical changes in it—and once again, instead of working with the profession to try to create a better environment that would actually support and improve educational outcomes in New Zealand, it completely buried those changes. It buried any logical and reasonable review topics under these unnecessary and dictatorial measures, and it further insults and attacks what were once our most trusted professionals.

The very interesting reason that has been given for why, for example, the Minister will appoint all members to the new Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand is that there was not, apparently according to the officials, enough participation in the democracy of putting forward candidates for the council in the first instance. What is interesting about that, New Zealand, is that one should note that it was because apparently there was not enough involvement in that democracy. Having given 6 years’ worth of being bashed by this Government, why would teachers come out and feel all up and powerful about it? But because they did not participate, instead of the Government actually deciding: “Well, hang on a minute, let’s work with the sector to encourage participation in democracy, let’s work with the sector, let’s actually do some planning and some support for the sector.”—no, no, no. Instead of doing that, let us take away democracy.

All I can say is that the New Zealand public had better hope that there is not any further drop in the democratic process and the participation in New Zealand society, because, using this as a marker, perhaps this Government will decide that it will just appoint everybody in this House if the New Zealand public does not step up and start to vote in the next election.

If we just talk about the code of conduct, I want to be very clear, and it is very interesting. Teachers right now already have a code of ethics. They already have professional standards within the appraisal documents. They already have codes of conduct inside their school policies. They already have registered teacher criteria that they have to meet. So this is supposedly a knee-jerk reaction to the inquiry. And it was to the single inquiry—

💬 David Seymour: “Toooo”.

You would not know, Mr Seymour. Listen! You might learn something. The absence—

💬 Hon Hekia Parata: I doubt it.

No, you are right. You doubt it. I agree, Minister. It is highly unlikely Mr Seymour will learn anything in this House. You are quite right, Minister. It is highly unlikely he will listen to or learn anything. The absence of a code of conduct—this is the departmental comment—for the teaching profession was noted by the ministerial inquiry into the employment of a convicted sex offender in the education sector in 2012. This is the single reason why supposedly the teachers now must have—

💬 Hon Hekia Parata: No.

This is the reason the department gave. The reason the department gave to remove the code of ethics and to ignore everything else that these teachers already have to meet is this single review. Yet what is interesting is that no code of conduct can override the law of the land. Anybody who abuses a child breaks the law. A code of conduct is not necessary and not needed in order to instantly dismiss that person, instantly arrest that person, and instantly put things into process. A code of conduct will not change the situation that happened here. Nor should the schools themselves be held to account for a failing by many organisations and many Government departments that allowed that to happen. To use that as the reason for the code of conduct is merely a smokescreen for what the code of conduct is truly about.

The code of conduct is another step along the way of this Government being able to control what teachers and principals say. This is about the fact that this Government—even after 6 years of excellent speech-writers, who can spin words on a dime; wiggly words—after 6 years still has not convinced the majority of teachers that the path it wants to take around narrowing the curriculum, around pulling children into testing and the progressive achievement test tool, and so on and so forth, is good for our education system. It has not been able to convince them, so it now requires a code of conduct because the teachers are still fighting back. Even battered and bruised as they are, they are still fighting back. So this is what the code of conduct is about. The Government hides it under an emotive smokescreen that is not required anywhere else.

There are several other points in the bill that would be worth talking about, but we will address them. Let us have a talk about the LATs—just quickly, because Mr Seymour is shouting out. Let us talk about the LATs—the limited authority to teach. We are now going to have individuals who are able to apply to this body with no teaching requirements—no teaching qualifications at all—but they have a skill.

💬 Hon Hekia Parata: That’s what LATs are.

So they have a skill, and the Minister keeps shouting out, but this is the problem. The Minister either does not know or is ignorant on so many levels. At the moment the school must prove that it could not find a qualified teaching individual to take up those positions. There is more to be said about the limited authority to teach. It is a nod to the ACT Party, and it is a nod we should instantly stop.

It is a pleasure to take a brief call after that contribution by the member Tracey Martin. After her praise for the Government’s speech-writers, may I suggest that the member avail herself of such services, and she might be able to deliver a more coherent statement to this House about what that party’s views are.

I need to respond to a couple of suggestions made by some of the Opposition members: firstly, that the new Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand—the new teachers’ council of New Zealand—is somehow undemocratic because the Minister appoints five teachers as part of its nine members. Well, those members opposite might like to reflect on their own party selection for a leader, in which five members can decide who the Leader of the Opposition is, in spite of the views of thousands of other members of the party—ordinary rank and file members.

I want to respond to a couple of specific things that our excellent Minister of Education and our Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment have actually made sure are represented in this bill. Firstly, there is the disciplinary framework for teachers, which I hope the member for Te Tai Tokerau, Kelvin Davis, who I know holds the spokesmanship in this area, will touch on, if he is to make a contribution in this debate. I think there are some very positive measures there, where we see disciplinary matters being automatically reported through to a disciplinary tribunal but also a substantial increase in the fines for non-reporting of misconduct. I think New Zealanders have a right to expect that children are in a safe environment when they are in school and that there does not have to be a third party complaint—that these can actually be investigated by the council. That is a positive in my view.

Also, having had the pleasure and the honour of sitting in on the graduation ceremony of Madame Peng, the Chinese First Lady, last week at Massey University and hearing her very eloquent explanation of the importance of growing international education and having international students coming into New Zealand, I am delighted by and warmly welcome the introduction of the higher standard of pastoral care that this bill will inevitably require in those institutions that are hosting international students. They contribute such a great part not only to our economy but also to the education system in general and the experience that New Zealanders have within it. It is a pleasure to commend this bill to the House.

Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to take a call on this bill, the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). The Green Party is absolutely opposed to this flawed piece of legislation in front of this House. The Green Party stands for good educational outcomes, good representation when it comes to those councils, and good outcomes for our kids. What we want to see is students going forward with the best education system in the world, and I do not believe any Government member can say that this is going to be the outcome of this flawed, ideological bill, which simply tries to express the Minister’s ideological ideas when it comes to education and tertiary education.

This bill, which is quite large, should actually be four bills, given the scale of reform that has been crammed into it. You have got the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand reforms, the biggest attacks on the governance of tertiary institutions since the Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Act in 2009, and a raft of new provisions around international education and quality assurance. This bill is not only enormous in size; it is also enormously unpopular. We heard from Catherine Delahunty, who spoke about the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand part of the bill and said that the Education and Science Committee saw 1,037 written submissions. Of these, 1,032 were opposed. Only five—only five—actually supported the bill, and you saw exactly the same with the university council changes.

For anyone who has just tuned into the broadcast, the status quo is that our universities have a number of guaranteed seats on their university councils—the supreme governance body. They comprise around 12 to 20 members. They undertake a number of roles. There are a number of guaranteed representatives, such as one to three members of the academic staff, one to three members of the general staff, one to three students, etc. What this bill does by providing ministerial appointments is massively reduce the university council size, and that is why the Green Party is opposed to this part of the bill, which I am going to speak on.

What we see is further tangible evidence of the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment’s invasive meddling in our university sector. This is a Minister who used to talk about nanny State, but he is quite happy to take a nanny State approach to our universities, from determining who is on the council to how many people will be there and what will happen with the student levies. He is a Minister who has a got a hands-on approach, invading our independent universities. We see the removal of representation for the most significant university stakeholder. That is students. The Minister wants to see more corporate board members on our councils. I want to see students on the councils—the stakeholders, or the “customers” in the National parlance. They are the people who really count and whom the whole education system is for. The bill confuses management and governance and conflates the shrinking size of that with efficiency outcomes. What we are going to see is lessened autonomy brought about by this bill, and that is exactly what all those more than 1,000 submitters raised concerns about—protecting the institutional autonomy. This relates to our international rankings. This is one of the measures with our international university comparative rankings—the relative autonomy of the institutions. They are concerned about protection of universities as critics and the conscience of society, and the retention of staff and student voices.

The fact is that this is a bill with absolutely no solid evidence. You only have to look at page 1—literally, page 1—of the regulatory impact assessment, which talks about the significant risks with proceeding: that students and staff may feel particularly disenfranchised, and that the costs may erode the benefits. This is just on page 1 of the regulatory impact assessment. We only have to look at what happened with the institutes of technology and polytechnics sector. There you could argue that there was some poor financial management and some challenges in that sector. There was a case for action, potentially. There has been no evidence and no case brought for this bill. In fact, when you look at all the challenges facing the sector in the regulatory impact assessment—from strategic investments, the impact of massive open online courses, competition for students—I think this is exactly the type of challenge that we should have students on the councils for, to provide their voice and their say.

What this bill is simply doing is providing a ministerial overview and more invasive meddling in our university sector, just like the levy. When we look at the track record of the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment, we see in the appointments that Minister Joyce has made that only five out of 30 have been women, only one out of 30 have been Māori, none out of 30 appointments have been Pasifika, and two-thirds have been chief executive officers or company directors. What we see is more corporate takeovers of our university sector. I want to stand up for a student voice, a staff voice, and good educational outcomes.

I would like to start off by just addressing some of the comments made by one of the members across the way there, talking up the Government’s Investing in Educational Success policy—a policy that was designed to remove expert teachers and principals from their classrooms or schools for a couple of days a week so that they can go and help people in other schools, which, on the face of it, sounds OK, until you actually examine the detail of what that will mean in schools. You see, the place where learning occurs is at the interface between a teacher and the student. When you happen to take a teacher out of the classroom for a couple of days a week and when a relieving teacher comes into a classroom, we know—all of us know from our experiences in school—that, except in the case where that relieving teacher is an exceptional relieving teacher, it is just never the same and learning is not the same. I really want to put to bed now this notion that taking teachers out of the classroom for 2 days a week and bringing in a relieving teacher to relieve is actually going to raise achievement. It may help teachers in other schools who are getting the help of the expert teacher but it is never going to help the children in those classrooms who are having the relieving teacher there.

We are searching for a reason for the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). It appears that the National Government is following the mantra that if it ain’t broke, let us smash it with legislation. It is absolutely hammering something that does not need to happen.

I would really like to take up the issue that my colleague Megan Woods raised around section 161 of the Education Act guaranteeing academic freedom. That academic freedom is now in jeopardy, but it is not just that. Section 75 of the Education Act gives boards of trustees the complete discretion to run the school as they see fit. Section 76 gives principals the complete discretion to manage a school as they see fit. But a part of this bill is about imposing audits of appraisals on schools. So 10 percent of any practising certificates that are going to be renewed in a given year are going to be audited.

The schools’ appraisals systems are going to be audited. Let us do the maths. There are about 45,000 teachers throughout New Zealand, and every 3 years those teachers have to have their practising certificates renewed. That means that in any given year there are going to be 15,000 teachers needing to have their practising certificates renewed. Ten percent of that means that there are going to be 1,500 appraisals audited. I ask the question: who is going to do this work? Is it going to be the Education Review Office? I do not know. If it is the Education Review Office, will it have the time? Will it have the resources to enable it to conduct these audits? If not, who is it going to be? Are these people going to be respected and knowledgable educators who can go in to schools to check out the efficacy or otherwise of any appraisal system?

The bill talks about consistent standards in this appraisal system. If we have somebody go into a school in Invercargill and somebody go into a school in Kaitāia, how do we get the consistent standard, and how do they moderate? The bill says “consistent standard, by auditing and moderating the appraisals …”. Everybody in education who is worth their salt knows that “moderation” is a pretty fraught word. We can have moderation of a writing sample—a child can do a writing sample in a classroom and two teachers in classrooms adjoining each other can actually moderate that, and because of the difficulties of moderating, they can come up with different grades for that piece of writing. So how can we ensure the consistency and the moderation of an appraisal auditing system throughout the country? It also takes away the principal’s right to run the school as he or she may see fit, under section 75 of the Education Act.

We have heard that there were hundreds—I heard over here, thousands—of submitters, and of those submitters I am told that only 13 actually supported this bill in full. If we cannot get the education system and teachers across the board to support this, basically, we are going to resort to Draconian measures to enforce it, and that is not good for trust either.

I do want to raise something that has been puzzling me in terms of clause 353, around registration. It says: “The Education Council must register an applicant under section 352 if satisfied that the applicant—(a) is of good character;”. I have got no arguments with that; that is fine. It says: “(b) is fit to be a teacher;”—that is fine. It says: “(c) is satisfactorily trained to teach;”—yeah, that is cool. It says: “(d) meets the criteria for teacher registration …”—yeah, nothing wrong with that. And it says: “(e) either—(i) has not been convicted of a specified offence listed in Schedule 21;”—which I have here and I will read it out soon—“or (ii) has (in accordance with the provisions of any other relevant enactment) been granted an exemption by the chief executive in respect of every conviction for a specified offence listed in Schedule 21.” And you think “Hmm, that sounds, um, reasonable. People may err and they may get a conviction, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re unfit to teach.”—until we look at schedule 21 and the specified offences.

The first specified offence is “sexual violation”. So, if I go back and read this—I had to read it a couple of times—it says that the chief executive may actually grant an exemption, or the potential is there for the chief executive to grant an exemption, for somebody who has committed sexual violation. The second specified offence is “attempted sexual violation and assault with intent to commit sexual violation”. So that is someone who has tried and failed to rape somebody. The third one is “sexual conduct”—look, the list goes on and there is nothing here in these specified offences that I could see that would make sense for a chief executive to even try to consider granting an exemption for, and I think that that particular part of the bill is absolute nonsense.

I am concerned about the possibility of teachers being gagged. We know that this Government does not like criticism of any form. We have heard other members speak about the potential gagging of teachers. This is what will happen if a teacher dares to raise their head above the parapet and criticise education policies, such as the Investing in Educational Success policy. Chances are that they could see themselves up in front of the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand (EDUCANZ) if they are not careful and if they push the boundaries too much. So we are concerned that teachers are going to be prevented from making public comments on Government policy and criticising education policy. I think it is essential that teachers be able to have their say around educational matters, because there is nothing wrong with seeking alternative or contrary views. It just makes the educational argument stronger.

There is another part of this bill that concerns me and that is around the powers of the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand, and we will go into this in greater depth during the Committee stage. It is around the council being able to charge for any goods or services it provides in accordance with its functions. I am really concerned that—[Interruption] Yes, in terms of user-pays, as Megan Woods says, but in terms of the function of auditing the appraisals, is this a service that schools do not want but are going to actually have to pay for as a part of this bill? The Labour Party opposes this bill in its entirety.

I rise to take a very short call on the second reading of the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). I just want to start off by saying that all parents want to see their children succeed, and particularly in my community, the Korean community, education is a major thing. Often I think I was bit of a failure in my mother’s eyes because I did not complete my PhD. Education is a big thing in the Asian communities, so I am very pleased to see that provisions in this bill actually strengthen pastoral care for international students. Our international education sector is worth $2.6 billion and we are hoping to increase that.

There are also provisions in the bill to strengthen the ability of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority to contribute to the higher-quality tertiary education sector, which I am very pleased about. It means that the authority is able to do its job and better prevent dishonest education providers from trying to rip off the Government as well as students. Often it is actually the foreign students who get ripped off as well, because they do not understand the system in New Zealand. They are often sent over here by parents who do not really know the system, and we should do everything we can to protect these students who come here. Our reputation is paramount in making sure that our education sector is actually growing. I commend this bill to the House.

I call Marama Fox—5 minutes.

I am grateful for the indulgence of the House as I get up at this late stage. I read an interesting comment once that said that the colour of truth is grey. In my brief experience of parliamentary debate, I am acutely aware that for some bills we will be challenged by the linear thinking required by the vote—either a vote of support or a vote of opposition, and nothing in between. The Māori Party is far more accommodating of difference than such an approach allows. We see positives and we see negatives, and we are always aware of the potential for change.

In this bill, therefore, we voted in support at the first reading on 21 July this year. In taking that vote we were supportive of the recognition in the bill that wānanga need councils that reflect their unique status as institutions characterised by āhuatanga and tikanga Māori. The other issue that shaped our vote was the impact that the party had enjoyed in relation to Māori representation. Prior to the intervention of former Ministers Sharples and Turia, the legislation stated that councils “could” consider the issue of Māori representation. Following their intervention, the specific wording in the bill was changed from “could” to “must”.

In light of these moves we supported the bill’s referral to the Education and Science Committee, confident that the public consultation process would enable us to be informed by the views of students, tutors, administrators, governors, and, of course, whānau, hapū, and iwi, as well as representatives from the teaching profession. As is now well known, 937 submissions were received, with the majority of them not supporting the proposed changes to the bill. Although we do not resile from our support for increased Māori representation to reflect that at least one member of the wānanga or university council is to be a Māori representative as a result of the select committee feedback—

I am sorry to interrupt the member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.