Education Legislation Bill

I move, That the Education Legislation Bill be now read a third time. This Government has great ambitions for the children of New Zealand. We have focused on continuously improving the education system: all the levers that contribute to supporting principals and teachers; boards made up of parents; and providing the best education possible for our young people. We want to make sure that they leave our education system connected, confident, lifelong learners who are able to both foot it here at home and to participate internationally, if they so choose. So it is important that legislation supports that ambition of ours. This bill in its third reading today is an example of how we are giving structure and force to that ambition. I would like to thank the individuals and organisations who took the time to make a submission on the bill, the Education and Science Committee for its attentive consideration, and the officials who worked on this bill.

There are a number of elements that are described in this bill and reflect the policy intent we have as a Government, which can be succinctly described as parents having choice; schools, early learning providers, and tertiary institutions having flexibility, such that the provision they offer suits the personalised and diverse needs of our young people; and that those young people are getting real results in real time. You can see that set of policy imperatives in the provisions within this bill.

For example, we are providing for principals to be in charge of more than one school at one time. We are not requiring that that occurs; we are simply providing an option. There are circumstances around the country where that option is necessary. Those circumstances are primarily rural and amongst smaller schools. Of the 2,500 schools we have across the country, about 40 percent have rolls of 100 to 150 or fewer. That means providing leadership—exemplary leadership—of teaching and of schools for our young people in every one of them. There have been times when that option has not been readily available, or it has not been as successful as we might have wished because the particular principal available may not have been, if you like, fit for purpose for that particular community. The provision in this bill is very much about how, where these circumstances arise, there will be an option at law for boards that agree to do so to appoint a principal to more than one school—and, clearly, where the principal herself or himself wishes to do that. Again, I want to reiterate, this bill it is not requiring that this occur, but that there be an option.

Another area that reflects this Government’s investment into quality of leadership in teaching is in our provision for a new trainee teacher category. It is providing for a mix of both academic training—which we have through our initial teacher education—and, where there is a period of employment for a trainee who has not yet finished their qualification, we want to make it lawful for them to be able to practice in a school. A really good example of that is the Teach First NZ programme that we are funding, where people with great qualifications who think they might like to be teachers—and we think that it would be great if they were—have the opportunity to blend both academic training and practical experience teaching in schools. We want to make that possible and this law does that. We have seen great success out of that practice; Tāmaki College, for instance, springs to mind.

Another example of the flexibility imperative that I mentioned earlier is that this bill provides for more flexible hours around schools. It is not about schools to be offering fewer hours of teaching, but it is saying that the two 2-hour blocks that schools are required to offer—which, by the way, does not mean it has to be a minimum, either—can be offered at different times to the conventional model of 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. With 21st century living all of us, as parents, and some of us as grandparents, have found greater diversity and flexibility in the way we learn, the way we work, and so forth. We want to make sure that our education legislation underpins flexibility of choice—where in a community, the board, having consulted with its parent community and anyone else affected, could look to change times. That may become more desirable as more and more of our schools and early childhood centres form the fabulous communities of learning and work together to make sure that that whole pathway is organised as efficiently and as effectively as the families in those communities would like. So we are providing for that.

Another example of flexibility of choice for parents and of opportunities for providers is that this bill provides for home-based early childhood education providers to also offer out-of-school care opportunities for young people. That means that parents with differently aged children—as all parents are who have more than two or three children who are not born at the same time—are able to find a carer who can provide for kids who are at an age before going to school, as well as for those kids who are already at school. Again, we are just providing for that. We have also anticipated that online learning—online access—is going to be a growing part of the reality of young people’s educational experience, and in this bill we are providing for the National Student Number to be used as one credible access online, rather than require multiple entries by the same person. We know that, in practice, this will be welcomed by students.

The other thing we are providing for in this bill is for tertiary education institutions to apply to become sponsors of partnership schools—kura hourua—and, in addition, there are provisions for their investment in related entities. We are very keen to see that we get the greatest utility out of all of the educational providers and institutions that we have available to us. What this does—again, it does not require tertiary education institutions to do either of these activities, but where that choice is made by them, then this law will support that to be the case.

There are also some administrative matters that we want to clean up, if you like, or make more administratively effective, and this bill provides for that. In particular, there is an outdated provision that we are improving that requires the Ministry of Education to make provision for financial reporting and support for schools. We are clarifying how that should actually occur by providing for it in this bill. Here it is, here: we want to make sure that “operational specifications relating to the provision of payroll services to school boards” that are unnecessary are removed; and, in addition, that the State Services Commissioner “can approve generic or specific terms and conditions of employment that are additional to, but not [contrary to], those that have been agreed to in a collective agreement” but that, out of time, may be necessary.

Finally, there are a multiplicity of provisions in other Acts. Not all things that relate to education are in the Education Act, and this bill updates outdated aspects of those statutes while ensuring the original intents of the Acts are honoured appropriately.

Those are the main provisions that are set out in this bill. I think that, having run through what the specific provisions are, all members of the House can see how they support our policy intent of providing choice to parents. Parents have the greatest interest in their children, as do grandparents in their grandchildren, and we want to ensure that the choices available for them are supported at law. Equally, we want to make sure that educational providers have as much flexibility to design services that meet the different and personal needs of those young people who are in their care as is possible. Finally, of course, the whole purpose of this updated legislation is to make sure that our young people are getting the best opportunities available to them, whether in their earliest learning years, whether at primary school, whether through the use of out-of-school care, or whether at secondary schools and going on into tertiary options. I think this bill admirably sets it all out, and I now commend the bill to the House.

Thank you for this call on the Education Legislation Bill. We had so many teachers, professionals, parents, and a variety of organisations come to present to us at the Education and Science Committee, and I would like to thank them all for their submissions. The education legislation in Aotearoa should be simplified, modernised, and made less prescriptive. However, the bill that we are debating in the House today does not deliver on any of those things. This is a bill that the Labour Party does not support.

This legislation will allow a principal to run multiple schools—a “super-principal”, if you like. However, what is the role of a principal right now? They are the supervisor. They are the mentor for all their teaching staff and support staff. They are the curriculum leader, they provide overall leadership for the school, and they set the tone and the culture of the school. A principal does more than a full-time job looking after just one school.

This legislation will allow a principal to look after and manage more than just one school. However, what would we expect from a good principal when they are actually, for instance, the manager of up to four schools, and how would the relationship work between the principal and, say, the boards of trustees? Who would be the employer? Would it be one school board, would it be two, would it be three, or, for instance, if it is four, would it be all four school boards? These are questions that we asked at the select committee, and these are questions that were posed by submitters at the select committee.

We also asked the officials for their opinion on this, and it was not actually clear how the issues would be handled. Say, for instance, the working relationship with a “super-principal” was to break down—who would make the call to disestablish the role of that “super-principal”? Would it be one or would be all four school boards? Who would be the mediator overall, making sure that such a relationship would actually work moving forward? None of these things was answered to our satisfaction at the select committee.

I move now to the provisions about school opening hours. We in the Labour Party were open to discussing school opening hours, but we need to look practically at the implications of allowing schools to open at different times. Say, for instance, two working parents have three kids: one at preschool, one at primary school, and one at high school. What if all of these three schools were to change their opening hours by half an hour in the morning? What if the preschool opens half an hour earlier, the primary school opens half an hour later, and the high school changes its school time as well so that they are not well aligned? How would that affect the parents, especially if they are both working? It will have an impact on their jobs unless both parents work for themselves and are able to actually have control over their working hours. It would affect a lot of our parents.

When we posed this question to the officials at select committee, the answer that we were given was: “Oh, the communities at the local level will come up with the answer.” But what if the primary schools, the intermediate schools, and the high schools do not actually get together and make sure that their hours align? It will, as I say, affect working parents especially.

This legislation will also allow, as we heard from the honourable Minister, for a new category of teaching positions: a trainee teacher. The Hon Hekia Parata spoke about Teach First NZ, which allows for teachers to teach at high school, but this legislation allows for trainee teachers at all levels. Most of the submitters, when they came to the Education and Science Committee, did not agree with this particular proposal. Most of them were teachers, some were parents, and they said things like that they want their teachers to be qualified and registered. As a parent, I have got to agree. When I actually send my kids to school, my preference is for the teachers of my kids to be registered and fully qualified teachers.

I would like to acknowledge my colleague Chris Hipkins at this time, because it was he who actually went begging for our committee to be allowed a period of time for the public to make submissions on this new part of the bill to allow trainee teachers. Allowing trainee teachers to teach all of our students is a proposal that so many of us do not agree with. We would prefer, as I said earlier on, that our teachers are registered and 100 percent qualified. We think that one of the reasons why this proposal is being proposed at this time is, you know, the other legislation that is coming through that would allow bulk funding—global funding. This would actually then ensure that if teachers moved on, allowing trainee teachers would be a way for schools to, probably, manage the funds that they have. As we know, there is not that much funding going to education right now. The compulsory sector has a freeze in its operational funds.

I move now to the partnership school model. Allowing our tertiary institutions to sponsor partnership schools or charter schools is, in our opinion, an admission by the Government that the partnership school model has failed. When partnership schools and charter schools were introduced in this House, we were told that one of the things it would do is attract funding from private folks—capital funding would come in to help establish these partnership schools. When we do a fact check on this, we know that almost all of the charter schools that we have right now—almost all of them—do not have any funding from outside coming in. Most of them are 100 percent covered by public funding.

What we also know when we look at the Partnership Schools Authorisation Board is that it has expressed its disappointment at the calibre of applications it has had coming through to establish partnership schools. We think that allowing polytechnics to fund partnership schools is indeed an admission by this Government that the partnership school model has failed. We know that one of the schools—at Whangaruru—has failed; indeed, it has now closed. Millions of dollars have gone into that school, and we know that we may not even get any of that money coming back to us as taxpayers. Labour strongly opposes this bill. Thank you very much.

I rise to say a few words this afternoon in the third reading of the Education Legislation Bill. Perhaps, if you would not mind, I can just start with an acknowledgment of the Minister Hekia Parata, who spoke to launch this discussion this afternoon, in light of her announcement yesterday. I think she will go down as one of the greatest Ministers of Education that we have had, and what is clear—and you saw it again this afternoon—is the absolute focus that she has on our children—

💬 Scott Simpson: Passion.

—and their achievement and attainment through the education system. As Scott Simpson in front of me has said, it is a passion that you can see. It is a passion she has lived by and it is a passion that she has driven through the education sector. She has got a lot to be proud of. When this Government took over, Māori education achievement in National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 was at 44 percent. It is now well over 70 percent, and the national level is 83 percent. These are real results, and as a parent of three kids in the education system, I am delighted with the leadership that she has provided. And was it not great to see the near unanimity of acknowledgment of her contribution yesterday? It was not exclusive, of course. There were a couple of unions that did not have the grace to acknowledge her contribution, but, in my view, that actually talks more to their lack of reputation than it does to the Minister.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: To the bill.

This is a particularly strong piece of legislation, which we on this side of the House are very, very happy to support.

One of the interesting, I guess, components of the difference in philosophies that we have seen throughout the debate—we have heard it already this afternoon; we have heard it every single time this House has reflected on this piece of legislation—is this view from the Opposition that what we have embedded in this legislation is compulsion. It is not compulsion; it is choice. It is enabling communities of schools—in this case, boards of trustees—to have more flexibility in the way they manage their affairs. But that talks more to the political philosophy that underpins the other side, because those members see every example of innovation and reform through the lens of compulsion—through the lens of directing from the centre to the rest of the country how people live their lives and what they need to do; everything needs to be prescribed and every single variable noted, and it has to be driven from the centre—whereas this party’s philosophy is that you create a framework that enables choice, and that choice is delivered by boards of trustees and parents around the country for the benefit of their kids. It works, and we have got a clear record of it working over the last 8 years.

In particular, when we reflect on the very considered comments from Jenny Salesa, she talked and gave voice to those members’ concerns about the changes that are in this bill. Again, you see those differences coming into stark focus. When we talk about school opening hours creating opportunity, their view is that somehow that could result in communities not being aligned, and so therefore it is a problem, whereas we say that this is a choice that a community can sit and reflect on, and if it works for them—if it works for the parents; if it works for the schools and their children—then they should be enabled to consider it.

That, I think, points to the difference in philosophies that underpins our two sides, including the example of having principals lead more than one school. Yet again we have heard today this particular scenario around who exactly is going to the employer of the principal if he or she is across one or two schools.

There is a complete lack of imagination on the other side. Somehow, two boards of trustees cannot get together and cannot identify which of those two boards of trustees would be the best group to oversee the contract of the lead principal across the two schools—that cannot be imagined. Those members cannot imagine that you could develop a contract that could deal with the permutations around performance and what would happen if they needed to step away from that position. It happens in the real world every day, but that side cannot imagine that boards of trustees have the wit and the intelligence and the common sense to pull it together. Well, as I have said before, this party understands that you can back parents—that they have got the collective capabilities sitting on boards of trustees to imagine that and deliver it and get an outcome that is better for our kids.

That is why this party is so supportive of this legislation. It talks to the stark difference in philosophies around the future of education, and this side knows how to deliver it in partnership with parents. Thank you.

Kia ora anō e Te Māngai o Te Whare. I was looking forward to speaking on the Education Legislation Bill. In particular, I want to start off with charter schools. I want to start there because charter schools have been an absolute failure for the education system in New Zealand, and I will point out to you exactly why.

Charter schools are based on a philosophy around the privatisation and commercialisation of our education system. It has no place in New Zealand, I believe. Here are some statistics: in 2014 it cost $7.345 million to educate—for 1 year—619 students. If we were to use that kind of funding for every State school in New Zealand, we would expect a lot more achievement than what the charter schools were achieving in 2014.

That model, which I am really worried about—I will go back to my favourite quote from the submissions to express my point around why I believe it is taking incremental steps towards privatisation, or allowing for the privatisation of our education system. The New Zealand Principals’ Federation said: “On the surface, they might be described as a collection of ill-conceived baseless changes which lack any intelligent rationale. They might otherwise be described as changes without openly expressed rationale yet intended to enable further expansion of certain policies and direction.” I absolutely agree with that, and I will make this point: not only have they been a failure—this bill allows charter schools to be operated by tertiary institutes. That is not core business for those tertiary organisations. Why would you allow a tertiary organisation to run a primary school or a secondary school as a charter school?

Another point I want to make is that charter schools are allowed to make a profit—make a profit, even though they are trusts—and we were told that they were going to be in partnership with organisations. Well, the organisations did not actually step up—not the organisations that were originally talked about when charter schools first came into law. But who has put up their hands? It is trusts, and others. But they are still able to operate on a surplus and use those funds the way that they want to.

We think that is unfair. It is unfair to all of the schools in my electorate—in every electorate—whose funding in this year’s Budget is, effectively, being reduced. I go back to my other point: if they were funded at the same level that charter schools are funded at, we would have a whole lot of very happy schools out there, but they are not. So that tells me there is a huge inequity in the way education is funded in New Zealand.

I want to talk about principals running multiple schools. Principals are the professional leaders of their schools, for their staff and for their school community. They are often the leaders within their communities as well. If they have the burden of having to run multiple schools, I wonder how they can effectively be not only the professional leaders of their schools but also have the valued relationships that every principal should have in their community.

For example, it is a requirement that they have a relationship with their Māori community—with iwi. If they are running three or four schools and they have got a number of iwi that they need to be consulting with, then I would say that that relationship is going to be watered down. In fact, I would go so far as to say that that relationship is going to end up—that the principal, in their management of those schools, will end up making generic decisions across all of the schools that they manage. That is not necessarily a good thing. It might be good for one or two schools, but you can almost guarantee that it will not be good for all of the schools. So I have got concerns about that.

I have got concerns about how parents have to manage looking after their children if they have children who are going to different schools—primary, intermediate, and secondary. That has been pointed out, and this House has still not had, I believe, an adequate answer on how that will be managed. I have heard, and I will acknowledge, the statements that members opposite have made that it is dependent upon consultation. Can I tell the House that consultation with members of my constituency is very difficult, and if you are having to run three schools and consult effectively with people enrolled on the Te Tai Hauāuru electorate, then I would say to you that the consultation by that one principal will have to involve a whole lot of doorknocking. We know from experience that the consultation that is run in schools and in other organisations is not always effective in reaching key stakeholders in those schools. I believe that because of that, decisions will be made by those who are engaged and not by those who are not engaged, and I have a concern about that.

The new teacher position, the trainee teachers—and I support the statements that my colleague Jenny Salesa has made about parents having options. We heard in the speeches from members opposite that it is all about parents having options. Well, really? Do you think parents will truly choose a trainee teacher over a registered, qualified teacher? I think that when trainee teachers are sent into schools, they ought to be closely monitored, as they are now. That is an acceptable programme of training within schools, and I acknowledge that. But self-charge with no overview and, perhaps, with a principal who has multiple schools that they are looking after—I am not sure about that. Actually, I am sure about that—it will not work.

Can I finish on the part of this bill—it is made up of a number of other parts that have been amended, and I want in particular to speak to the Ngārimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarships fund. That is a part of the bill that I do support. Unfortunately, because of all the other things that I do not agree with, we will not be voting for this bill, but I did want to acknowledge the Minister for the work on this particular part of the legislation, and to acknowledge the whānau of Te Moananui-a-Kiwa Ngārimu and the legacy that he and the 28th Māori Battalion have had in the education of young people in New Zealand by providing scholarships so that they can get a very good education. Nō reira e mihi ana a’au ki tōna whānau, tēnā tātou. [Therefore I pay a tribute to his family. Acknowledgments to us collectively.]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to take a brief call in support of the third reading of the Education Legislation Bill. I would like to just take a moment to acknowledge the Hon Hekia Parata, the Minister of Education, who announced her decision not to stand for re-election to this House next year. I have mentioned many times in this House that I have seen her passion for her portfolio and her passion for children. Raising the education outcomes for children was her motivation for her portfolio, and I would like to thank her for the work that she has done in her term as Minister. I think we have all seen the great advocate that she has been for education in this Parliament, and she will be missed by all of us—at least, from this side of the House—when she leaves.

On to the bill: this is an omnibus bill that amends several Acts to improve administrative and governance arrangements for educational entities and funding organisations across the education sector. This bill supports our vision of an education system that reflects modern New Zealand’s schooling needs and focuses on achievement for all students around the country. In the Education and Science Committee we had a number of discussions—quite robust, sometimes—on this bill, and I thank the committee secretariat for the sterling work that it always provides. I also thank the members, my colleagues who actually sit on the select committee. Often, when we do differ in our opinions, I think we have mutual respect for each other’s opinions, and we have worked very constructively on this bill.

The bill will now allow for boards of trustees to appoint students to trainee teacher positions, helping schools to employ people working towards their teaching qualifications with real field experience and hands-on work in the classroom, enhancing their own learning and training while supporting the needs of the school community. The bill also will allow boards to have more flexibility in meeting the needs of their school-zone community by streamlining the process that would be needed to vary a school’s opening hours if the variation is for operational reasons and on an occasional or short-term basis. Some schools, for example, have a high proportion of their pool of families working in one industry or have seasonal community needs, and varying hours would make it more effective for those communities to get their children to school and to be able to spend more time together as a family. It is something that I personally champion, and I think it is a good move for some schools to do.

Practical policies to support learning are needed, and this bill will support students around our nation getting the tools they require through better management of their learning environment and providing new options for the school community. Arcane, outdated rules and regulations have been holding many New Zealand students back and have impacted the ability of some schools to do their best at raising student achievement. Removing unnecessary legislation and administration and promoting innovative 21st century education are what we need to do for our schooling community. I would like to end by saying that I commend the honourable Minister for the work that she has done, and I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Kia ora anō e Te Whare Pāremata. I would also like to acknowledge the Minister of Education. I agree that she has been a passionate Minister. I think we have disagreed on virtually everything, but I am not disputing her passion, and I think that passion is really important in education. There is nothing worse than people who are not interested and do not care, but also sometimes passion can do a lot of damage as well. So I think she and I would both agree that we both care but we may not agree.

With regard to this bill, I just listened very carefully to the Minister’s third reading speech and I tried to understand it. It is curious, some of the language, such as that this bill is driven by “parents having choice”, which can be translated as meaning “people who already have choice will get more choices’; that there will be “flexibility”—see “people with choices having more choices”—and “personalised and diverse needs of our young people … in real time … fit for purpose”. I absolutely do not think that has any meaning whatsoever. I do not think that is what the bill is about, and I do not see the point of talking like that to the country, because people want the Minister and MPs to talk like human beings. So “real purpose”, “fit for time”, “personalised”—what? “Whole-of-pathway organised efficiency and effectiveness”?

I mean, sorry, but I think the public deserves some coherence around the education system, and this is not it. Perhaps she had to make the stuff up because this bill is actually a bit of a messy omnibus, which the Education and Science Committee—and I do respect the members on the select committee—had a big fight about, and I think Tracey Martin outlined that very clearly.

A couple of things that we disagreed on: one, there was no reason for some of these things. Officials could not answer questions about why some of these things were happening—where the demand was—because a lot of the stuff was just something the Government made up for other reasons. And then there was the embarrassing debacle over the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) around Teach First NZ, where the Opposition had to fight tooth and nail to make sure that affected parties like the Post Primary Teachers Association, which is heavily involved—not opposing Teach First, but heavily involved—actually got heard, rather than having this big SOP suddenly dumped on the select committee, with the Government pretending that it was nothing to do with the teachers’ organisations, which actually have to manage the relationships through Teach First.

So I do not think this is the crowning glory of the Minister’s career, or anyone’s career. It is a weird bill. It is probably not as bad as the next one in education is going to be, to be honest, but, apparently, it is a “whole-of-pathway organised efficiently and effectively”. I do not know who for. However, maybe all will be revealed.

I think it is really important to talk about the word “choices”—such a misused word by the Government. It is its main platform. It is like a “Hands off.”, “Trust the community.”, “Everything’s fine.”, “We’re on a level playing field.”, “All people have choices.” blah-blah-blah. But if you think about, for example, the flexible school hours—I have never forgotten meeting a parent who said that she had huge stress being a good parent to her children in school because she was working three jobs, and so was her husband. This was in Porirua. They loved that their kids were getting a good education and they had an excellent school, but they needed their school to be very predictable because they were already juggling these three jobs each and the constant interchange between them to actually even see each other and do the handover.

So mucking around with the structures of the lives of people who do not have the same choices as other people—it is absolutely fine if you are a couple of professionals working from home. I know people who are doing this. You are running a small business from home and managing your lives, and you can shoot down to the school at 2 o’clock or 3 o’clock. But it is absolutely not fine, when you are on a fine balance, to risk that being put out of balance. That is what people are concerned about, because those people are already struggling.

I do not want to make laws for people who already have multiple choices and privileges. I want to make laws for people who are vulnerable to the variabilities of the world and who need more support and need things to be predictable.

Also, the Government could not come up with a good reason—because, actually, lots of schools already have flexible opening hours. I do not know what the problem is. Schools where it has been proven—because actually I would have liked an education bill to be about learning, but none of them seem to be about learning. They are always about some kind of governance or ideological privatisation agenda. Actually, in some schools the older kids—because we know that older teenagers seem to like to sleep in and stay up late, the schools already have adjusted their school hours. That flexibility already exists. So, you know, do not come and tell us that we need this rubbish. It is not true. And no one could come up with a good reason for it.

The Teach First stuff—well, I always feel really sorry for qualified people who have come out of 3 years of serious training and then have a debt, and then someone comes along and does not have to do that. It does undervalue the importance of what people go through in terms of the serious learning about what education means. I guess that is what I mean by this bill—which is all about governance. It is about flexible hours, and having a principal at several schools—again, something dreamt up by somebody who sees it as an efficient pathway to organised effectiveness, or whatever. It does not seem to be connected with education.

Actually, we are here, on the Education and Science Committee and in this House, to talk about learning and what is best for kids, but they are not getting a look-in while we are so busy being flexible and full of choice and opportunity. Opportunity in education is nothing to do with the hours of the school or multiple-school principals. It is to do with relationships and the commitment to allowing the New Zealand Curriculum—which is owned to be an excellent curriculum—to be developed and communicated. It is the content that matters and it is the teachers’ understanding of what learning is that matters. It is not all this stuff. I am really disappointed that I cannot think of hardly any bill, except for the ghastly national standards debacle, that has had anything to do with the content of education in my entire 7½ years on the select committee, and this bill is another deep disappointment to my passionate soul. So I am sorry that we are going to vote against it, but we are.

I also want to talk about another rather unfortunate idea in the bill, which is that tertiary institutions should run charter schools. Again, opportunity is not about imagining that universities are the best capable of teaching in primary schools. So, like the Teach First thing, where the Government would not rule out primary, these charter schools could be primary charter schools run by the universities. Actually, that shows that the experiment is not working, because it is trying to inveigle the universities—and we did not really get a lot of enthusiasm from most of the universities about this—to come and put forward proposals that at least sound educationally credible, because some of the charter school applications have been a disaster, and one of the existing schools has fallen apart. Watch this space. But, actually, I think it is really important that a law about this acknowledges the importance of the difference between tertiary education and what happens at other levels.

I am sorry, but we in the Greens just do not have confidence that the universities—apart from the fact that we do not believe in having charter schools. It is a rather internationally failed and controversial model that is yet to show benefit to this country, let alone to the children—especially the children of Whangaruru. Who cares what happened to them? Where are they? Guess what! I asked, and it turns out many of them are back in the State system, which was so dreadful.

Actually, I am a critic of things that happen in the State system, but I do not think that charter schools run by universities is the answer. I think we should be strongly critical and strongly innovative, but guess what! The review of the innovation qualities of charter schools said that the only innovation of the first nine was in governance structures. That is the only innovation that it could find. Marching is not innovation. That is just prep for the army, because you are too scared to look these kids in the eye and say that they have got potential to be all kinds of things, not just the cannon fodder of this country’s nationhood.

So I am actually challenging what this Government is doing, particularly for the tertiary institutions. I just do not have faith. Honestly, I have heard submissions from some of the academic and convoluted people from the tertiary institutions when we talked about that in various bills, and I would not put a 5-year-old in a classroom with these people because they do not know how 5-year-olds learn. They know how to give lectures. That is not education for younger people. It is not even education for anybody, actually. Most lecturers are pretty disappointing. There are a few people—brilliant people—who can lecture, but there ain’t many out there. You know, we have all experienced that at university. You never forget the ones who can actually communicate memorably, but should they run a school? I do not think so. I do not think that is what professors and universities are best suited to doing. So we are really opposed to that.

We are really opposed to this bill. There are a couple of good things. We support the Ngārimu scholarships and the redefinition of “Pacific person”, because I think it is important to modernise. The rest of it—you know, it really is not where we are at. Thank you.

Kia ora, Mr Deputy Speaker. Just to pick up on the last part of Catherine Delahunty’s contribution, in fairness to the universities, not a single university came and submitted and said it wanted to open a charter school—not a single one. The only organisation that came to submit and say it would like to open a charter school was the Manukau Institute of Technology and Mr Stuart Middleton. So universities never asked this Government to open up the opportunity for them to open charter schools. I can only assume that the only organisation that did was the Manukau Institute of Technology and Stuart Middleton, and it is of interest how much influence he appears to have had—that we have it inside this legislation when nobody else wants to do it. That would be the first thing.

Can I pick up on the next thing: a couple of statements made by the Minister of Education. Just to be clear, New Zealand First will be opposing the bill. Just to be clear, let us just get that out there. I know it is “Shock, horror!” to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I thought I had better put it on the record, just in case there was any, any misunderstanding about where New Zealand First is going here. The Minister mentioned in her contribution that about 40 percent of the schools here in New Zealand have fewer than 100 to 150 students. She is right about that. For those very small schools that have 50 to 100 students, they have what are called teaching principals, and the schools between 50 to 100 are called U1 to U3 schools. This Government has recognised that it has actually had a great deal of difficulty finding principals to take on those positions in those schools, to the point where, previously, this Government has offered an extra $50,000 a year on top of the standard salary of a U1 to U3 principal to encourage principals to go out into U1 to U3 schools.

Those U1 to U3 schools—our most rural of schools—hold some of the most challenging of our behaviours because they are so isolated. What happens when you are a teaching principal in those schools is that you do not have the access to the resources inside the urban centres. But instead of actually coming up with a rural solution, as New Zealand First has inside its manifesto, where we would establish an early intervention staffing component for a full-time teaching equivalent for every year 1 to year 3 school so that we can support the students and the principals, who are the learning professional leaders of those schools, this Government has decided to take principals out of those schools—out of those schools.

I do not blame the Government members on the Education and Science Committee. The reality is, they are so ignorant about how education actually works that the bovine scatology that Minister Parata can feed them with is accepted by them and just swallowed, and then they stand in this House and try to justify what they do not understand. They accept this from a Minister. So this is the reality of what is happening regarding this piece of legislation, enabling a principal to manage more than one school. This is because the members of the Government believe that the principal is merely a CEO. They do not understand what a leading learning professional inside a school does.

I would have thought that Minister Bridges, having sat on the Education and Science Committee for a short period of time in the last parliamentary term and listened to some of the evidence that was provided, would stand up for the fact that principals are vitally important inside and on the ground in their schools. But, no, no, because there is this misunderstanding by the members on the Government benches that this is a CEO position, they are more than happy to go ahead with it. So, instead of supporting some of the most vulnerable, some of our most isolated, and some of our most rural with more resourcing, they are going to take away the learning leader of the school. That is the first reason why New Zealand First will oppose this bill.

The other thing that is very interesting—let us get to Teach First NZ. What it is now called is employment-based trainee teacher salaries. This is, quite clearly—and it has already been a pilot. The fact is that these are graduates. They have done a 3-year degree—it could be in whatever—they have done an 8-week block course over a Christmas period, and then they are in work training, basically. They are placed inside a classroom, and up to this point they have been incredibly well supported by the University of Auckland. There have been 20 inside the environment.

It is of incredible interest—Ms Delahunty and Ms Salesa referred to the interaction that took place at the Education and Science Committee when, after the first round of public consultation, suddenly a Supplementary Order Paper appeared, putting employment-based trainee teachers into this piece of legislation. There was a massive fight at the select committee. The relationship at the Education and Science Committee almost completely broke down because there was no intention from the Government to go to public consultation about this change. I then went and had a conversation with the Teach First NZ founder, actually, and I asked him why it had moved away from the arrangement that the Ministry of Education, Teach First NZ, and the Post Primary Teachers Association had come to. How Teach First NZ graduates were actually breaking the law was that it was schools that were breaking the law by the fact that they did not advertise the positions publicly for the jobs that they then placed those graduates in. He said to me: “It was news to us.”

It was news to us on the select committee. We found out only 3 days before that Supplementary Order Paper was placed on the table of the select committee. So I am going to suggest that the reason why, originally, this Government did not want any public consultation around that Supplementary Order Paper was that it did not want it to be made public through the submission process by the teachers’ unions, which have every right, like every other citizen in New Zealand, to participate and place their voice inside this legislation, if only the Government would every now and then actually listen to them—listen to the professionals, listen to the people who have trained and taken years of their lives to dedicate themselves to the education of children.

This Government continues to suggest that when the educational professionals do not agree with them, it is because they are self-serving. This is the sector that stayed in the classroom when this Government did not pay teachers because it stuffed up Novopay. These are the people who stayed on the job, making sure that children could still come to school and would still be educated, even though they were not paid because this Government stuffed it up. But, no, no, when they do not agree and when they stand up to speak against things that they know are going to disadvantage children, this Government suggests they are self-serving. So I would suggest that that was the reason why the select committee originally—the majority—did not want to reopen the submission period. It was very clear that a directive had been given, and it is only because of the hard work and the tenacity of the Opposition that that situation changed.

Let us be clear also that the reason given by Teach First NZ as to why these graduates do not just go on to do the 1-year teacher training that they could do to actually be a fully qualified and registered secondary school teacher is because of the student loan scheme. It is because, the gentleman said, it cost too much money and they needed to go and get a job. I would suggest to Teach First NZ, and anybody else out there, that they should vote New Zealand First at the next election so that our Up Front Investment Tertiary Policy can come into play, so that we would not need to then put apprentices inside our classrooms to teach our children. They would actually have fully funded teaching places so that we could put 100 percent qualified and registered teachers into our classrooms for children. That is a solution to a skill shortage. A little bit of workforce planning would not go amiss either—a little bit of workforce planning. That is a solution to our skill shortage; not putting an apprentice in front of our children. Now, under this bill, because the Government refused to support Supplementary Order Paper 214, these apprentices can be in front of 5-year-olds all the way through to 18-year-olds.

💬 Stuart Smith: They’re getting better results, Tracey.

Mr Smith, do not argue with me. You know you will not win.

In closing, there are so many things wrong with this piece of legislation—that is only two. Unfortunately, I do not have enough time to impart the rest of my wisdom upon Parliament. Mr Smith, I can see you later if you would like a one-on-one lesson about what actually happens in education. New Zealand First will oppose this bill.

It is a pleasure to rise and take a very short call—unfortunately, a short call. I would relish longer, but the dutiful whip would give me the evil eye, so I am taking this short call.

I think that I should start, too, with accolades to our Minister of Education, Hekia Parata. She has been incredibly inspiring, she is passionate about education, and her leadership has been second to none. Her leadership is all about the evolution of education. It is an acknowledgment that education is advancing, that teaching methods are advancing, that teachers are innovative, and that through collaboration they can come up with better and better methods to teach our children and help them succeed.

This bill is no different, and the Government, of course, is behind it. Education has featured so strongly in all of our policies, to raise achievement. If you look at some of our statistics, 97 percent of children are engaged in early child education, 83.3 percent of 18-year-olds are achieving NCEA level 2 across New Zealand—up about 38,000 kids since 2008—and tertiary qualifications are spiking, with people moving on to get those higher skills to help them achieve what they want to achieve in life. This bill, the Education Legislation Bill, is no different. It is about advancing education and it is about giving schools the flexibility to teach in a modern world.

I want to pay tribute to the Lower Mataura Valley community of learning, and that is a collaboration of schools that are working together to cultivate a community of 21st century, confident, connected, and engaged learners.

I want to pick up on what Ms Delahunty raised in respect of choice—and this is important. I acknowledge that people in different communities have different challenges, but this is what this bill does. People in Porirua may have a unique set of challenges that they have to deal with, but so do these people in the Lower Mataura Valley. They are mainly farmers and they work various different hours, and so it may well be that, in respect of their children’s learning, they want to collaborate and bring about different hours to facilitate that. That should be their choice. If they want to collaborate and think independently—by God! My goodness, independent thinking—should we be cultivating that? Well, I say yes. If those communities want to get together and create a different system that works for them and their families, so be it. Therefore, because of that, I support this bill.

A 5-minute call on behalf of the Green Party—Gareth Hughes.

Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou, kia ora. It is quite interesting, really, listening to Catherine Delahunty and Tracey Martin’s contributions—the National members are slowly sinking in their seats, and not really providing a response at all. We got these limp excuses: “The whip told me not to speak for very long.” I have got a message for those members who have had an education from the contributions in this debate—they have been educated by the two previous female speakers we have heard—and that is that they may not think that many people are watching the parliamentary broadcast or sitting in the Chamber tonight watching this Education Legislation Bill pass through.

Maybe they think that people are not focusing on the legislative process of the House, but do you know what? When a parent, next year—an election year—goes to their school and asks “Where is the principal?”, and the secretary says “Well, they are managing the other school across the road.”, then they are going to start to take notice and wonder what this Government is doing to our education system, which is so important to New Zealanders. When they turn up to a school and find that it is being run by some tertiary education institute—some polytech from out of town—then they are going to ask their local National MP, or write to the National education Minister, whoever that is: “What are you doing to education, which is so important to me as a New Zealander?”. So although, maybe, not many people are watching now, they should be paying attention, because this is bad legislation. It is bad legislation that the Green Party will be opposing.

I rise to speak with two hats on, and the first one is that of a father who has got two kids in the State education system, who thinks that their teachers and principals do a wonderful job. They have got enough on their plate now running one school—focusing on the kids in the one school—let alone trying to manage multiple schools. As a father, I support the idea of flexible hours for schools. As someone who cares about urban transport, cleaning up our cities, and reducing congestion, I like the idea that we can have flexibility. But we have flexibility when it comes to school hours at the moment. As a parent, I do not want to turn up, as a result of this legislation—and I do not think that any other parent in this country does—and find that the hours of the school day have been radically changed. That is when people are going to pay attention to education, which is so important to New Zealanders.

The second hat, of course, is that of the tertiary education spokesperson for the Green Party. I want to see our tertiary education providers focus on providing high-quality, affordable, accessible tertiary education, not focusing on running charter schools for profit. We have enough pressures in that sector already—because of the reducing quantum of funding from the Government, because of all the other requirements we have seen—to be worrying about running charter schools for profit. We should be shutting down the charter schools that have been running for profit, not trying to get other entities involved. I stand by the Labour Party and the Green Party minority view on this legislation, in its second reading, which shows that this is in fact an admission of failure by the Government on its controversial charter schools project.

Just lastly, as someone who was once a student, the idea that this Government is removing the 2 months’ consultation requirement for the changing of fees is, I think, egregious. I think it is just another example of how this Government treats consultations with sham affection. We have seen so many consultations on so many different areas being treated with disrespect by Government Ministers, such as Jonathan Coleman, that we should not be producing, in Government legislation, the idea that students, the people who are actually paying the fees, should be consulted.

Once again we see bad legislation passing through a bad process, as we have heard from previous speakers. I believe that New Zealanders, even though they may not be listening to this debate, will be caring about the state of their education system. They will be asking questions of all those National members: why the school hours are radically changing; why the principal is off managing another school; why there is a tertiary education provider running some of our schools for profit. These are the things New Zealanders care about. These are the questions that will be asked. We will be able to say, on the Green Party benches, that we were proud to oppose the bill. We were proud to stand up for high-quality education at the primary and tertiary levels.

Can I begin my contribution by acknowledging two people. First is the Labour Party spokesperson on education, Chris Hipkins, who has recently become a father. I have not had a chance to speak in the House since I found out that news, so congratulations to him and also to his partner, Jade, on the arrival of Charlie.

Also, can I acknowledge the current Minister of Education, who yesterday announced her retirement from politics. She also happens to be a list member based in my electorate of Mana. I just want to take a very short time to acknowledge her. I have had three elections against her.

💬 Grant Robertson: How many of them have you won?

I will not mention that. The record already shows that. The demeanour in which we have held our campaigns has been good, respectful, and, at many times, humorous. So I would just like to acknowledge Hekia as a political opponent locally.

Having said that, there have been many times when I have tried to whip up activity against her locally, against some of the changes that she has made in education. Certainly, the one that I think is of note is when she backtracked on class sizes. I would like to acknowledge the teachers in my electorate for getting out early one morning to attend a Porirua Chamber of Commerce meeting that was being held, and making their voices known—not just locally but on behalf of all teachers and schools around the country—to send the message that what the Government was doing at that time was wrong. There is also a push at the moment to say that the current moves by the Government, in a number of areas but also within this legislation, are wrong.

One of the benefits that you have in being a Wellington member is that every so often you can sneak away while the House is sitting—not sneak; I had leave—to be able to attend events. This morning I had the pleasure of accompanying the New Zealand Educational Institute’s (NZEI) “Better funding, better learning” bus outside Tītahi Bay Primary School. I think the Government should be very concerned about some of its moves on education, because a lot of the parents whom I spoke with outside Tītahi Bay Primary School, with the NZEI members from Tītahi Bay Primary School and also from Holy Family School in Porirua this morning, had an excellent response to the campaign that the NZEI is running to ask for better funding for schools and learning, and for the general support of the State education sector.

In the next half of my speech I want to talk about principals. One of my other colleagues mentioned the position of “super-principals”. I think this is where the Government does have a misunderstanding of principals as they operate now. I believe that at the moment, certainly, the principals in my electorate whom I have contact with are already “super-principals”. What we ask of them is immense. Not only do they have to operate as an educator and as a chief executive, to make sure that they can pay the bills, but also they are the chief social workers and mentors and motivators, not just for the staff but also for some of the parents who have issues with their children who are going to that school.

The principals are the ones who, when I am meeting them, are saying, out of the sides of their mouths, that they have to make sure they can tell me their concerns around the education sector, while also ushering in children to get apples from the apple box that is sitting in their office because the kids want some food. Giving principals the possibility that there will be an uber-principal under the current legislation I think shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how important a role a principal has in the community.

This brings me to the final point that I want to make, which was raised with me by a local principal. This is not an educational change as such, but a change to the State Sector Act within this piece of legislation. There is concern that if we do have this change, it will take away the ability for principals to be a mouthpiece for the community. There is the ability for the State Services Commissioner to say: “Well, here’s the contract, but we’re adding this on to it.” There is concern amongst principals who have a track record of standing up for the community, regardless of which stripe of Government is in office at that stage, and of being able to stand up against whatever changes the Government is proposing because it is not in the best interests of their schools, their families, and their communities that a change is being made—there is concern that this piece of legislation may muzzle that community voice that a principal has.

The principal is not just someone who sits behind a desk and orders teachers around. A principal is someone in the community who is seen as a leader in their community. I think this piece of legislation is very damaging to that position and to the principal’s standing in the community if they are not able to have that leadership role and speak out on important issues. I think that is a major danger of this legislation.

I also would like to begin my speech by acknowledging the contribution that the Hon Hekia Parata has made, to the education portfolio in particular. I think that was best demonstrated for me when I witnessed her speaking to hundreds of teachers in Blenheim, and the thoughtful, challenging speech she gave, covering a lot of the things that are within this bill. To see how warmly that was received by those teachers was, I think, something that many in the House should have been able to witness.

I turn to the bill. When hearing the contributions from those opposing the bill, there is a theme running through them. I think it really reminds me of a quote from a Charles Holland Duell, who in 1898 was appointed Commissioner of the US Patent Office. He was attributed a quote saying that everything that could be invented had been invented. I think what we are hearing in the opposition to this bill is that nothing new could be invented in education—there is no need to change anything, no need to give any flexibility—because it has all been invented. Well, that is absolute nonsense. The parties that are involved claim to be progressive parties—they are conservative and they cannot deal with change, and it is such a shame to see that.

Turning to the actual details in the bill—for example, Teach First NZ, which was referred to earlier by one of the previous speakers. One thing that she failed to touch on was that the evidence is that those Teach First NZ teachers have dramatically improved the performance of the classes they are teaching. It is absolutely irrefutable evidence. Now, I realise—wearing your tinfoil hat—it might be hard to deal with, but it is a fact. It is a fact—and I think that that flexibility is just another thing that will bring great innovation into schools. Having principals being able to be a principal of more than one school—again, providing flexibility. Having flexibility will drive innovation, innovation drives performance, and that is what parents will decide on. All of these decisions, particularly around principals being responsible for more than one school, will be made by the school community. They will not agree to it if they do not want it. So it is with great pleasure that I commend this wonderful piece of legislation to the House. Thank you.

We are in the dead of Thursday afternoon and it is a great pleasure to rise to my feet to oppose this “Trump Education Legislation Bill”. May I join with my colleagues, firstly, in wishing Chris Hipkins and his partner, Jade, the very, very heartiest congratulations on the birth of their lovely boy, Charlie. It is terrific to see the next generation of Labour leadership being in training already. Can I also acknowledge Hekia Parata, because for all of the albatrosses that she has had around her ministerial neck, she has always kept a smile on her dial, always kept a sense of poise with that portfolio, and she has done good service for the Government. We appreciate that it is a tough job and that she is doing her very best, so we wish her well when Mr Key makes a decision about how long she will warm that seat for.

Today is 20 October. Today is the date of the third US presidential debate. It was the historic moment when a candidate declared that they would not necessarily accept the result of the US election—something that has been incredibly harshly panned across the globe and across the US political spectrum. The reason I mention that is that the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, has made, according to The Economist magazine, a feature of something called post-truth politics; he does not give a damn whether there are any facts or evidence in his argument as long as he gets a sound bite, and he becomes more and more outrageous to shore up his base.

The reason I mention it is that exactly the same approach has been employed by the “Trump National Government” in respect of charter schools. Charter schools are a post-reality form of education. In the real world, in the reality-based school, we use things like the Education Review Office to see how we are going. We use the Official Information Act to allow the public to get information about how schools and the Ministry of Education are performing. We have teacher training standards so that the teachers we put in front of our children are qualified to teach them.

In the “Trump National Government’s” charter schools fantasy land, “Planet Key”, none of the above applies—none of it applies. You do not need to be a qualified teacher to get a job stumping up in a charter school. You are immune from the Official Information Act in a post-reality charter school, and no one is going to give a damn what your results are because you are not even subject to the Education Review Office. The reason that I feel just a tad passionate about this is I do not want to see creeping Trump-ism in New Zealand, and charter schools are the thin end of the wedge.

Why would we give to private investors Government taxpayer-funded capital so they can purchase assets and, when they go belly-up, not have to return them to the taxpayer? Why would we pay three to five times as much to educate a student—that is the taxpayer subsidising three to five times as much per student in a Trump-ist charter school—what a regular school gets in the same community? It is such nonsense, except it is not an accident, because certain private interests have lobbied the ever kind and generous National Government for a business break so that they can make profit out of educating children. In this post-reality “Trump” school of education, charter schools are the way to go, and it does not matter what the evidence says—it does not matter if the results are indiscernible from State schools teaching on one-third of the budget in the same community, the Government is so ideologically wedded to this that it will do it anyway. And, to make matters worse, it will mouth off about evidence-based policy.

This is the opposite. This is post-reality politics, ideological claptrap, self-interested rorting, and destruction of the public education system—just like those National Government members who are so out of touch that they want to ruin State housing and turn it over to so-called social housing providers so they can make a buck, even if they are run from offshore. And the average Kiwi has had an absolute gutsful.

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Yeah, the polls show that!

That is why the polls do show, Minister Coleman, that John Key’s popularity is lower today than at any point since he became Prime Minister. Two of the last three polls show National at its lowest level of support since it first took office. Two of three polls show National barely above 40 percent. I am looking forward to the first 39 percent poll. I am looking forward to the smile on Simon Bridges’ face when the first 39 percent poll comes in, because he will be one step closer to his succession plan. But will Jonathan Coleman be smiling as well, sitting next to him? God, imagine the jostling that goes on in that front bench when the writing is just a little bit more discernibly on the wall. Imagine that voice that you hear coming through the ether, that sort of “Heh, heh, heh” that is Judith Collins plotting her takeover and then euthanasia of the entire National front bench, as she amasses all portfolios unto herself.

It is the same level of logic as this bill, because it has the same relationship to the truth. It has a Trump-like elastic relationship with the truth. If members opposite think that this is funny, it was just yesterday that we heard that the Telford institute was being fined $1.5 million because it rorted the tertiary education system. The disease that started with National’s “Trump” charter schools and infected the private training establishment sector has now gone all the way to the university sector. Lincoln University, a once-proud institution, is having to pay $1.5 million back for embezzling the Government—embezzling the Government—of $1.5 million by overstating the duration of courses delivered through its Telford division.

This bill gives those same institutions the ability to invest in charter schools. Why would we want universities investing in charter schools? Why would we ask universities to obey a certain set of transparency and prudential measures when they are doing their core business, but then exempt them from the same criteria when they are investing in “Trump” charter schools? Why would we do that? I challenge the Minister, I challenge any member opposite, to take to their feet and explain to the New Zealand public what possible logical explanation there can be for asking universities to dodge the normal requirements so that they can invest in these ideological-claptrap charter schools.

Speaking of post-reality politics, in the real world parents have to drop their kids at school and then go and work an 8- or 9- or 10-hour day, and then, if they are lucky, find some way to get somebody to pick their kids up. In the post-truth “Planet Key” world we have got a bill that says: “Hey, we can change school hours as much as we like. Parents will just have to fit in.” In the real world, being a principal of a school—as my colleague has said—is a full-time job. In this “Trump” post-reality bill—what the heck? It is a part-time job! A principal could run three schools at once—except, I hope, not in my electorate of New Lynn. Not in Kelston, not in Green Bay, not in Lynnfield, not in Avondale—no, no, no, no. We think it is a full-time job and we are quite happy with our principals, who are very important leaders in our communities, sticking to their day job.

Summing up, this bill is the thin edge of a deep divide in New Zealand politics between those who think that the public education system is worth protecting and that it should be accountable and should be transparent, and those who are prepared to mortgage our children’s future and take a punt to do favours for private investors. I say shame on them, because it took decades to build up a world-class public education system, and we do not need post-truth Trump-lite ideologues on the Government benches wrecking it to set up some get-rich-quick scheme for their mates.

This is an excellent bill, contrary to what that member over there, David Cunliffe, says. I do not know why he has got a Trump fetish, but he has. I am proud to commend the bill to the House. Thank you.